William Eklund makes his Senators debut while Jake Sanderson returns to bolster the blue line as the Senators open the season in Toronto.
The Senators (finally) open a new season in Toronto on Saturday night (7 P.M. Sportsnet), hoping to quickly get up to speed against a Leafs team that's already played in two games this week (1-1-0).
The Sens are the only team that hasn't played a game yet and they'll be down two of their regulars in Artem Zub and newcomer Andre Burakovsky. Both are injured, wearing no-contact jerseys at practice, but at least they're back skating again.
On defense, there is some good news on the injury front. The Senators have made it official, confirming that Jake Sanderson will play after missing much of the preseason with an undisclosed injury. He'll be paired with Nikolas Matinpalo, who takes the direct place of Zub.
In the bottom pair, after being the final cut in each of his first two camps, rookie Carter Yakemchuk will start he season in the NHL for the first time.
Up front, Warren Foegele confirmed Friday he would be good to go as well after missing much of camp following off-season surgery. He effectively takes the top six spot that Burakovsky was expected to claim.
Newcomer William Eklund makes his Ottawa Senators debut, skating on a line with Fabian Zetterlund, his old Sharks' teammate and best friend. The Sens hope Eklund can pick up a good chunk of the offense lost with Brady Tkachuk's exit.
Speaking of which, the game also marks the debut of Thomas Chabot as the new Sens captain after the old one decided to abandon ship this summer. Chabot was presented with the C this week
The Senators posted their line combinations at Saturday morning's game day skate.
Senators
Foegele-Stutzle-Batherson
Eklund-Cozens-Zetterlund
Amadio-Pinto-Giroux
Cousins-Halliday-Hodgson
Sanderson-Matinpalo
Chabot-Spence
Kleven-Yakemchuk
Ullmark
Ersson
Crotty (extra)
Greig (suspended)
Burakovsky (injured)
Zub (injured)
MacDermid (injured)
The Leafs are rolling with the same 18 skaters they used in their 2-1 win against the Islanders on Wednesday. They held an optional skate on Saturday morning, but they're expected to go with their Friday practice alignment. Here's how that looked, according to THN's Andre Leal.
Marchenko-Matthews-Roslovic
McKenna-Tavares-Nylander
Cowan-Paul-Sissons
Groulx-Blueger-Duhaime
Rielly-Raddysh
McCabe-Tanev
OEL-Stecher
Bobrovsky
Stolarz
The Sens went 3-1 against Toronto last season. After Saturday, the two clubs won't meet again until January 20th in Ottawa.
Historically, in their first game of the season, the Sens are 7-1 versus the Leafs.
Face off time is 7 p.m. (Sportsnet).
By Steve Warne
The Hockey News Ottawa
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