Is it the calm before the storm for the Ottawa Senators, as most things have been pretty quiet in the last couple of days. With not much chance of moving up, or falling down in the standings the Senators simply need to focus on doing the right thing and learning how to win for the sake of the future.
They head out on the road today and face another team in a very similar situation standings-wise, but one that is in entirely different in terms of their franchise cycle.
While the Senators have a bright future with just a core of very young players sprinkled with a couple of veterans who have been core players but are slowly being phased out, six of the the Devils' top 10 scorers are 34 years of age or older (Jagr, Elias, Zidlicky, Gomez, Ryder and Havlat).
This could be the final time the Senators face soon to be 43 year old Jaromir Jagr, although we have been saying this for years and he hasn't hung them up yet. Jagr has been a thorn in the side of the Senators throughout his career, with 79 points in 67 career games against Ottawa (it might be fitting that this could be the 68th and final career game for #68 against OTT). He has scored the winning goal against Ottawa 9 times in his career, including his OT winner that snapped a 4 game Ottawa winning streak early in the season.
Ottawa is coming off a rather impressive 2nd half in a 7-2 win over the Arizona Coyotes, scoring 6 times in the final 24 minutes. The team practiced with the same lineup forward lines yesterday, with the lone change on the blue line being Patrick Wiercioch in for Chris Phillips. That change means that Phillips will likely play his franchise record-breaking 1,179th game when the Sens host Washington on Thursday, and barring that against Columbus on Saturday.
If the Senators can build on the offensive momentum that they created against Arizona, I like the balance of the lines, with 3 units that have the potential to score on a regular basis, and a 4th line that can chip in on occasion like Pageau did on Saturday.
Robin Lehner will get his third start in a row, with Andrew Hammond still backing him up as Craig Anderson is still not able to hold a stick with his hand injury. After shaky starts in each of his last two appearances, Lehner will look to be solid from the start this time around and avoid the early goal against, even though the Senators have a better record when they get scored on first than when they score first.