After a heartbreaking collapse to the Maple Leafs on Saturday night, the Senators head out on the road for a mini two game trip to Central Division locales.
Up first is the Minnesota Wild, a team that has recently got a little more healthy as Zach Parise is getting up to full speed after missing the first part of the season with injury. He has played 8 games since his return Jan 2nd, and scored his first goal of the season in Saturday's 5-2 win over the Lightning.
That leaves Nino Niederreiter as the lone Wild player on the injury list, while the Senators are not so lucky. Johnny Oduya will likely miss the game in Minnesota, meaning Freddie Claesson will get back into the lineup. Well, maybe in this case they are lucky because that is the move I think a majority of Senators fans have wanted anyway, Claesson in and Oduya out. But in addition to Jean-Gabriel Pageau and Nate Thompson being questionable from previous injuries, Mark Stone and Alex Burrows are also not 100% although they are expected to play. I think the whole Senators fan base held their breath seeing Stone on the ice after a collision with Jake Gardiner and then hitting the boards knee-first, because Stone has been the Senators best and most consistent player, and on a lot of nights the only reason to tune in to the disaster of a season so far. He came back and left a couple of times, but still managed two assists and played 21 and a half minutes in the loss.
The Senators have called up Chris DiDomenico and defenseman Erik Burgdoerfer from Belleville for tonight's game, probably as insurance against someone getting a paper cut today or something along those lines.
Guy Boucher cancelled the planned skate before leaving for Minnesota, citing the desire not to have any more injuries. I am not suggesting a full contact practice or a bad skate, but getting players on the ice to work on things that haven't been going well, which at this point is almost everything, might be a good idea.
On Hockey Night in Canada the story was related that GM Pierre Dorion met with the players and coaches on Friday, trying to figure out what has gone wrong. I am not sure if he really got any solid answers, it being an open forum, but the word "tense" was used to describe the meeting. Unless he is meeting with players and coaches individually, I am not sure any fingers would be pointed so it was probably a pretty pointless meeting.