Silver Nuggets: How will the roster look on opening night?

For the third consecutive day, Mika Zibanejad's line had a third different centre. On Saturday, Zibanejad was on the wing with Kyle Turris, yesterday Zibanejad was at centre himself and today he was with Jason Spezza. The latter was largely because Milan Michalek was missing at practice today, but Paul MacLean has certainly tried a lot of things recently. That is what preseason is for though right?

Both Michalek and Craig Anderson were missing from practice having maintenance days, but here are the lines from Sylvain St-Laurent.

Zibanejad - Spezza - Ryan
MacArthur - Turris - Stone
Greening - Pageau - Petersson
Conacher - Smith - Condra
Kassian - O'Brien - Neil
Hoffman - Da Costa (they are missing a winger :( )

Méthot - Karlsson
Cowen - Wiercioch
Phillips - Ceci
Borowiecki - Corvo

There are still 11 days until the Senators open the regular season but for the second consecutive day Cody Ceci is skating with an NHL regular while Joe Corvo is with Mark Borowiecki. Eric Gryba is still out injured, possibly after a moose hunt gone wrong. If Gryba ends up being placed on injured reserve, this would allow the Senators to keep an extra player up in the NHL.

Among the forwards there is even more experimenting going on. There is a guaranteed opening night player on five different lines at the moment. Given MacLean naming Pageau as the best player against the Leafs and his comments on the Team 1200 this morning, it is looking more and more likely that Pageau will start the season at centre in the NHL. MacLean also mentioned there are four candidates "tied" for the second line winger opening: Cory Conacher, Mike Hoffman, Mark Stone and Mika Zibanejad. On Zibanejad, the coach seemed hesitant to use him on second line wing but conceded that he might have to. He added that Zibanejad will be a great centre for the club going forward.

Given the farce in the Sabres/Leafs game last night, and with the Senators opening the season in Buffalo and Toronto, is Matt Kassian looking increasingly likely to play on opening night? How do you think (not want) the lines will shape up on opening night in Buffalo?

Here are some links (I am not Amelia, so don't expect much).

General Sens News

• Paul MacLean wants Bobby Ryan to shoot more. Jason Spezza also wants Ryan to shoot more. (Ottawa Sun)
• The Senators separated their roster into NHL and non-NHL groups. The NHL group consists of the 25 players mentioned above as well as Curtis Lazar, Michalek, Anderson and Gryba. (Ottawa Sun)
• Paul MacLean spoke yesterday about the split in camp, about Gryba's injury opening a spot, and that he will change the lines again (which he did) so the combinations aren't very important. And then I went ahead and talked about them anyway right? (Ottawa Senators)
• Robin Lehner will play the entire game in Toronto tomorrow. (Ian Mendes)
• ESPN magazine ranks the Ottawa Senators as the number one sports team in Canada. ESPN is totally dumb when they forget Bobby Ryan in their top 100 players, but now they are spot on right!? (Ottawa Senators)
• The Senators have sold 12,000 season tickets for the season. (Ian Mendes)
• Chet at Bonk's Mullet summarises the Senators offseason. (Bonk's Mullet)

General Hockey News