Game 31 Preview and Open Thread: Boston Bruins @ Ottawa Senators

After five games (1-4-0) and ~10 days on the road, the Sens return to the CTC looking for an elusive victory against the boys from beantown. Despite losing the first two meetings, Ottawa has had the advantage against Boston in terms of shot volume and quality in those games to the tune of a 52.44 SVA CF% and 55.74 SVA xGF% according to naturalstattrick. Ottawa has not gotten any of the bounces so far as they have shot at <5% against the Bruins and and the Sens’ goalies have only stopped 86.79% of the pucks the Bruins have fired on net. So, yes, Ottawa has had tremendously bad luck so far against their division rival.

As nkb mentioned on Friday, Boston has a very talented team that scores a tonne and gets great goaltending so Ottawa should take a lot of pride in how well they have hung around with the team that went to the Cup Final last season and, again as nkb pointed out, could have 130 points in the standings by year’s end.

With consideration to injuries, call-ups, and Spinal Tap drummers, Ottawa’s lineup (per TSN1200) should look like this:

Based on the Bruins’ last game, their projected lineup looks like:

Game Notes

• We could see a goalie recall for this game as Craig Anderson left Saturday’s matinee early due to apparent injury and the Belleville Senators don’t have a game until Friday making Marcus Hogberg available for action.
• While the Sens just wrapped up a five-game roadie the Bruins are coming off a five-game home stand (3-1-1) and this will be their first game away from the Garden since coming to Ottawa on the 27th.
• Boston had enjoyed an eight-game winning streak prior to an overtime loss last Thursday against Chicago and a 13(!)-game point streak prior to their loss to Colorado on Saturday. Saturday was their first regulation loss as home this season.
• In other Bruins news, the team has placed Patrice Bergeron on the injured reserve and they still have no timetable for the return of their franchise centre.
• If you need something to cheer you up on a Monday morning and make you forget about Ottawa’s abysmal powerplay, the Senators’ penalty kill had 100% of the shot attempts and Duclair’s shorty against the Flyers powerplay on Saturday afternoon. It was literally perfect penalty killing and should not go unnoticed./

Stats always courtesy of naturalstattrick (except PP% and PK% courtesy of hockey-reference)

Player Stats

Team Stats