Traffic was a lot lighter driving into work this morning. Perhaps it was because it was the first really cold day of the season and it was also the first appearance of the white stuff on the ground that kept people inside a little longer.

Or perhaps it was because the Ottawa Senators play a rare non-holiday weekday afternoon game, or at least afternoon here in Ottawa.

It will be night when the Avalanche and Senators square off at the Globe Arena in Stockholm, Sweden, as the two clubs kick off their Global Series with the first of back to back contests, with a 2:00 PM Eastern time start.

Front and centre will be Matt Duchene, because even though in now seems like it has been a long time since the trade was made, this is the first opportunity to see him in a Senators uniform. Toss in the fact that he gets to face his former team and it is all the more intriguing.

Craig Anderson will start today's game, and as of this morning Guy Boucher hasn't decided (or if he has he hasn't publicized it) whether he would play with 7 defensemen and Ben Harpur gets in or if he will go with 12 forwards, and Nick Paul would make his season NHL debut in place of Jake Rodewald, who apparently will not play regardless of the deployment.

The Avalanche have overachieved a bit in my eyes so far this season, and it will be interesting to see how the team will react without Duchene, arguably their best player but one who has been rumored to be one the way out of town for a long time, and not only the player but the team has been playing in that shadow.

Like Ottawa, Colorado lost their last outing before departing for Sweden (the game in Brooklyn where Duchene was pulled out mid-game because of the trade), but won their previous 3 heading into that one.

Samuel Girard, the lone "now" piece they received in a trade "for the future" involving Duchene, will suit up for the Avs and could play on the first pairing with Tyson Barrie.

In addition to Duchene's debut, all local eyes will be on a trio of Swedes, as both clubs have Swedish captains in Erik Karlsson and Gabriel Landeskog, but Ottawa blueliner Freddie Claesson is a native of Stockholm and has been the tour guide for the Senators' entourage this week.

Other Swedish ties on the two franchises include Johnny Oduya and third goalie Marcus Hogberg from the Senators, as well as Patrick Nemeth and Anton Lindholm of the Avs, but both are injured, and Carl Soderberg is back in Denver awaiting the birth of his child so he will miss the opportunity to play in his home country. Of course, two of the best players to ever play for each franchise are Swedish - Peter Forsberg and Daniel Alfredsson, who both participated in a youth clinic yesterday as part of the festivities around the games.

This is the first time teams will have traveled abroad mid-season to play games that count. There was a 5 year stretch between 2007 and 2011 where multiple teams opened the season in Europe (including Ottawa vs Pittsburgh in 2008 at the very arena where they will play today) and then came back to North America to continue on from there.

It will be interesting to see how much wear and tear, and how much this mid-season travel takes away from the flow of the season. It was one of my concerns for Ottawa heading into the season, and I hope it is unfounded. I also expected it to be a relative cakewalk, not giving the Avalanche much respect before the year began, but they have put themselves on an 80+point pace early on.

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