Game #12 Hub: Ottawa Senators @ Buffalo Sabres

After shutting down the Seattle Kraken 3-0, the Ottawa Senators have a 6-5-0 record having played through a difficult October schedule, including games against each of the last four Stanley Cup champions.

That said, what we’ve all been looking for is a better pace in November, especially since the quality of competition will be significantly lower. At a minimum, you'd want 2 wins over the next three games against the New York Islanders, Boston Bruins, and tonight's opponents – the Buffalo Sabres, who fell to 4-7-1 on Saturday with a 2-1 loss to the Detroit Red Wings, which we should all be thankful didn't go to extra time.

Artem Zub is practicing and traveling with the team but he won’t be playing tonight. Here’s how the Sens will line ‘em up:

Game Notes:

• Even with a 1-4-0 road record, there are still positives from each of those losses, save for that embarrassing effort against the Habs. They outplayed Vegas for the most part, dominated the Rangers, and showed resilience against Colorado.
• Nick Cousins' stock hit a new low against the Golden Knights, but since then he's been a huge part of the team's improved play, with 4 points in the last 4 games, playing alongside the white-hot Adam Gaudette and a Zack MacEwen who's three times more productive than he was last season. The challenge will be sustaining that quality of play, especially since the Sens are running two fourth lines without Shane Pinto and David Perron.
• Buffalo's top players – including Rasmus Dahlin, Tage Thompson, and Alex Tuch – are capable of lighting up any team, but the overall scoring is down, largely due to a lack of production from some of the recent high draft picks. Dylan Cozens, Jack Quinn, and Zach Benson have accumulated just 6 points across a combined 29 games. They've also caught the same goalie bug Ottawa had last season, with both Devon Levi and Ukko-Pekka Lukkonen posting a sub-.895 save percentage.
• Tonight's 7:00 pm EST game is available on TSN5, RDS2, and TSN 1200.

Stats:

• from NHL.com and NaturalStatTrick.com:

* Tage Thompson, Alex Tuch, Jason Zucker, Owen Power, Rasmus Dahlin