It seems extremely on brand to me that as soon as the Ottawa Senators get Brady Tkachuk back, they lose a core player like Shane Pinto. Sometimes fortune just frowns upon you like that. The Senators should get Artem Zub back tonight if that makes you feel any better. For whatever reason, the Sens have stunk up the joint when they play in St. Louis, and maybe that coupled with the fact that they won’t have Pinto (and the fact that they just lost to the Rangers) makes this a trap game for the Blues. Work with me here.
St. Louis doesn’t exactly strike me as a team to beat in the central (the Avalanche and Stars look rather intimidating, don’t they?) and as much as I enjoy a visit from our old friend Mathieu Joseph, this seems like a manageable task for Ottawa. And if they don’t want to get goalied then maybe the Sens need to work on creating better chances, yeah?
Game Notes:
- If you want a reason to stay optimistic, St. Louis’s goaltenders have combined for -15 goals saved above average in all situations so Ottawa theoretically could jump start their offence tonight but also don’t ask me about Linus Ullmark’s GSAA this season thank you for respecting my privacy through this difficult time in my life.
- The Senators continue to pace the league defensively at five-on-five with 2.21 xGA/60 although their goaltending belies this fact. The Blues (2.46) also play good defence and suffer from lousy five-on-five goaltending. It seems bad that Ottawa has so much in common with a team very much out of the playoff picture but I choose to ignore this observation.
- At 6.87 xG/60 and 7.28 respectively, the Sens and Blues have two of the more toothless powerplays in the league. You know what that means, these teams will combine for ten special teams goals tonight.
- The Senators (6.85 xGA/60) and Blues (6.62) have two of the most effective penalty kills in the league by volume but both teams have also gotten poor goaltending results when shorthanded. Go figure. All stats courtesy of https://www.naturalstattrick.com/
- Look for Ullmark in goal tonight. I dunno who’ll start for STL.
Senators Injuries: Thomas Chabot, Lars Eller, Shane Pinto
Blues Injuries: Torey Krug, Jimmy Snuggerud, Alexey Toropchenko
Where to watch/listen: SN1, TSN1200 @ 7PM EST
Senators lines from last game:
Tkachuk – Stützle – Zetterlund
Amadio – Pinto – Giroux
Perron – Cozens – Batherson
Cousins – Halliday – Greig
Sanderson – Spence
Kleven – Matinpalo
Gilbert – Jensen
Blues lines from last game:
Neighbours – Thomas – Schenn
Holloway – Suter – Kyrou
Kaskimaki – Dvorsky – Buchnevich
Joseph – Sundqvist – Bjugstad
Broberg – Parayko
Tucker – Faulk
Fowler – Mailloux
