Game 10 Hub: New York Islanders @ Ottawa Senators

After snapping a four-game losing streak, the Ottawa Senators (2-6-1) will look to get a rare consecutive win tonight, when the New York Islanders (6-3-0) come to town.

Ottawa is coming off a fairly impressive 4-2 win over the, admittedly struggling, Detroit Red Wings on Wednesday night. The Isles, meanwhile, are currently riding a five-game win streak. Tonight is the second game of a back-to-back for them, after defeating the visiting Arizona Coyotes 4-2 last night.

If it ain’t broke, don’t try and fix it. With that in mind, the Senators lineup won’t differ at all from Wednesday night. Expect it to look something like this:

Game Notes:

• With Anders Nilsson getting his third consecutive start tonight, it appears that D.J. Smith is favouring the big Swede as his starting goaltender. While Craig Anderson is unquestionably Ottawa’s greatest all-time goaltender, Nilsson has out-performed him to begin the campaign, and Smith has been singing his praises.
• While powerplay goals have been hard to come by, the Ottawa Senators penalty kill has drastically improved this season. It’s early, granted, but Ottawa has killed off 82.5% of their penalties so far, good enough for 13th place in the NHL. They neutralized all five Detroit powerplays on Wednesday, and that didn’t go unnoticed./

"The penalty kill won the game for us tonight, for sure." - - DJ Smith. He said it's been the best part of the #Sens game this season.

— Chris Stevenson (@CJ_Stevenson) October 24, 2019

• While the PK has shown signs of improvement, the powerplay is still absymal. The Senators went 0/2 against Detroit, and are posting a league-worst 3.7% with the man advantage. They really couldn’t generate anything on Wednesday, so I would expect a couple changes tonight. Look for Logan Brown to slot into the first unit, and Erik Brannstrom to replace Dylan DeMelo on the second unit. This is all just speculation on my part, but Smith and Co. have shown a reluctance to stick with what’s not working so far.
• It’s 90’s night at the Canadian Tire Centre! Hopefully by this time next year, every night will be 90’s night, in that the Senators will go back to the 2D jerseys. I digress, however, and the first 2500 fans to arrive at tonight’s game will get a 90’s style Ottawa Senators snapback: /

This Friday we're going back to the 90's when the #Sens take on the Islanders!

The party starts at 6 p.m. with $5 Molson tall-boys at the beer garden and the first 2,500 fans will receive a vintage Ottawa Senators snapback.

TICKETS: https://t.co/VEignat5g5 pic.twitter.com/ZPhMaQtkMM

— Ottawa Senators (@Senators) October 22, 2019

• Puck drop is at 7:30pmET, and you can catch this one on TSN5, RDS2, as well as MSG+2 for our friends south of the border. As always, Dean Brown and Gord Wilson have the call on TSN1200./

Stats

All stats from NHL.com, except for Corsi/Fenwick from NaturalStatTrick.com

Player Stats

Team Stats