It was back to work for Travis Green and the Senators as they prepare to play the Dallas Stars tomorrow and the St. Louis Blues on Friday.
With the holidays now behind them, the Ottawa Senators will begin the 2025 portion of their schedule on Thursday night in Dallas. The club finished the final 16 games of 2024 with a record of 11-4-1, but they've only played two games in the last ten days.
Head coach Travis Green described his strategy for Wednesday's practice in Dallas.
"Yeah, anytime you have a day off, you want to come back and be sharp, especially when you've got back-to-back games coming up," Green told the media scrum after practice. "It was a good skate today, had a little bit of everything in it – a lot of puck movement, some compete drills. Again, we're playing another good team tomorrow. We're going to have to be sharp."
Green had to be careful with his practice plan on Wednesday. Coming off the holidays (and the fun of New Year's Eve), coaches often like to get their teams back up to speed as soon as possible with a hard skate. But with a back-to-back looming on Thursday (Dallas Stars) and Friday (St. Louis Blues), Green didn't want to overdo it at practice.
"Yeah, I mean we're always monitoring what we're going to do in practice based on our schedule. But we felt like today was a good day that we had to get our compete level back up, but also not push them too hard so they're tired for tomorrow."
Green was pleased to have injured goalie Anton Forsberg back on the ice again and says he's getting closer to a return.
"He's been on the ice for a couple of days, talked to the trainers, see where he's at as far as if he's ready to go or not. But obviously, you've got to have depth in the goaltending position and it's nice to have two young guys with us right now and get a look at them."
After the two games tomorrow and Friday, the Sens will have three days before their next game when they face the Detroit Red Wings on Tuesday. That will finally close out the Sens' nine-game road trip. With the World Juniors in Ottawa wrapping up this Sunday, the Senators will settle back in and resume a fairly normal January schedule with seven home games and six away.
The schedule will then get a little weird again in February with a 13-day break for the NHL 4 Nations Face-Off.
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