The Ottawa Senators have a hill to climb over tonight if they want to get out of the hole they’re in.

The New Jersey Devils are the hottest team in the East right now, with seven wins in a row and a record of 9-1-0 in their last 10. Their underlying stats are rock solid too, leading the league in 5v5 xGF% and second in CF%. Looks like it could be a repeat of the puckbath we saw in Florida, but also looks like the setup for a pretty good Sensing.

The big news on the Senators side of things is the waiving of Nikita Zaitsev. No morning skate today, and the only chance expected from Tuesday’s game is Nick Holden in for Nikita Zaitsev. Forsberg starts.

Here’s how they lined up otherwise at practice on Wednesday:

Game Notes

• Zaitsev cleared waivers, but no word on reassignment (yet). With only six other healthy D, he might stick with the big club at least through this short road trip
• Hellberg, however, was re-claimed by Seattle. Maybe he’ll get to use the sweet Kraken pads he had made at least?
• At least while we’re still waiting on the floodgates to open for Alex DeBrincat goals, he’s having a career year for assists. He has more primary assists per 60 minutes of play this year than he has had assists (primary and secondary) per 60 minutes in any other season
• Speaking of floodgates, the Senators woeful power play scored twice last game! Maybe that bit of success there will loosen things up going forward
• The Sens offence, which has been generating chances (on paper at least) gets a tough test tonight, the Devils have not allowed very much at all this season. But while “Devils don’t allow much” is a bit of a stereotype, this is isn’t the low event trap team of yore - the defence will be tested tonight too

Stats

It’s a 7pm ET game time, on TSN5 and RDS for TV, and TSN1200 for the radio call.