Game 17 Hub: Ottawa Senators @ Carolina Hurricanes

The Ottawa Senators are coming off a hard-fought 4-1 win at home against the Carolina Hurricanes. Tonight, they’re in Raleigh looking to take another bite out of the Bunch of Jerks and sweep the home-and-home series. Moreover, they’re looking for their third straight victory, a feat which they haven’t completed since December 1st, 2018. Your Ottawa Senators will be lining up exactly as they did on Saturday, which means we’ll see these lines tonight:

Game Notes:

• D.J. Smith is making the kids work for their ice time. The fourth line of Filip Chlapik, J.C. Beaudin and Jonathan Davidsson have been given small minutes in the two games they’ve played together and the line has looked good overall; they combined for the Sens’ opening goal on Saturday. I would expect to see their time increase at least slightly, I’m hoping for at least eight minutes each.
• Anders Nilsson is playing out of his mind as of late. He’s won his last three starts, posting a ridiculous SV% of .950 in that span. This isn’t sustainable but if he can put up decent numbers throughout the season then soon enough there will be nobody doubting his status as a starting goalie in the NHL.
• Speaking of unsustainable, Jean-Gabriel Pageau and Vladislav Namestnikov are shooting at 20% and 18.2% respectively. I would expect these numbers to regress down the road and hopefully Pierre Dorion won’t have too much trouble negotiating team-friendly deals for the two of them if the team decides not to move them at the deadline.
• Despite the aforementioned players over performing as of late, they may be offset by other numbers, such as the Sens’ absurdly low PP% and Connor Brown shooting 6.5%. Some luck and experimentation may see both of those numbers improve going forward. Overall, this team deserves to be where it is right now, especially considering the quality of the roster.
• Tonight’s game is scheduled to begin at 7:00 PM EST, and can be viewed on ESPN+, RDS and TSN5, or listened to live on TSN 1200.
• UPDATE: Bobby Ryan is in the lineup in place of Jonathan Davidsson, who is out with a lower-body injury./

Player Stats

Team Stats