Game 16 Preview: Colorado Avalanche “at” Ottawa Senators

Rise and shine, friends, it’s time for afternoon hockey the second day in a row! The Senators had us all worried last game, entering the third period against the Avalanche up 3-2, but although they squandered that lead, they managed to win in overtime. Giving a loser point to rivals in another conference isn’t even a big deal!

Obviously in the second game of a back-to-back, it’s hard to know what the lines will be. Maybe we’ll even know by the time you’re reading this. Or maybe Guy Boucher will keep it a game-time mystery. Anyway, conventional wisdom says Mike Condon gets the start, while I’m expecting the rest of a winning lineup to not change. There is a small possibility Ben Harpur gets scratched in favour of Nick Paul.

Some notes for tonight:

• How about Mark Stone, with 8 goals in his last 8 games?
• How about Chris DiDomenico with 6 points in his last 6 games?
• Matt Duchene looked alright in his first game with the team. The nerves seemed to have the better of him for two periods, and he seemed to be passing the puck too much to me, especially on the powerplay, but in the third we saw some real power moves by him. It’s nice to get Game 1 out of the way, definitely considering there were five days after the trade before he got to play
• Erik Karlsson is running at 1.50 points per game. Second place among defencemen is Shayne Gostisbehere at 1.15.
• It was nice to see the Sens actually outshoot an opponent, and rather handily at that at 32-19
• At 5v5, Chris Wideman finished with 15 shot attempts for and 2 against (best on the team). But he only played 7:12
• Meanwhile Ben Harpur played 16:01, and finished with 9 shot attempts for and 16 against (worst on the team). But at least he’s tall.
• Samuel Girard looks like he could be a player, eh? At least the Predators gave away the best return piece in the Duchene trade/

Here are some stats, updated after yesterday’s game:

Team Stats

Player Stats