After an evening of celebrating Washington Capitals forward Alex Ovechkin for tying Wayne Gretzky's NHL career goals record, Ottawa Senators fans turn their attention back to their team's pursuit of a playoff spot on Saturday afternoon. The Senators will host the Florida Panthers, the defending Stanley Cup champions, for a 2:00 p.m. matinee start at Canadian Tire Centre.
Both teams will be without some key players. Senators captain Brady Tkachuk, who has missed the last two games with an upper-body injury, isn't expected to play in either game this weekend. He was hurt last Sunday after accidentally running into Penguins defenceman Ryan Graves, who was standing in the neutral zone minding his own business.
If this is just a nagging minor injury, Sens fans are more than glad to see Tkachuk get this time off. But since it's a relatively new issue, it's hard to know if this is something that could affect his playoff status. Right now, he's not even skating.
Florida is also without their Tkachuk brother and captain. Mind you, those are two different people.
Matthew Tkachuk has a lower-body injury and likely won’t return until the playoffs. Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov, who has an upper-body injury, also won’t play this weekend. The Panthers will also be without Nico Sturm and Dmitry Kulikov due to injuries, along with Aaron Ekblad. Ekblad is out until Game 3 of the playoffs due to a 20-game suspension for violating the terms of the league's Performance Enhancing Substances Program.
The champs have lost three games in a row, all to Canadian teams (two against Montreal and one against Toronto), and the Senators would like to keep them on that track. A Sens win on Saturday would start to make things a little uncomfortable for the Panthers, who would have seven games to play and only a four-point lead over Ottawa.
That said, reeling in the Panthers might not be in the Senators' best interest. As things stand now, that would likely give them a matchup with the Tampa Bay Lightning in the first round—a less favourable matchup than facing the Leafs. Ottawa swept Toronto with a 3-0 record this year.
In their last game, the Senators defeated the Lightning 2-1 on Thursday night, but only because of the heroics of goalie Linus Ullmark, who looked every bit like a former Vezina Trophy winner.
Concerns about seeding, though, are not a priority for this group—breaking the NHL’s third-longest active playoff drought remains the prime directive. Entering play on Saturday, the Senators remain 7 points above the playoff cut line with seven games to play in the Eastern Conference.
The Sens may need a shift or two to get used to Brad Marchand in a Panther uniform. After 16 years as a division rival in Boston, the Bruins traded Marchand to Florida at the deadline. He's off to a slow start, with just one assist in his first four games.
The Sens didn’t have a full skate on Friday, and with a 2 p.m. start, there’s no Saturday morning skate either. So these are the best-guess line combinations, based on recent games.
Senators Projected Lineup (NHL.com)
Claude Giroux – Tim Stutzle – Fabian Zetterlund
Ridly Greig – Shane Pinto – Michael Amadio
Matthew Highmore – Adam Gaudette – Angus Crookshank
Jake Sanderson – Artem Zub
Thomas Chabot – Nick Jensen
Tyler Kleven – Nikolas Matinpalo
Scratched: Dennis Gilbert, Travis Hamonic
Injured: Nick Cousins (knee), Brady Tkachuk (upper body)
Panthers Projected Lineup (NHL.com)
Jesper Boqvist – Sam Bennett – Sam Reinhart
Eetu Luostarinen – Anton Lundell – Brad Marchand
Carter Verhaeghe – Evan Rodrigues – Mackie Samoskevich
A.J. Greer – Tomas Nosek – Jonah Gadjovich
Gustav Forsling – Seth Jones
Niko Mikkola – Nate Schmidt
Jaycob Megna – Uvis Balinskis
Injured: Matthew Tkachuk (lower body), Dmitry Kulikov (upper body), Nico Sturm (upper body), Aleksander Barkov (upper body)
Suspended: Aaron Ekblad