I'm not really sure what kind of stretch run this is going to be for Ottawa -- they need a lot of help and basically need to win something like 24-points in the final 17-games to even be in the discussion for a playoff berth when the regular season ends.
But, it does feel like a stretch run. Especially after this week-long break. I guess that's the quirks of the schedule that every team experiences, but this one was truly bizarre. Ottawa played Monday night, then had four days off to prepare for Montreal on Saturday.
It's the first of five games in seven days -- a run of action that should give us much better understanding of where Ottawa sits with respect to playoff contention. It's not an easy slate, mind you. All five of their opponents currently sit in playoff spots, with three of them in the Eastern Conference.
The good news is that they'll have Clarke MacArthur back for it all. He's been skating with Kyle Turris during the week, and it appears his hand has all healed up from that minor injury suffered against Calgary.
The bad news is that, for at least Saturday's game and maybe beyond, they're down Craig Anderson. Anderson, who took a beating in Monday's game against Nashville, has been mostly kept off of the ice this week. The team's already called up Nathan Lawson for Saturday's game, meaning Anderson will be a scratch and Robin Lehner gets the start.
I'm kind of interested to see how Ottawa performs against a Montreal team that they've been pretty comfortable playing against recently. The last game between the two sides was a wild one -- Ottawa totally controlled play, but Carey Price stood on his head for most of the night, and PK Subban beat Craig Anderson for the game-winner in overtime.
The lines, as I noted yesterday, look really good -- especially on the forward side of things. Defensively, I hold the same objections that everyone else does, but it's not something they'll be able to fix until the off-season.
At F:
MacArthur-Turris-Ryan Michalek-Spezza-Hemsky Greening-Smith-Neil Hoffman-Zibanejad-Condra
We'll see what happens tomorrow night.
Thanks for reading!