I hope you all had a happy and safe holiday and got to celebrate the season with your family and friends.
Two teams that entered the Christmas break on different trends will square off at Madison Square Garden Wednesday night, so one will be looking to continue their run and the other will be looking to end theirs.
Ottawa is the team cruising, riding a four game winning streak and capturing nine out of their last ten available points. They ended the pre-Christmas portion of their schedule with a 2-1 overtime win over the Anaheim Ducks. Meanwhile, the host Rangers were the latest victims of the second-hottest team in the league, the Minnesota Wild. The Wild scored seven times on just 21 shots, chasing Henrik Lundqvist early in the second period.
That was the second straight game the Rangers had allowed 7, as the Penguins beat them 7-2 last Tuesday. You have to think that after those two games, the Rangers will looking for a better defensive effort against the Senators, who have averaged more than three and a half goals per game over their last 5 outings.
As you might expect by knowing the respective records heading in, the Senators have the recent edge in terms of the special teams battle. Ottawa has a power play goal in each of their last 3 games, and seven of their past nine, while the Rangers have allowed 5 power play goals against in their last 3 games and haven't scored a power play goal in their last 6 games (12 opportunities).
So while a lot of evidence trends towards the Senators having an edge, the Rangers are still the third place team in the league's toughest division and cannot ever be taken lightly. After allowing four goals on 13 shots in his last outing, you can be Lundqvist will come out with renewed focus to stop the bleeding for his club.
The Senators want to keep the momentum going, heading into Thursday's game, which will be an emotional night at home as they retire Daniel Alfredsson's #11. Games that follow those types of ceremony can go either way, and you never really know if it is going to be an emotional lift for the game that follows or if it will be a stinker because all of the emotion was spent in the ceremony. And with just 3 games including this one before the Senators go on their bye week, it is important to continue to grab as many points as they can and keep their momentum going, or in this case recapture it after four days off.
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It was a good opening day Monday for the five Senators prospects at the World Junior Championships. All five were winners in their icebreaker - Thomas Chabot (Canada), Colin White (USA), Filip Chlapik (CZE) and Filip Ahl & Jonathan Dahlen (SWE).
White had a goal and an assist and Dahlen tallied in their respective games while Chabot had an assist in Canada's 5-3 win over Russia.