Links, News, and Notes: Third in the Atlantic Edition

We wake up Monday with your. Ottawa. Senators. in third place in the Atlantic Division. Stop the count, let's just start the playoffs today. Anyway, here's some news from around the league:

• In case you don't like my recaps, here's last night's recaps from Steve Warne and Bruce Garrioch, the latter of which has some quotes from Brady Tkachuk on breaking his goal drought.
• Paul Quinney looks at what the Sens should do at the trade deadline. His theory? The Sens probably need more scoring more than anything, which would've been a wild thing to think 3 months ago.
• The Fourth Period asks, could the Sens be in the Elias Pettersson talks? They say the centrepiece going back would be Josh Norris. I love Norris, but his cap hit is about 25-30% too high for what he brings to the table, so I'm not sure how that could get it done. Outside of Carter Yakemchuk, the prospect cupboards are pretty bare. Now the Sens did get Linus Ullmark for a 1st-round pick and two salary dumps, but Ullmark was a pending UFA; Pettersson has 7 years left under team control after this one.
• Lisa Wallace has a piece on how the Sens are showing maturity in how they face pressure. Claude Giroux was smiling after his goal in last night's game, and that looked to me like a guy who's seeing this team grow up.
• The Sens are expected to play the Canadiens in a preseason game in Quebec City this coming fall.
• The NHL has unveiled their quarter-century team for the Sens. The first team is completely as expected. My only complaint is that the second team doesn't have a centre. It's hard to say no to Hossa or Stone or Tkachuk on there, but it really should be Stutzle centring a pair of wingers in my opinion.
• Katerina Mrazova will return to the Charge lineup tomorrow.
• In case you missed it, the Avalanche and Hurricanes made a blockbuster trade, with Mikko Rantanen now being a Cane. Rantanen's line is that he was willing to take a discount to stay in Colorado, but with MacKinnon at $12.6M (and Makar due an extension soon), what was a discount? $11M per year? Still, with the Avs as a legitimate Cup contender, it felt like Rantanen might be a self rental. To me, this trade looks like Colorado saying they didn't think they could do it this year—and Carolina saying, "Your move, Eastern Conference".
• Your THW rumour roundup, including the Sabres making a real push for Pettersson and Sean Monahan re-aggravating his wrist. I vote no Pettersson in the Atlantic Division, OK? (Unless it's, say, Tage Thompson and Rasmus Dahlin going the other way.)
• In the quarter-century spirit, Matt Larkin counts down the worst trades of the past 25 years. Not to be clickbaity, but as Sens fans, we all knew number one going into this.
• The Athletic ranks NHL teams based on what they need to do at the deadline (buy, sell, or a mix). Funny enough, the Avs need scoring now that they've traded the guy who was sixth in league scoring.
• Elias "not that Elias Pettersson" Pettersson made his NHL debut for the Canucks over the weekend. Buyer beware in a potential Elias Pettersson trade that you're getting the right one.
• Finally, if your missed it, here's the Bell Breakaway feature from the weekend, on Adam Gaudette's impact with the Sens this season