Ottawa Senators are trying to salvage their season
Do you remember when the Ottawa Senators were in the playoff race for a while?
Eyes On Isles
Not unlike the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Senators are a team that has fallen from grace this season.
Dropping first out of the playoff race altogether, then down to twenty-fourth in the standings, the Senators have gone 3-5-2 in their last ten games. The Coyotes aren’t much better — they’ve gone 2-6-2 in the same stretch — but Arizona seems to be playing with a revitalized effort to save their season and, for many of them, their spots on the team.
As the season has progressed, it’s become apparent who on the Coyotes fits best with whom — and while someone might be gone by the end of the week, they’ve still got some exciting hockey left in them this season.
After all — if they get better, then the season wasn’t a wash, and if they get worse? The Prize is worth it.
With only a few games to go in the Longest Road Trip Since Forever, the Coyotes should look to go out with a bang.
Details for Saturday night’s game:
DATE: Saturday, January 31st
TIME: 3:00 P.M. EST
LOCATION: Ottawa, Ontario
ARENA: Canadian Tire Centre
TV INFO: RDS2, TSN5
Projected Line Combinations:
Forwards:
Tobias Rieder – Antoine Vermette – Shane Doan
Martin Erat – Martin Hanzal – Sam Gagner
Lauri Korpikoski – Kyle Chipchura – David Moss
Lucas Lessio – Brendan Shinnimin – B.J. Crombeen/Brandon McMillan
Joe Vitale likely still out
Defense:
Oliver Ekman-Larsson – Zbynek Michalek
Keith Yandle – Michael Stone
Andrew Campbell – Connor Murphy
Healthy Scratch: Chris Summers
Goal: Mike Smith
Around the League Today:
1. Rumors are popping up that Oliver Ekman-Larsson is ‘up for grabs’, but he’s simply a young player without a trade clause. Hopefully the team has talked things out with him, because a distracted OEL is a bad thing. After all, how many shorthanded goals can a team score in a season — by defensemen on the team?
2. The Los Angeles Kings are getting prepped to meet up with the President of the United States, Barack Obama, on Monday. I have yet to see a president look excited about meeting a professional hockey team, but I still get the impression that Obama would have pronounced Yzerman’s name right — so I like him a bit more than the president who wasn’t able to pull that off. Hats off, Obama.
3. The Ottawa Senators helped take part in Bell Media’s Let’s Talk day this week, raising money for mental health awareness. The team may be struggling on the ice this year, but their philanthropy work has made them a team that we should all applaud no matter how seriously they beat our own teams. Hats off to the Ottawa Senators as well.
Coyotes Concerns:
The team is still playing without Mikkel Boedker, although they managed to record a season-high forty-five shots against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Thursday regardless.
Puck Prose
Although the team may have been beaten pretty badly by the Senators the last time they played, though, it seems as if the light at the end of the tunnel — in regards both to the team’s return to Glendale post-Super Bowl and the season’s end — has revitalized the franchise a bit.
Their last loss, which came in the shootout to the Philadelphia Flyers, certainly wasn’t a bad game — although the team didn’t come away with a win, they still earned an extra point for the OT/SO.
Then, of course, there was the game they played against the Toronto Maple Leafs — in addition to Oliver Ekman-Larsson‘s almost comical shorthanded goal, the team managed to outshoot the leafs 21-7 in one period alone and showed that they want to win and come back to the desert with a smile on their faces.
Tobias Rieder is still playing a great season, but both Lucas Lessio and Brendan Shinnimin have been quietly amazing for the team. Their defensive play made all the difference in the world in the last game; expect to see them both next season.
Pre-game Doggy Treat:
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