Game 45 Preview: Ottawa Senators @ Minnesota Wild

A fair bit has changed from yesterday night. First, the Sens are more banged up than we initially expected. Mark Stone skated briefly at practice, but is still bothered by his knee injury sustained in Toronto and thus, won’t be in tonight. Jean-Gabriel Pageau and Nate Thompson are likely out all week, so Colin White and Filip Chlapik will line up as the team’s third and fourth line centres. Finally, Johnny Oduya is injured and likely out week-to-week than the initial prognosis of day-to-day.

Due to all of these shenanigans, the team called up Chris DiDomenico and Erik Burgdoefer (!) up from Belleville. The former will slot in at right-wing, while the latter will be a healthy scratch:

Dzingel - Brassard - DiDomenico

Hoffman - Duchene - Ryan

Smith - White - Pyatt

Burrows - Chlapik - Dumont

Chabot - Karlsson

Phaneuf - Ceci

Borowiecki - Claesson

Condon (starter)

Anderson

Some notes for tonight:

• The Wild enter tonight’s game with the league’s second-worst CF% of 46.14%. So much for Bruce Boudreau...
• Other than the injured Nino Niederreiter, only Mikael Granlund and Jason Zucker are putting up positive on-ice shot metrics
• The Wild are within 5 points of 9 (!!!!!) different Western Conference teams. Chicago, a perennial contender, is currently last in the Central — they have 11 more points than the Senators
• Erik Burgdoefer is not in the lineup tonight, but is one of the few alumni of RPI (NCAA), where current prospect Todd Burgess plays
• Chris DiDomenico is somehow good enough to play top-six minutes with Stone absent, but bad enough to be back in Belleville over Gabriel Dumont. #rolezzz
• This is Mike Condon’s first start in 2018. The organization thought they’d be getting a 1A and 1B situation when they signed Anderson and Condon to extensions in the offseason, but instead, have been rewarded with a team save percentage under .900/

Team Stats

Player Stats