The Senators will wrap up a three-game homestand at Canadian Tire Centre on Tuesday night in search of a reset. Winners of just one of their last five games, the Senators hope to get back on track against an opponent that’s gone even colder than they have.
The New Jersey Devils arrive in Ottawa having lost five straight, scoring a total of one goal in their past three games combined.
The Senators are still without key injured players Shane Pinto and Thomas Chabot, but they may get Lars Eller back for this one. Eller is listed as a game-time decision, but if he can’t go, Olle Lycksell or Kurtis MacDermid would dress in his place, with Stephen Halliday sliding to the middle. Lycksell was called up from Belleville on Tuesday morning after Hayden Hodgson was sent down on Sunday.
Nick Cousins is back on Tim Stutzle’s left wing, while David Perron, who makes four times more money than Cousins, is down on the fourth line. Stutzle has just one assist in the past five games, and the club needs him to get rolling, so it’s intriguing that Travis Green seems content to pair him with the club’s 8th and 11th-best scoring forwards.
This was the alignment for the pre-game skate:
Forward Lines
Cousins — Stutzle — Zetterlund
Tkachuk — Cozens — Batherson
Amadio — Greig — Giroux
Halliday — Eller — Perron
Extras: Lycksell, MacDermid
Defense
Sanderson — Zub
Kleven — Spence
Matinpalo — Jensen
Goalie
Ullmark
What’s The Deal With The Devils?
As cold as Jersey has been, their trade rumours have been hot and heavy, involving Canucks defenseman Quinn Hughes. While a trade like that may be an exciting possibility for Devils fans, the team’s five-game losing slide might suggest the players aren’t quite as excited, wondering which players might be heading out the door.
The Devils arrived in Ottawa with former Senators content that includes Stefan Noesen, Connor Brown, Angus Crookshank, Zack MacEwen, and Evgenii Dadonov. Crookshank and MacEwen both saw time in Ottawa last season. Crookshank left in free agency, while MacEwen was traded for Kurtis MacDermid just before the season started. MacEwen and Dadonov will both miss the game due to injuries.
Speaking of which, Timo Meier and Jesper Bratt didn’t practice yesterday, but they will play tonight, which is a sigh of relief for the Devils’ top six. They’re already without Jack Hughes, who had finger surgery last month after a freak accident at a team dinner in Chicago.
The game will also feature a matchup of two Swedish Olympic hopefuls, Linus Ullmark and Jakob Markstrom, though neither possesses anything close to Olympic-calibre stats.
2025-26
Ullmark: .877 SV%, 3.00 GA
Markstrom: .876 SV%, 3.51 GA
Devils projected lineup (NHL.com, subject to change)
Forward Lines
Timo Meier — Nico Hischier — Stefan Noesen
Ondrej Palat — Dawson Mercer — Jesper Bratt
Arseny Gritsyuk — Cody Glass — Connor Brown
Paul Cotter — Luke Glendening — Angus Crookshank
Defense
Jonas Siegenthaler — Dougie Hamilton
Brenden Dillon — Luke Hughes
Dennis Cholowski — Simon Nemec
Goalie
Jacob Markstrom
Face off is 7 pm at Canadian Tire Centre (TSN5 RDS2).
Steve Warne
The Hockey News Ottawa
This article was originally published at The Hockey News Ottawa. Read more:
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