The bad news is that the Ottawa Senators suddenly have the second-fewest points in the eastern conference standings. The worse news is that they still don’t have two of their best players back from injury. The even worse news is that there is no one major indicator suggesting that this team will turn it around overnight. To be fair, the Sens do some things well. And they have most of the same components that made them mostly successful last season. A five-game winning streak could vault them to the top of the standings in the east but also that would require scoring and preventing goals, and the Sens have struggled with both of those things lately when it matters most. I would consider this season far from over and I think players like Brady Tkachuk and Jake Sanderson alone can get this team back on track but hurry the christ up, gang.
In a very tightly-packed eastern conference, the Columbus Blue Jackets find themselves in a similar position to the Senators. Columbus has some great core players (and some bums) and they can very well see their way back into the playoff mix from their current place in the standings, but like Ottawa I don’t see any specific indicator that makes me think their position will change imminently. Columbus lost in Carolina on Tuesday (the Sens knows a lot about losing in Carolina, by the way). Remember when the Sens beat the Jackets in two out of three games down the stretch last season and Columbus missed the playoffs by the same margin? I choose to believe that the universe will not balance that cosmic account tonight.
Game Notes:
The Blue Jackets have exactly one regulation win in their last ten games, and I choose to disregard everything I know about the law of averages. Monte Carlo fallacy, I beseech thee.If you look at the Blue Jackets’ roster and think to yourself, “hey, they don’t seem half bad,” then the stats kinda back that up to the effect that Columbus’ five-on-five offence (2.83 xGF/60) ranks top-ten in the league. The Senators (2.58) do not.Despite all the fretting about Ottawa’s place in the standings (and I don’t know how to conceivably overlook Ottawa’s lack of goaltending and goal-scoring considering teams need those things specifically to win) the Senators still somehow rank first in the league in five-on-five defence (2.19 xGA/60) with tonight opponent (2.89) closer to the league basement.Columbus has a noteworthy advantage on the powerplay (9.3 xGF/60) because as we all know Ottawa’s powerplay (7.26) has become a real concern for stretches of this season. I have no idea how you fix that without Chabot or Pinto, for the record.The Senators (6.96 xGA/60) have a much better penalty kill in theory than the Blue Jackets (10.72) but Columbus also has a five percent advantage when it comes to shorthanded goaltending so that washes out.Jet Greaves has had a much better season so far than Elvis Merzilikins so that can only mean the former will start tonight, right? Editor’s note: I was wrong!All stats courtesy naturalstattrick
Senators Injuries: Thomas Chabot, Shane Pinto
Blue Jackets Injuries: Erik Gudbranson, Boone Jenner, Luca Marrelli, Mathieu Olivier
Where to watch/listen: RDS2, TSN5, TSN1200 @7PM EST
Lines from last game:
Ottawa
Tkachuk – Cozens – Batherson
Cousins – Stützle – Zetterlund
Amadio – Greig – Giroux
Perron – Halliday – Eller
Sanderson – Zub
Matinpalo – Jensen
Kleven – Spence
Columbus
Voronkov – Fantilli – Marchenko
Johnson – Monohan – Sillinger
Lundestrom – Coyle – Wood
Gaunce – Del Bel Belluz – Chinakhov
Provorov – Werenski
Mateychuk – Severson
Smith – Fabbro