Game 34 Hub: Ottawa Senators @ Seattle Kraken

It's absolutely hilarious that Ottawa's PWHL team found a way to snatch a consolation point from an OT loss in their first ever game, while the Sens ca haven’t managed event one in 33 games.

After suffering a 6-3 defeat to the Vancouver Canucks, a team which over the course of a single offseason, went from being clearly worse than the Ottawa Senators (14-19-0), to miles ahead of them, the Sens continue their west coast road trip tonight with a tilt against the Seattle Kraken (15-14-9).

I would guess Joonas Korpisalo starts in goal, and for Angus Crookshank and/or Jiri Smejkal to draw back into the lineup after head coach Jacques Martin's recent comments about his team's performance.

Game Notes

• Mathieu Joseph is practicing in a regular jersey, but due to his being placed on LTIR for cap-related reasons, he won't be eligible to play until January 9th against the Calgary Flames. Once he's back on the roster, we could see a move or two made to keep Ottawa cap-compliant.
• It's good that the core players are finally being held accountable. Last season, they played better than their record showed, and a similar level of play with better shooting luck would see them in a playoff spot this season. Unfortunately, every aspect of the team except for the 5-on-5 finishing became much worse, highlighted by every core players sans Drake Batherson and Thomas Chabot (albeit, in just 11 games) taking a step backwards. I suspect there was a sense of gross overconfidence, that the coaching staff failed to keep in check. This might not be an easy problem to fix.
• Brady Tkachuk has been rewarded for his season to-date by being named to the All-Star Game
• You can catch tonight's game on RDS, TSN5, and TSN 1200 at 10:00 PM EST. Alternatively, you can just go to sleep.

Stats