Every team has stretches in their schedule that are tougher than others, and times where you just need to get through them to see the light at the other end.
Well, the Ottawa Senators have had it fairly easy over the first six weeks of the season, and they have capitalized on it nicely.
After Saturday afternoon's visit from the Coyotes, it gets much tougher.
With the Roar of the Rings Olympic Qualifying curling bonspiel kicking them out of Canadian Tire Centre for a couple of weeks in early December, the Sens will end up playing 10 of 11 on the road and will have 4 sets of back to backs between now and December 16th.
Bobby Ryan will be back in the lineup on Thursday, as will Mark Borowiecki. Both players missed the great Swedish excursion with injuries and illnesses respectively and will be fresh and ready to go, with their longest road trip being to Belleville to skate with the B-Sens.
Two areas where the Senators will have to be better than they have been of late are the penalty kill and goaltending.
The PK was the jewel of the Senators in the early season, ranking among the top teams in the league for a stint, but in their last 6 games they have allowed at least 1 power play goal against in each, for a total of 8 and their PK has fallen from 1st or 2nd to 22nd in the league right now and is below 80%. If they can't fix that quickly they will struggle to win on the road.
The goaltending of the Senators has also struggled, but fortunately the offense has been able to score their way out of trouble so it hasn't been as big a focus as maybe it should be. Absolutely, there have been a few goals that you can't blame the goalie for them going in, but the fact is that their team 5 on 5 save percentage is the third lowest in the league this season and they have allowed 3 or more goals in eight of their last 10 games.
You can get away with that for only so long before it will come up and bite you. The duo of Craig Anderson and Mike Condon are allowing the 12th most goals against per game, while the team is allowing the 6th fewest shots against per game. They haven't been terrible, but they have to be better as the schedule gets tougher and both goalies will see significant ice time.
That is the bad, but there is plenty to be excited about for the Senators.
Mark Stone and Erik Karlsson have been dominant offensively, and Mike Hoffman is on a league-high 8 game point streak. The boring Senators have used their counter-attack system and under-reported offensive zone pressure have the 3rd most potent offense in the league (behind a couple of other Atlantic Division rivals in Tampa and Toronto).
After a stretch of only playing 2 games in 12 days (and those being on back to back afternoons), it will be nice to get back to a regular busy schedule beginning tomorrow night when the Senators host the defending Stanley Cup Champions, and the team that knocked them out of their Cinderella playoff run last year, the Pittsburgh Penguins.