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Game 19 Preview and Open Thread: Ottawa Senators @ Vegas Golden Knights

Bright light city gonna set the season, gonna set the season on fire (one way or another)

NHL: Vegas Golden Knights at Ottawa Senators Marc DesRosiers-USA TODAY Sports

The Ottawa Senators season is on life support and the clock is ticking. After leaving two points on the table in San Jose, they come into Vegas nine points behind Detroit for the second wild card spot. The stakes won’t get much higher.

This is the toughest opponent of the trip, too. The Vegas Golden Knights are running away with the West at 31 points, only behind Boston and New Jersey for the league lead. If there’s one thing to hang some hope on here it is that they’ve slowed down a bit from “world killers” to “really good” - they have allowed twice as many goals in their last 10 games (34) than they did in the first 10 (17).

There are some roster question marks for the Sens today. Jacob Larsson was returned to Belleville yesterday and Lassi Thomson called up, and he will be in the lineup tonight. Thomas Chabot was on the ice in a regular jersey for yesterday’s practice but was ruled out for the game today.

The Sens aren’t skating today, but here are the lines from yesterday. Starting goalie is still to be decided.

Game Notes

  • The Senators are livin’ devil may care with the roster, after they hit the road to California with only six healthy blue liners, and then swapped one out for another that has to make it most of the way across the continent to get to the game
  • It can take a strong heart and a nerve of steel to watch Ottawa at points this season. While they continue to play decent to good overall (with the occasional game as an exception), it is getting to the point where every time they’ve got a rush, or every time they set up a good cycle, I’m just waiting for the pass into the skates, the puck bobbled over the stick, or some other error that ends up with the puck in the back of their own net
  • A regulation loss tonight really will send all those off-season hopes down the drain, if they aren’t gone already
  • One thing that hasn’t been a problem for most of the season was effort. Mistakes were getting made, luck was sometimes getting in the way, but by goodness they were trying. But in the past two games, and especially in San Jose, the team was looking deflated at times. Won’t stand a chance against Vegas if they don’t give it everything they’ve got

Stats

Team Stats

Game 31 Ottawa Senators Minnesota Wild
Game 31 Ottawa Senators Minnesota Wild
Category # Rank # Rank
Goals/GP 3.17 16th 3.1 18th
Goals Against/GP 3.13 17th 2.87 T-13th
Shots/GP 33.6 6th 31.2 18th
Shots Against/GP 32.8 25th 29.4 8th
Powerplay % 28.8 4th 25.5 10th
Penalty Kill % 79.7 12th 79.6 13th
Corsi % (5v5 SVA) 52.3 6th 50.70 15th
xGF % (5v5 SVA) 52.21 11th 51.93 12th

Player Stats

Game 31 Ottawa Senators Minnesota Wild
Game 31 Ottawa Senators Minnesota Wild
Category Player # Player #
Goals Brady Tkachuk/Claude Giroux 13 Kirill Kaprizov 18
Assists Brady Tkachuk 22 Kirill Kaprizov/Mats Zuccarello 21
Points Brady Tkachuk 35 Kirill Kaprizov 39
Shots Brady Tkachuk 131 Kirill Kaprizov 124
Time on Ice/GP Thomas Chabot 25:52 Jonas Brodin 22:!1

It’s a 10PM start on TSN5, TVA Sports and the radio call at TSN1200.