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Game Day: Senators host Maple Leafs in curtain dropper |
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Finally, after what felt like a never-ending off-season, the puck drops Wednesday night for real.
The Ottawa Senators host rival Toronto Maple Leafs in a tale of two opposite teams. Despite stating that no jobs were safe heading into the off-season, the Senators return largely the same roster with which it ended the season (injuries aside).
With Curtis Lazar getting sent to Binghamton (a year too late in my opinion) to get into game shape after finally getting cleared to play from his bout with mono, and Clarke MacArthur being placed on IR, the Senators roster stands at 22 players.
Craig Anderson will start in goal, to nobody's surprise.
The defense corps will also see no surprises as they will line up like:
Erik Karlsson - Marc Methot
Cody Ceci - Dion Phaneuf
Mark Borowiecki - Chris Wideman
As I said on Monday, Thomas Chabot has made the team for now, but will not play in the opener.
Up front, there could still be many moving pieces, but these are the lines that were used in practice on Tuesday:
Mike Hoffman - Kyle Turris - Mark Stone
Zack Smith - Derick Brassard - Bobby Ryan
Phil Varone - Jean-Gabriel Pageau - Tom Pyatt
Chris Neil - Chris Kelly - Ryan Dzingel
It looks like Matt Puempel will be the odd man out, at least for now. He couldn't earn a top 6 spot and isn't really suited to a checking role in the NHL.
The biggest change for the Senators comes behind the bench, where Guy Boucher and his associate coach Marc Crawford have been busy installing their system that has worked primarily on reducing shots and scoring chances against, as well as special teams. Both aspects were abysmal last season and near the bottom of the league, so there really is nowhere to go but up.
On the other hand, the Maple Leafs continue their rebuild, and will ice a lineup that will probably field 6 rookies, most notably Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner. Mike Babcock and Lou Lamoriello have jettisoned many veterans and have gone full youth movement and will have as many as 7 players on their roster with less than 70 games of NHL experience and will be one of, if not the youngest team in the league.
It is tough to predict how long it will take for this Toronto team to be competitive, but at the very least it will be fun for Leafs fans to watch this group grow together. All eyes will be on Matthews, the first #1 overall draft pick in Leafland since Wendel Clark was drafted before many of you were born, but the most important rookie might just be Russian free agent Nikita Zaitsev. The first-year blueliner is slated for a top pairing assignment alongside Morgan Rielly and will be a key in stabilizing the defense.
I will do my predictions on Friday as to where I think the Senators fit in the Atlantic Division, but a lot of it will depend on how quickly they adapt to Boucher's system. It was hit and miss in the pre-season, and now the games count for real and mistakes aren't as forgivable.
Enjoy Opening Night, it has been a long time coming.
Ottawa Senators Blogger • 
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