G76: Islanders @ Senators

A couple of quick notes in preparation for Wednesday night's game against the New York Islanders.

(1) I guess the big story leading up to today's game is about captain Jason Spezza. Spezza, who missed Monday's game against Carolina with a lower-back injury, told media in attendance he was ready to return on Wednesday. From what I gather, he expanded on that point to Ian Mendes sometime thereafter, telling him he wanted to return in full capacity -- regular shift at five-on-five, and the like.

And then, two minutes later:

Kind of funny timing, I guess.

So, back to the ward with Colin Greening and Jared Cowen, who will also miss today's game. Replacing them: Matt Kassian/JG Pageau and Cody Ceci, respectively.

Cody Ceci will skate alongside Patrick Wiercioch, with Matt Kassian getting another round of fourth-line minutes alongside Zack Smith and Chris Neil.

And yes, this keeps together Monday's fantastic trio of Milan Michalek, Mika Zibanejad, and Ales Hemsky. We'll see if they can drill Long Island the same way they did Carolina on Monday.

(2) I regret even putting forth a space towards playoff discussion that involves the Ottawa Senators, mostly because barring some incredible run of fortune -- which not only includes basically running out the season 6-0-1 or 7-0-0, but requires teams like Detroit and Columbus to taper a bit -- the club's going to miss. Monte Carlo simulations have them basically just as dead as Toronto. Math sucks sometimes.

But, I will concede that if Ottawa can take care of business against New York today and Montreal on Friday, things start getting a bit interesting.

That's all I'm going to say on the playoff matter, though. This team buried itself with that brutal October/November and post-Olympic stretch, enough to virtually guarantee that they'll miss the playoffs.

(But it would be cool if they made these games moderately watchable/relevant.)

Thanks for reading!