The Senators are in Anaheim on Wednesday night to begin a three game, four night stay in The Golden State.
The matchup: Ottawa Senators (25-31-3) at Anaheim Ducks (22-36-3), 10 pm faceoff, (TVAS, TSN5)
For the Ottawa Senators and Anaheim Ducks, the next truly meaningful evening on their hockey calendar is probably the night of the NHL Draft Lottery. But forgive the 28th-place Senators if they come out against the 30th-place Ducks on Wednesday night with a little extra chip on their shoulder.
These two clubs met just three weeks ago and Anaheim embarrassed the Senators in their building, clobbering them 5-1. Joonas Korpisalo gave up five goals on 20 shots. Carp's Mason McTavish scored two goals for Anaheim. He's already matched his 17 goal total from his rookie NHL season last year.
The Senators get Brady Tkachuk back in the lineup after he missed his first game in almost three seasons on Saturday in Philadelphia.
"Yeah, I feel good," Tkachuk told TSN 1200 radio. "It's nice to have a couple of days to kind of regroup and refresh. It sucks not being able to help out the team and it sucks not playing for sure. So, I made sure I was ready to go for tomorrow."
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9NNN_kliwY[/embed]
Rourke Chartier has found his way back to Ottawa. He was called up from the minors after Zack MacEwen was injured in his Philly homecoming on Saturday.
It's a little curious to call up Chartier to play centre and move Ridly Greig to his unnatural position when they could have left Greig at centre and called up/rewarded Belleville winger Angus Crookshank, the AHL player of of the month for February.
Perhaps the club is trying to get Greig ready for full-time work on the wing, which would be an optimistic strategy since the Sens can't seem to keep all three of their top three centres (Stutzle, Norris and Pinto) in the lineup for any extended period of time. Norris was placed on long term injured reserve last week as it looks like he's messed up that left shoulder once again.
The Senators have lost four games in a row and assuming there are no deals between now and game time, they're expected to align like this (according to TSN 1200 radio):
Tkachuk-Pinto-Tarasenko
Giroux-Stützle-Batherson
Greig-Chartier-Joseph
Kubalik-Kastelic-Kelly
Sanderson-Zub
Chabot-JBD
Brannstrom-Chychrun
Forsberg
Korpisalo
Sogaard
Pending UFAs Vladimir Tarasenko and Dominik Kubalik are expected to be traded by the Senators at some point this week. Adam Henrique is in the same boat and probably Anaheim's most intriguing trade chip.
Despite the team's lack of success in the last week, Shane Pinto and Drake Batherson are both on decent individual heaters. Pinto leads the Sens with six points in his last five while Batherson is has four goals in four. Thomas Chabot has come to life offensively with four goals and six points in his last seven games.
After Wednesday's game, the Senators continue to enjoy the sunshine, playing in LA on Thursday and San Jose on Saturday.