Game 12 preview: Ottawa Senators @ Canadiens de Montréal
A preview of the game between the Sens and Habs on November 3rd.
The Ottawa Senators will follow up their weekend split with the Detroit Red Wings by taking on another division rival, the Montreal Canadiens. Last time these teams met, the Sens gave the Habs their third win of the season, en route to an NHL-record 9-0-0 start.
Ottawa's forward lines will change drastically from Saturday, with Mark Stone suspended, Mike Hoffman and Curtis Lazar back from injury, and Max McCormick sent back to Binghamton. The Sens will face old friend Mike Condon in net due to injury to Carey Price.
Here are Ottawa's lines, courtesy of Dean Brown:
Hoffman - Turris - Lazar
Prince - Zibanejad - Ryan
Michalek - Pageau - Chiasson
Puempel - Smith - Neil
Methot - Karlsson
Wiercioch - Ceci
Cowen - Borowiecki
Anderson (starter)
Hammond
Meanwhile, the Habs will go with the same lines as Sunday against the Jets, according to the team's official Twitter feed:
Pacioretty - Plekanec - Gallagher
Eller - Galchenyuk - Flynn
Fleischmann - Desharnais - Weise
Byron - Mitchell - Smith-Pelly
Markov - Subban
Emelin - Petry
Beaulieu - Gilbert
Condon (starter)
Tokarski
Some notes for tonight:
- Bobby Ryan has goals in three straight games, and points in four.
- Erik Karlsson has assists in three straight. Though as the Chet and Luke Podcast predicted, Chris Neil got his first goal of the season before EK.
- P.K. Subban is tied with Karlsson for second in the league in assists with 11. However, Subban has a goal.
- Kyle Turris got his 100th career goal on the weekend in his 409th career game. 81 of those goals have come with the Sens in 272 games.
- Mike Condon got his first career win against the Sens. He now has three more, making him a perfect 4-0-0 with a .944 save pct. and a 1.51 GAA in his NHL career.
- A lot of Habs fans seem upset that Alex Semin is a healthy scratch again. When you've got Brian Flynn playing on your second line, I can see the frustration. You gotta think at least Tomas Fleischmann is a better choice on a scoring line. Of course, the Habs are destroying the league in basically every category (see the tables below), so it's hard to criticize decisions too much.
- Mark Borowiecki and Jared Cowen are still
going to bring each other downpaired together
- Mark Stone's suspension removes the team's lead point-getter. Mike Hoffman got injured when he was the team's lead point-getter. If Turris gets at least a point tonight to take a share of the team lead, look out.
- After not putting the team shorthanded through eight games, Chris Neil has now taken a minor penalty to put the team shorthanded in three straight games.
- According to Natural Stat Trick, Erik Karlsson is the team's only defenceman who has a Corsi pct. greater than 50% at 5v5. That's not good.
Here are some stats for the two teams tonight. All stats are from NHL.com except Corsi and Fenwick are from www.puckon.net. Note that Corsi is now adjusted for score as well as the venue and event type.
Category | Ottawa | Montréal | ||
Player | # | Player | # | |
Goals | Kyle Turris | 7 | Max Pacioretty | 7 |
Assists | Erik Karlsson | 11 | Andrei Markov/P.K. Subban | 11 |
Points | Mark Stone :( | 13 | Markov/Subban/David Desharnais/Tomas Plekanec | 12 |
Shots | Bobby Ryan | 32 | Max Pacioretty | 44 |
Average Ice time | Erik Karlsson | 26:38 | P.K. Subban | 24:24 |
Category | Ottawa | Montréal | ||
# | Rank | # | Rank | |
Goals For | 3.00 | 8th | 3.85 | 2nd |
Goals Against | 3.09 | 25th | 1.85 | 3rd |
Event, Score and venue adjusted Corsi % | 50.9% | 13th | 56.4% | 2nd |
Event, Score and venue adjusted Fenwick % | 51.1% | 15th | 57.2% | 2nd |
Shots For | 30.5 | 12th | 30.5 | 10th |
Shots Against | 32.5 | 28th | 30.1 | 17th |