For all of the concerns to start the season, it hasn’t taken much to right the Sens ship in the standings. Ottawa comes into tonight’s game in a five-way tie for the last wild card spot by points, and a four-way tie for third in the division by point percentage. A win tonight would put them into that third divisional spot, though with one more game played than most of the pack. A nice change from being tied for dead last in the East a week ago.
The flip side is they’re only one point ahead of the four-way tie for last in the Conference, where we find tonight’s opponent. Things are tight in the East.
The Senators are largely not messing with a winning lineup. The one exception is in net – Merilainen is expected to get the start with Hunter Shepard backing up, giving Linus Ullmark the night off completely. Don’t worry though, Ullmark did take part in the morning skate and is expected to start tomorrow in Chicago.
#Sens lines from practice
Cousins-Stutzle-Batherson
Greig-Cozens-Perron
Amadio-Pinto-Giroux
MacDermid-Eller-Zetterlund
Lycksell
Sanderson-Zub
Chabot-Jensen
Kleven-Matinpalo
Spence
Merilainen
Ullmark(practicing)
— Alex Adams (@alexadamssn.bsky.social) 2025-10-27T14:31:54.497Z
The Bruins are making one tweak to their roster from Saturday, with Marat Khusnutdinov coming in for Johnny Beecher on the fourth line.
Bruins practice lines:
Geekie-E. Lindholm-Pastrnak
Mittelstadt-Zacha-Arvidsson
Jeannot-Minten-Eyssimont
Khusnutdinov-Kuraly-Kastelic
Viel, Beecher
Lohrei-McAvoy
Zadorov-Peeke
Callahan-Jokiharju
Aspirot
— Belle Fraser (@bellefraser1) October 27, 2025
They’re also switching up their pairings, based on the morning skate. Mason Lohrei and Nikita Zadorov have swapped spots, with Lohrei moving up to play with Charlie McAvoy, and Zadorov moving down to the second pairing with Andrew Peeke.
Game Notes
- It’ll be hard to look as good as they did on Saturday, but can they continue to look good in the areas that have been concerning this season? The PK, 5 on 5 scoring, the goaltending – all of them have been noticeably better in the past two games
- Shane Pinto’s 8 goals put him at the top of the NHL scoring list, albeit in a three-way tie going into tonight’s games. Saturday’s broadcast pointed out something notable there though – unlike the others he has done it without any empty netters or powerplay goals (though one was on a delayed penalty with the Sens net empty)
- The only player in the Sens lineup looking to bounce back is the only player who didn’t play on Saturday – Leevi Merilainen. His last good game for Ottawa was his first preseason game in Toronto. In his brief stop in Belleville last week, he had a stinker against Syracuse, but followed it with a good game against Laval. Ride that last one and not the Sabres game, Leevi
- On the opposition side of things, the Bruins snapped a six game losing streak with an unlikely win over the Avalanche on Saturday with not one, but TWO goals from below the goal line
- Going to the game? Expect some slightly different intermission entertainment – the Sens will be tuning in live to Game 3 of the World Series between periods
- Note the start time and viewing options – it’s a 7:30pm start time (puck drop expected around 7:45). Amazon Prime has the national broadcast in English (streaming only), while RDS has the regional broadcast in French. As always, TSN1200 will have the English radio call, and 104.7 Outaouais with the French call
