Game #6 Hub: Ottawa Senators @ Utah Hockey Club

Win, lose, win, lose, win. Can the Senators make it two straight wins for the first time this season? They begin a three-game Western Conference road trip in Utah that won't be easy, especially considering how putrid they were last year in the West. This is the first time the Senators will play an NHL game in Utah, and hopefully, they'll be ready for the raucous crowd that greets them.

Utah is off to a great 4-1-1 start, and they have enough interesting players on their roster to have a successful season. They've gone to overtime four times and won three times, so tonight could be another close contest as well. This isn't the Arizona Coyotes of yesteryear, they actually have potential and are showing that ceiling in the early going with great performances from Clayton Keller, Dylan Guenther, Nick Schmaltz, and Logan Cooley. The Senators need to show they can beat tough teams on the road though, otherwise, it'll feel an awful lot like years past.

Here are the projected lines from Ottawa's Monday skate, although Ridly Greig isn't guaranteed to play:

And here were the Utah lines on Monday as well:

Game Notes:

• In what is a very scary situation, David Perron hasn't travelled with the team on their road trip due to a family matter. His wife Vanessa shared that there are complications with their unborn child, Elizabeth, and that they are not out of the woods yet with an early pregnancy and many procedures to come. We of course send all the love and support to their family, and I hope David takes the time that he needs, I can't imagine how hard it must be to play while having that weighing on him.
• Linus Ullmark is close to returning, but won’t dress tonight. Anton Forsberg is once again the starter.
• Utah is without Sean Durzi and John Marino who are both injured for multiple months, so they are quite shorthanded on defense.
• Connor Ingram was great for Arizona last year, although he's off to a slow start with an .882 SV% in 5 games. With how well Ottawa's offense (and powerplay) has been doing, it might be a high-scoring game.
• I liked having Michael Amadio on the first line on Saturday and tonight as well. He can help Brady Tkachuk and Tim Stützle defensively, while the second line has tremendous offensive potential, which they showed last game. The third line can provide different looks, so I like these combinations until Perron comes back.
• I'd like to see Thomas Chabot and Nick Jensen have a more effective game tonight, as the two of them have a 43.26 xGF% and a -4 rating in 62:29 of TOI together so far. If that continues, Travis Green needs to try a different combination.
• This game has a strange start time at 9:15 Eastern, as the NHL has all 32 teams playing tonight with staggered times. You can watch the game on Sportsnet.