Game 8 Preview and Open Thread: Ottawa Senators @ Colorado Avalanche

On the one hand, the NHL season is an absolute grind and attaching too much meaning to any individual game, especially one so early in the season, is probably just a way to get yourself worked up over nothing. On the other hand, Friday night's defeat at the hands of the Vegas Golden Knights was positively excruciating. The Ottawa Senators played an honest-to-goodness solid game for 55 minutes against one of the league's top teams, and got nothing from it because of one extremely stupid penalty, and then one defensive breakdown less than 90 seconds later. That's the NHL folks, it is always very hard to win, and it's especially very hard to win on the road against an elite opponent.

After the game, Linus Ullmark put a lot of the blame on himself and...he wasn't totally wrong? Ullmark is a very good goalie who I have no doubt will be very good in Ottawa, but it would have been nice to get a couple more saves on Friday. A goalie calling a spade a spade when it comes to his poor performance is a refreshing change of pace, but what really matters is whether he shows up in the next game. The good news for Linus and Sens fans is that tonight's match-up with the high-flying Colorado Avalanche will likely bring plenty of opportunity for the goaltender to redeem himself.

Here's how the Sens are expected to line 'em up:

Game Notes:

-I'm not really someone who believes in punitively benching players for "mistakes" but if there was ever a time for a player to skip a shift, you'd think it would have been after Nick Cousins took one of the dumber penalties I've seen in a long time with the Sens clinging to a one goal lead in the last five minutes of the third period in Friday's game. If your "reliable" vets can't be relied upon to keep their cool in tense moments, then what's the point of them?

-After getting run over by the Florida Panthers, Tyler Kleven's had a nice few games the last couple of weeks and his season-long numbers are trending towards where they need to be. He made several smart plays against Vegas, and just generally went about his business in an efficient manner. He's getting about the cushiest deployment possible in terms of shift starts and competition, but, importantly, he's been mostly holding his own. I'm not ready to say that the third pair conundrum is solved just yet, but there have been some encouraging signs. (Giant) Baby steps.

-If you've been following the NHL closely at all for the last few years, you are surely familiar with Nathan McKinnon and Cale Makar: possibly two of the five best players in the world currently. The Avalanche are more than just those two, of course, but you have to be able to at least somewhat slow them down two to give yourself any chance of winning. Good luck to whoever (likely Jake Sanderson) is drawing that assignment !

-During today's media availability, coach Travis Green said that Shane Pinto would be out "week-to-week". I have yet to see any reporting on the nature of Pinto's injury, but losing him for any extended period of time is a big blow to the forward group.

-While the Sens' power play has been absolutely humming at 41.7%, the Avs have been almost as hot, converting on 39.3% of their chances. The good (?!) news is that neither team's Penalty Kill has been effective (killing 75 and 69.6% of opportunities respectively) so I'd say that staying out of the box is going to be a Silver Seven Key to the Game.

-Puck drop is 9pm Eastern, you can watch on TSN5 or RDI

Stats: