Happy Black Friday, everyone. Can I interest you in a great deal on a recently recovered winger for today’s game? Only one available!

Yes?

Excellent.

The return of the Tkaptain is obviously the big storyline for the Sens in today’s game. He’s made sure to still be around the team so his leadership hasn’t been entirely absent, but getting his energy and presence back on the ice will be a big boost – especially around the net. On the flip side, Ridly Greig and Thomas Chabot are still day to day and question marks for this afternoon. Given the start time, we probably won’t get confirmation on them until closer to the pre-game skate. Stephen Halliday has been returned to Belleville.

They visit a Blues team that has been struggling this season. Struggling to score, struggling to not get scored on, struggling to get a lead, struggling to hold on to a lead when they do get one. One of the few things they don’t struggle at is staying out of the box with a league-low 58 times shorthanded… which is probably good because their penalty kill is (you guessed it) struggling.

Game NotesThe Senators come out of US Thanksgiving as the only Canadian team sitting in a playoff spot – the annual check in where typically 75% of teams in a playoff spot remain there. Three of the other Canadian teams (Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary) fell under the dreaded “four points out” line that teams rarely recover fromBrady! Brady! Brady!The Blues are also four-plus points out of the playoffs in the West. A good chunk of that is from their dismal start to the season (3-6-2 in October), but they’ve still only been a 0.500 team in November as well. Ottawa is firmly in “favourite” territory for today’s gameAre we approaching the return of December Ullmark? The .915 in his last five games isn’t quite to the level of his streak last December, but it’s also not quite December yetThe Blues basically don’t have anybody producing at a top line level. They’re scoring by committee, but the committee is middle six. Every other team in the league has at least two players with more goals than the Blues top scorers (a five-way tie?), and mostly three or four. Most teams also have four or five players with more points than the 14 Robert Thomas has to lead the BluesNote the 4pm Eastern start time! TV Broadcasts are on TSN5 and RDS InfoStats

Game 24SenatorsBlues
Category#Rank#Rank
Goals/GP3.1311th2.6328th
Goals against/GP3.2223rd3.5828th
Shots/GP26.423rd25.427th
Shots against/GP25.33rd27.716th
Powerplay %23.011th22.614th
Penalty Kill %69.732nd74.128th
Corsi % (5v5 SVA)51.909th47.7422nd
xGF% (5v5 SVA)52.3610th49.4717th

SenatorsBlues
CategoryPlayer#Player#
GoalsStützle, Pinto11Faulk, Kyrou, Suter, Holloway, Neighbours6
AssistsSanderson14Fowler, Thomas10
PointsStützle23Thomas14
ShotsStützle59Kyrou61
TOI/GPSanderson24:33Broberg23:21