UPDATE: Indeed, Greening, Wiercioch and Hoffman will be the healthy scratches. Lehner starts in goal and Sergei Bobrovsky will miss the game with a fractured finger. Curtis McElhinney will start for Columbus.
The Ottawa Senators will take to the ice in Columbus to face the Blue Jackets for the second time in 11 days tonight, and it could mark the return to the lineup of the much maligned Jared Cowen (but more on that a little later).
Ottawa is still looking for the right formula to play a full game and to get the opposition under 30 shots per game, a feat they have achieved just once in 7 games this season (Saturday's loss to New Jersey)
Robin Lehner will get the call between the pipes, having beat the Blue Jackets on October 18th at Canadian Tire Centre. Lehner made 38 saves in that Saturday night game, many of the spectacular variety.
Meanwhile, another player who had a pretty spectacular game against Columbus, Mike Hoffman, could be the victim of the numbers game as there was speculation after practice that he and Colin Greening could come out of the lineup in favor of Curtis Lazar and Mark Stone. The young pair were scratched for the second half of the back to back nights in Chicago.
Columbus is returning home from Los Angeles, where they fell 5-2 to the Kings and "That 70's line". That ended a 2-2 road trip that started in Ottawa before they headed out west for the California trip. They beat San Jose before losing to Anaheim and the Kings.
On a good note, Nick Foligno could be in the lineup for the Blue Jackets just two days after the former Senators forward was stretchered off the ice at Staples Center. He was injured in a freak collision with a linesman who was sitting on the boards to get out of the way of the play, and Jeff Carter rode Foligno into the official head first.
The Blue Jackets penalty kill that had served them so well through the Ottawa game, where they were a perfect 11 for 11 and obviously the top ranked unit in the league, struggled in Cali. They allowed 4 PP goals on 13 chances, so that is something that Ottawa's power play can try to capitalize on. Ottawa's play with the man advantage has been average and they seem to be trying to set up perfect plays instead of keeping it simple, letting Erik Karlsson fire from the point and getting traffic for a deflection or rebound. In my opinion, once you get that established (even if it isn't successful), teams have to respect the shot and THEN you can move it around a bit and try for the tic-tac-toe.
ON TO THE COWEN STORY
The story through two games of the season was the play of Jared Cowen. While I though his first game was decent, and many of you disagreed vehemently with me, by no means was it great. His second game was worse, and he has been sitting in the press box since. Well, if he should get the opportunity to get back into the lineup against Columbus, it is a chance to play a simpler game and focus on the defensive side of the game.
The last 5 games have shown that you can't put the blame for anything squarely on the shoulders of Cowen, because the blue line as a whole has struggled in his absence just as much as it did with him in the lineup. Patrick Wiercioch had a good game or two, but I feel that was more of a reaction to wanting him to succeed so badly that you forgive the mistakes because he wasn't Cowen. Wiercioch has struggled badly in the last couple of games and it is time to see if the banishment to the press box has had the intended effect.
HOW DOES THIS AFFECT MARC METHOT?
After all is said and done, the answer might be a rotation on the blue line until Marc Methot is healthy enough to get into the lineup, an event that cannot come soon enough. Also, Methot and his agent must be sitting back and watching their bank accounts grow with each game that the Senators can't get out of their own end consistently enough. It wouldn't surprise me if the Methot camp takes a harder stance now that the Senators have seen the blue line without him, and actually raises their asking price back to the $5.5M per year range, simply because they can. If Methot can come in and settle the blue line down, then his leverage increases even more than it is now. And at the moment I don't think you would find many Senators fans who would complain about giving Methot in excess of $5M per.
The game is on TSN5 tonight with puck drop shortly after 7:00 pm.