Breaking: The Senators announced this morning that defenseman Mark Borowiecki has signed a two year extension worth $2.4M (AAB of 1.2M per season). A signing that is sure to make a majority of Sens fans extremely happy given his popularity (said with tongue firmly in cheek)
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After a relatively short summer that seemed to drag on much longer, the puck gets dropped for real tonight in a battle of the capitals.
The Ottawa Senators will face off against the Washington Capitals, but representing Capital cities is pretty much where the similarities between these franchises end.
The Senators were playoff overachievers last season and will be looking to make some noise again, but are by no means a sure thing to get back to the dance. On the other hand, the Capitals had yet another playoff disaster as a follow up to a President's Trophy regular season. The window on the Capitals current core might be closing, and some would suggest it has already slammed shut.
Neither team made any huge off-season additions, and in fact both lost key players (Marc Methot, Marcus Johansson for example) and will be looking internally for improvement.
From a couple of different lineup updates, it looks like the Capitals might start the season with Alex Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom on different lines, which would be a departure from past history.
The Caps lineup will apparently look something like:
Ovechkin - Kuznetsov - Vrana Burakovsky - Backstrom - Oshie Connolly - Eller - Chiasson Graovac - Beagle - Smith-Pelly
Orlov - Niskanen Orpik - Carlson Ness - Chorney
While I wouldn't rule anything out completely, Erik Karlsson is not expected to be in the lineup tonight, so the Senators will need to put forth a full team effort. They have been practicing with the following lineup:
Smith - Turris - Hoffman Stone - Brassard - Ryan Dzingel - Brown - Burrows Pageau - Thompson - Pyatt
Phaneuf - Claesson Oduya - Ceci Borowiecki - Wideman
at least to start the game, which will probably last about 10 minutes given Guy Boucher's propensity to mix things up early and often.
If there is one thing you could say about the Senators of last season, it was that they tended to play well against better teams, as their record against playoff teams would indicate.
It is certainly going to be touch and go until Karlsson can come back, and that Sens blue line as a group isn't going to have many teams quaking in their skates. But, the system is the system and if everyone pulls in the same direction, and they get solid goaltending then the Senators have the ability to be in most games.
Its been a long summer, enjoy the opener and let the grind begin!