The Ottawa Senators are in one of the toughest divisions in the National Hockey League.<\/p>\n
An ugly 5-0 loss to the Montreal Canadiens in the pre-season at the Centre Videotron on Tuesday night in Quebec City has the Senators facing questions about whether they\u2019ve got enough muscle.<\/p>\n
Is this an area that Steve Staios, the club\u2019s president of hockey operations and general manager, needs to address before the Opening Night roster has to be submitted to the NHL by 5 p.m. on Monday?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s fair to say the two-time Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers, along with the Toronto Maple Leafs, Tampa Bay Lightning and the Habs, can all be hard to play against, which is why the Atlantic Division is difficult.<\/p>\n
While the Senators haven\u2019t dressed a full lineup in the five exhibition games they\u2019ve played this fall, the game against the Habs featured a combined 150 penalty minutes by both teams.<\/p>\n
The Senators didn\u2019t have captain Brady Tkachuk, who made a quick visit to his hometown of St. Louis on Thursday night to face the Blues, for the game against Montreal.<\/p>\n
You have to think that if Tkachuk had played, Montreal tough guy Arber Xheka, and his brother, Florian \u2014 who is cut from the same cloth \u2014 wouldn\u2019t have been able to run around the way they did.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was eventful. That\u2019s for sure,\u201d Tkachuk said when asked about the loss to the Habs before heading to St. Louis. \u201cThings like that happen in exhibition games when guys do whatever it takes to make their impact on the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not the first one, it won\u2019t be the last one, so I will leave it as very eventful.\u201d<\/p>\n
The way the loss unfolded has put the Senators roster construction under the microscope. The club has the skills to pay the bills, but when the going gets tough, can the Senators get going?<\/p>\n
The Senators did their part to stand up to the Xhekaj brothers and it didn\u2019t help that the officials let the game get out of control, but coach Travis Green noted that this stuff is going to happen in the pre-season.<\/p>\n
Forwards Zack MacEwen, Jan Jenik and Cody Hodgson, along with defenceman Donovan Sebrango, all dropped the gloves to try to make sure the Senators weren\u2019t run over.<\/p>\n
Hodgson was fined by the NHL\u2019s department of player safety for boarding Alex Newhook while Nick Cousins also had to dig into his pockets for a slash on winger Ivan Demidov.<\/p>\n
The trouble started when Montreal\u2019s Jayden Struble cross-checked Jenik in the face in the first.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou look at the game the other night and, I know people are talking about, but it was a physical, hard game,\u201d Green said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got some guys who are on the bubble and they\u2019re trying to make the team. They\u2019re physical players.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t like the hit Hodgson made and it shouldn\u2019t have been made, but I didn\u2019t like the cross-check to the face. I didn\u2019t like the guy coming off the bench to fight. But it\u2019s an exhibition, things get out of hand sometimes in the heat of the moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t a game where we went in hoping to have a bunch of fights. They\u2019ve got a few tough guys on their team, too. But when guys are trying to make the team, they\u2019re emotional players, sometimes things cross the line a little bit. And that happens, it\u2019s part of hockey and it\u2019s not something you want to see all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Related<\/p>\n
The Senators were pleased with the way they stood up for each other in the game against the Habs. Often, the club relies on Tkachuk to lead the way in that department.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t really want Brady fighting all the time and being the guy who has to step in,\u201d centre Tim Stutzle said.. \u201cWe have a pretty tough team, a lot of guys stepped up and had each other\u2019s back. I don\u2019t want to get into what happened the other night.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery team builds their team the way they want to build their team and I think we\u2019re built the right way. We have a lot of tough guys. My first year, we might have had seven guys and it was great.\u201d<\/p>\n
MacEwen is on a one-way contract at $750,000 US this season and isn\u2019t afraid to drop the gloves or step up for a teammate. But Green said that tough players also have to be able to contribute.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe game is physical, it\u2019s hard and there is fighting allowed,\u201d Green said. \u201cIt\u2019s not illegal, you\u2019re not going to get suspended for fighting, and that\u2019s part of our game.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it is dwindling and the game has never been better. The speed of the game, the skill of the players, is amazing to watch, but when you watch the Stanley Cup final, time and space are taken away very quickly.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you don\u2019t play courageously, don\u2019t go to hard areas, you\u2019re not going to win.\u201d<\/p>\n