Gone is the weather forecast of 15 degrees and sunny — it could be as cold as -15 on Thursday night — but back is Brady Tkachuk, 51 long days since Senators fans last saw their captain at Canadian Tire Centre.
Jake Sanderson says the 19 days since the Sens have played at home have felt like “forever,” thanks to the season-long seven-game road trip.
The team returns to the nation’s capital having played only 11 home games this season — tied for the least for any Eastern Conference team — but thanks to a 4-3-0 road trip, they enter Thursday’s game against New York playing some of their best hockey of the season and in playoff position.
“It’s great, especially in these months, it’s cold outside, it’s the middle of winter, so to have a great road trip and come home energized, excited to play, excited to come to the rink, it’s huge,” said Sanderson.
“It was definitely a lot of time together, which was awesome, a lot of great things happened on this road trip, a lot of good [memories],” said Tkachuk after the team skated on Thursday morning.
“I mean, anytime you have a seven, six-game trip, you want to have a good trip. And we played against some really good teams, and to be over .500 on that type of trip, it’s something that screams about what we did well, and now just looking forward to tonight.”
The Sens have counted on some major contributions from the back end during the trip, including from Sanderson, who scored three times — including once on Tuesday night in Montreal — and added five assists in the seven games.
“Yeah, it’s huge, I think that game was awesome for us, just the way we played, the way we finished off the great road trip,” said Sanderson about that 5-2 win. “I know everybody’s very happy to be back and excited to play in front of our fans.”
Sanderson will be playing with a new defensive partner against the Rangers, as Artem Zub draws out of the lineup with a lower-body injury. Travis Green mixed and matched his pairings in morning skate, with Jordan Spence seeing the most time on Sanderson’s right.
“Yeah, he’s such a good player, so smart, just reads the play well, he supports great and he’s actually got a sneaky good shot, and yeah, I’m excited to play with him tonight,” said Sanderson.
Over the road trip, the absence of Thomas Chabot has led to players like Spence, Tyler Kleven, and Nikolas Matinpalo stepping into much larger roles on the blueline. Sanderson said on Tuesday night he felt the game was one of the best games of the season for the defence. “I thought our breakouts were much better last game,” said Green of that sentiment.
“We’re going to face a heavy forechecking team tonight, so we’re going to have to be strong on the puck. The D usually play well because the forwards are helping them and the forwards play well because the D are playing well. It was one of our better 5-on-5 games and we’re going to need it tonight against a good team.”