Unfortunately for the Ottawa Senators, the Toronto Maple Leafs had a very disappointing effort on Thursday night against the Rangers, and coach Mike Babcock let them have it through the media on Friday for their lack of competitiveness. You can bet they will be coming out tonight at home with some energy because Babcock will not allow them to put out that type of effort in consecutive games even if the execution is not there.

Fortunately for the Senators, the Leafs will be without lynch-pin blueliner Morgan Rielly, whose absence from the game against the Rangers was a big reason for the Leafs' lack of cohesion and disorganization.

These two teams met a week ago in Ottawa, and it was the Senators who lacked cohesion, with defensive zone breakdowns and giveaways abound in the 4-2 loss. Since then the Senators have put together a couple of nice road wins in St. Louis and Columbus, not playing perfect games but doing enough to win in different ways. In St. Louis is was the offense that put up 6 goals to make up for some iffy goaltending and two days later it was Mike Condon who stole the show with a 43 save shutout against the Blue Jackets.

The Leafs followed up their win against the Senators with another win over the Sabres, followed by the 5-2 loss to the Rangers.

This is looking even more like a potential first round match-up than it did at this time last week, with the Senators tied with Boston, 2 points up on the Maple Leafs, with the Ontario teams each now holding six games in hand on their Massachusetts rivals. It will be an exciting stretch run that could see an April renewal of the Battle of Ontario.

One player that unfortunately won't be part of that stretch run will be Clarke MacArthur, who Pierre Dorion announced yesterday will be shut down for the season, and in all possibility, ending his career on a sour note.

The Senators will be looking to use some of the money they gain on MacArthur's bad news (80% of his salary will be covered by insurance) to possibly try to replace him but by all accounts the asking price is very high and it certainly won't be an easy task.

Aside from missing MacArthur on the ice, give the doctors and the team credit for putting the player's health first and even though MacArthur feels good and wants to play, clearer heads are prevailing and since they aren't comfortable clearing him they are using the proper precautions to make sure he can still have a life away from the rink. I am sure once the final decision is made on whether or not he needs to hang up the skates for good, that the team will find a role for him off the ice if that is what he chooses to do after he comes to terms with the fact that his on-ice days might be over.

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