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The Ottawa Senators shoot for a five game sweep on their longest homestand of the season tonight when former Sen Filip Gustavsson and the Minnesota Wild come to town at the Canadian Tire Center. At least it sounds like Anton Forsberg will be back in goal tonight but after the performance by Magnus Hellberg on Monday night against the Dallas Stars, Sens fans know they have capable goaltending if either player is between the pipes tonight. What I found odd coming out of the Dallas game was how DJ Smith told reporters after the game that he thought Forsberg would be starting in goal right up until the start of the game when he didn't take the pre-game skate. Then Hellberg said in his postgame interview that he was told after the morning skate he was 100% starting that night, nothing added up so I didn't understand the reason for DJ to lie to reporters.

Sens fans can expect Filip Gustavsson to get the start in goal against his former club. He has started two games this season, both resulting in losses but the Wild have struggled as a team so that comes as no surprise. If Gus does start, this will be the third backup goalie that Ottawa has faced on this homestand as both Boston and Dallas did the same.

It was great to see Derick Brassard score in the Sens' win over Dallas and as I mentioned in this spot on Monday, slotting him into the second center role was a no brainer as he had played well with Debrincat and Giroux in the pre-season while playing well on the 2nd PP unit too. DJ Smith made sure he had as little disruption as possible with his four lines by putting Brassard on the second line. This might not be a long solution but short term is all this team should be worried about right now, banking as many points as possible early in the season.

In two of the last three games, DJ has sat Erik Brnnstrom for large chunks of time after making one mistake. This happened against Dallas in the first period, when his mistake led to the Stars first goal. On the broadcast, both Dean Brown and Gord Wilson made mention how Brannstrom was struggling in the first half of the first period with his confidence but as the game went on he seemed to play much better. A player like Brannstrom shouldn't have to worry about making a mistake, but DJ, unfortunately, continues to have a double standard with his vets on defense versus Brannstrom. For whatever reason, DJ has screwed around with Brannstrom's confidence the last few years and it truly needs to stop!

I hope Sens fans show up in larger numbers tonight than they did on Monday night against Dallas when just over 12k fans showed up for a team playing the best hockey they've played in five seasons was very disappointing to see. I would hope more than 15k show up tonight before the Sens's hit the road for two games in Florida and Tampa Bay.

Quick sidenote from the AHL, Ridly Greig returned to the lineup last night for Belleville and recorded his first assist as Belleville beat Laval 3-2. Mads Sogaard remains out with an injury but Kevin Mandolese was huge for Belleville last night in stopping 31 of 33 shots. After listening to Troy Mann on TSN1200 yesterday, the top pairing of Dillon Heatherington and JBD has been huge for the team on the blue line to start the year. Cole Reinhardt has been terrific according to Mann and after watching the game last night, even the announcers said he seems to get at least one short-handed breakaway a game, who does that remind you of that has yet to be signed in Ottawa?! Egor Sokolov had a breakout game with 1G, 2A. Mann was also complimentary of Jarventie, Crookshank, and Lodin.

Lastly, when will management tell Mark Kastelic to get to a house in Ottawa? With the injury to Josh Norris, there's no way he will be sent back down to Belleville this season. A few people close to the Sens organization told me that ideally, the team would like Norris to get shoulder surgery so that the problem is fixed permanently rather than opting for rest/therapy. I think the team learned from last year with Shane Pinto as they rushed him back only to have him re-aggravate it and require season-ending surgery. By going the surgery route, the team would have a chance of getting Norris back before the end of the season. I'm sure Norris would like to opt for the 10-12 week route and forgo surgery with the hope of returning mid-season.

Predictions for tonight's game? Thoughts/comments on the blog topics?
Thanks for reading.

Kevin

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