The Ottawa Senators only got one point last night, but considering the strange nature of the first two goals from the Boston Bruins and the fact that the Senators had more dangerous changes, it’s easy to be happy with the result. The Senators are now 14-10-4 in their last 28 games and will look to improve on that while playing against a top New York Rangers team.

The last time these two teams met was October 23rd, 2021, which was a nightmare turning point for Ottawa. They were up 2-0 with five minutes to go, and not only did they lose 3-2 in regulation, Matt Murray (who was on a roll up until then) was injured by Chris Kreider. So instead of starting the season 3-2-0, they were 2-3-0, and things just fell apart from there where they only won twice in their next 15 games.

The Rangers are 31-13-5 on the season, good for 3rd in the Metropolitan Division and tied for 7th overall. They’ll be a force for quite a while, and today will be a difficult matchup for a thin Senators lineup.

We don’t know what the lines will be like today just yet, but we do know that Filip Gustavsson will be starting for Ottawa. Here are the lines from last night which might end up being the same:

Saturday morning skate lines:

Tkachuk Paul CBrown
Formenton Stützle Gaudette
Kelly Gambrell Watson
Sanford Tierney Ennis

Brannstrom Zub
Holden Zaitsev
Mete JBrown

Forsberg - starters End.
Gustavsson

— TSN 1200 (@TSN1200) February 19, 2022

Game Notes

• Nick Holden has 7 points in his last 9 games and DJ Smith was singing his praises yesterday. He seems to be quite the popular guy on the team and it’s easy to see why.
• Smith also spoke highly of Victor Mete last game, who needs all the breaks he can get. He’s only played in 29/48 games and will need to be better if he wants to stay in the lineup when Thomas Chabot and Jake Sanderson are here.
• One of the few “enforcers” left in the game, Ryan Reaves, will most likely be playing tonight, and I’m sure there will be some altercations with him. The Rangers wanted to get tougher in the off-season and it shows.
• It’s expected that Alexandar Georgiev will start for New York, although it hasn’t been confirmed. He only has an .898 SV% in 20 games this season, while Igor Shesterkin has a whopping .938 SV% in 31 games, so that would be a huge break for Ottawa.
• As you’ll see below, the Rangers are a weird team. They’re dead last in corsi and give up a ton of quality chances, but they make up for it with incredible goaltending from Shesterkin and timely scoring from guys like Chris Kreider, Artemi Panarin, Mika Zibanejad, etc. They have a ton of talent so they’re always dangerous.
• Puck drop is 5 pm ET, you can watch on TSN5, TVAS, or listen on TSN1200/

Player Stats

Game 75	Ottawa	Senators	Seattle	Kraken
Category	Player	#	Player	#
Goals	Josh Norris	33	Jared McCann	25
Assists	Tim Stützle	32	Yanni Gourde	26
Points	Brady Tkachuk	59	Jared McCann, Yanni Gourde (tied)	43
Shots	Brady Tkachuk	261	Jared McCann	174
Time on Ice/GP	Thomas Chabot (inj.)	26:23	Adam Larsson	22:10

Team Stats

Game 75	Ottawa	Senators	Seattle	Kraken
Category	#	Rank	#	Rank
Goals/GP	2.71	26th	2.57	29th
Goals Against/GP	3.23	23rd	3.47	24th
Shots/GP	30.3	20th	28.8	31st
Shots Against/GP	33.2	25th	29.1	5th
Powerplay %	19.7	21st	14.3	29th
Penalty Kill %	80.5	13th	75.1	26th
Corsi % (5v5 SVA)	47.91	21st	49.03	19th
xGF % (5v5 SVA)	47.10	24th	47.34	23rd