Game 19 Hub: Golden Knights @ Senators

Dreaded November has reared its ugly head of late.

The Senators have fallen to 8-9-1 after losing three in a row, and many fans are panicking about the state of the team. While they have had some very encouraging signs overall, they have failed to bank enough points early on, and they're desperately trying to stay close to a playoff spot. Tonight's game doesn't get any easier, as the Vegas Golden Knights visit Ottawa for the second and final matchup between these two teams this season.

The first visit was potentially the most frustrating loss of the season so far as they were winning 4-3 with a few minutes left and managed to lose 6-4 in regulation somehow. Ottawa needs a win to turn things around, and it'd feel extra special against a top team after losing in uninspiring fashion to the Carolina Hurricanes and Edmonton Oilers. 9-9-1 feels infinitely better than 8-10-1 and they need to begin pulling away from the .500 mark in the positive direction.

The lines yesterday looked like this, although there are a few changes as of this morning. It looks like Brady Tkachuk will simply swap with Noah Gregor, and Jacob Bernard-Docker will swap with Travis Hamonic instead of what occurred at practice:

It's unclear what the Golden Knights lines will look like right now, but these were their lines last night. I would assume Ilya Samsonov starts instead of Adin Hill:

Game Notes:

• Vegas lost 3-0 on Wednesday against the Maple Leafs in Toronto, so you know what that means! They're due for an offensive explosion in Ottawa.
• The Golden Knights sit first in the Pacific Division with an 11-6-2 record, which is more impressive than in the past considering they lost Jonathan Marchessault and Chandler Stephenson and didn't really bring anyone in, but they've proven that the "next man up" mentality is real. They were 11-4-2 on Sunday but have since lost two games in a row to Washington and Toronto.
• Jack Eichel has started the season extremely hot with 28 points in 19 games, which is tied for 5th in the NHL. Eichel is an Ottawa killer with 33 points in 22 career games against the Senators.
• Mark Stone has missed the past six games with a lower-body injury, so the former Senator won't be there to haunt them.
• Jacob Bernard-Docker finally gets into the lineup with Travis Hamonic being a healthy scratch for the first time this season. Steve Staios said that he likes the competition for that 6th spot, although there wasn't much of a competition with Hamonic playing every single game until today. It'll be interesting to see how they manage that duo moving forward.
• Linus Ullmark is getting trusted with the start tonight and he needs to prove he can get back on track. He's allowed 10 goals over his past 50 shots, which is...unfathomably bad.
• Ridly Greig has just 4 goals in 15 games, and I'd be fine with him moving down in the lineup tonight or next game if he can't begin to create more offense. We'll see how tonight goes overall, but if they lose again I'm all in favour of putting the lines in a blender.
• One of the keys to Ottawa's potential turn-around has to be Jake Sanderson getting his game back on track. Part of his struggles were due to playing with Hamonic, but he's back with Artem Zub now and the results still haven't been there. Perhaps that's Zub regressing as well, but Sanderson needs to take some accountability as well for consistently getting outshot with him on the ice every game.
• Ottawa comes into this game with a 30th-ranked 5v5 PDO (SH% + SV%) of just .966 (with 1.000 being average). Their overall PDO is barely better at .979, which is 27th in the league. They haven't been able to score timely goals or get timely saves despite being 4th in the NHL in expected goal percentage at 5v5. You'd have to think that regresses to the mean at some point.
• The game can be seen on TSN5, with puck drop at 7:00 eastern.