Double Game Hub: Ottawa Senators (23) at LA Kings, Ottawa Charge (1) at Montreal Victoire

Hope you're ready for a full evening of Ottawa hockey! The Ottawa Senators continue their California trip with a stop in Los Angeles, while the Ottawa Charge open their season in Montreal.

The Charge have the earlier puck drop so we'll start with them, but you can click here to skip ahead to the Senators section.

Ottawa Charge at Montreal Victoire

The Ottawa Charge kick off their second season today, after splitting their two preseason games (a 6-1 romp over Boston, and a 6-3 loss to Montreal). They'll be facing that very same Montreal team, in a rematch of both the last preseason game and of last season's opener.

Perhaps not so surprising for a young league, there has been plenty of roster turnover going into the second season. Ottawa's final roster (and reserve list) was released yesterday and sees 15 returning players and 11 new faces - including six of their seven picks from the 2024 draft. Montreal's roster has the same split between new and returning, but with an extra two returning players starting the season on the injured reserve list.

Charge Game Notes

• Preseason is preseason, but the Charge's scoring in the two game mini camp was at an almost absurd level of "by committee" - their (league leading) nine goals all came from different players
• The Charge lost their leading goal scorer in Daryl Watts to Toronto in free agency, though she was only one goal ahead of Brianne Jenner and Gabbie Hughes so there is still a fair bit of scoring returning to the roster
• Unlike in the preseason game against Montreal, expect Ottawa to start Emerance Maschmeyer in net
• The Charge may be without their captain, as Brianne Jenner is a game time decision
• The game is a 5pm start, on TSN1, TSN5, and RDS. Note that PWHL games will not be carried on YouTube this year

Ottawa Senators at Los Angeles Kings

It's odd, I can't seem to remember anything about the last game except the final score and Linus Ullmark's performance...

Since we last saw the Kings in that wild game during real Thanksgiving (I kid, I kid...mostly), they've had a solid record of 25 points in 21 games. They're mostly doing it on the defensive end, with the second lowest goals against per game in that stretch, though they've done that while still being on the receiving end of a few blowouts. They seem to mostly allow one goal, or a whole lot.

The Kings are coming off an afternoon win yesterday so the Sens will get a team on the back half of a back-to-back, though that hasn't been much help recently.

Here's how the Sens lined up at practice yesterday. It looks like a similar group that won against the San Jose Sharks, with the primary swap being that of Amadio and Greig in the bottom-six:

Meanwhile, the Kings are coming off of a tight checking 2-1 victory last night against the Anaheim Ducks. Here's how they lined up for that contest, with the only expected change for tonight being in goal, where veteran netminder David Rittich will come in for rookie Erik Portillo:

Senators Game Notes

• The Kings are allowing a league-best 24.3 shots against per game, and it's their defensive structure that has them regularly outshooting and outchancing teams
• One thing that hasn't been helping the Kings is their power play. It's running at just 15.7%
• You probably have heard this, but it is worth mentioning again - Adam Gaudette leads the league in goals per 60 minutes of play. He's scoring over 3 goals for every 60 minutes of ice time he's seeing
• Tim Stützle is on a five game point streak. He's been the player to show up the most consistently for Ottawa this month
• The "US Thanksgiving" measuring stick has come and gone, with the Senators three points out of the last wild card spot (now four after yesterday's games). It's worth noting that the math behind the often cited checkpoint was the standings by point percentage though, and the Sens are just two points behind the last spot when the standings are done that way
• It is a 7pm start for the Sens, on Sportsnet One and TVA

Stats

From NHL.com and NaturalStatTrick.com