Tampa Bay Lightning at Ottawa Senators: Who are these Senators?

Tampa Bay Lightning at Ottawa Senators: GAME# 14

Time: 7:00 pm Eastern Time

Location: Canadian Tire Centre, Ottawa (well Kanata, really) Canada

Broadcast/Streaming: NHL-N, TVAS, SN, SunS

Opponent SBNation Site: Silver Seven Sens

Preview:

The Lightning wrap up their brief trip through Canada with a stop in Ottawa to take on a surprisingly not horrible Senators team. At the beginning of the season it was assumed that they were destined to be one of the worst teams ever assembled (or unassembled). Instead, they have been...ok.

They’ve also been a bit inconsistent which was bound to happen when you trade your best defender (Erik Karlsson) and forward (Mike Hoffman). Oh and the injuries. So many injuries. They started with one win in their first four games. Then they won three games in a row. Four losses followed those wins. A win 4-2 win against the Buffalo Sabres stopped the bleeding but they did give up 48 shots in the loss.

Giving up shots is a bit of an art form for the Senators. Through Friday night’s game they’ve given up a league high 38.5 shots per game. Forty-six of those shots have found the back of the net. That’s not surprising given the relative youth of their defense (Erik Burgdoerfer is the oldest at 29) and the turmoil the team has gone through as a whole.

There have been some bright spots in what was supposed to be a dark season. Thomas Chabot (aka Hotsam Batcho) has stepped into the Karlsson void to lead the team with 15 points. Matt Duchene is playing like someone who is a free agent next summer and wants to keep making at least $6 million a year (4 goals and 8 assists).

Craig Anderson has done his best as the team’s last line of defense, posting a .914 save percentage while facing 420 shots in 11 games. Former Lightning netminder (who should get the start) Mike McKenna was just recalled to serve as his backup after Mike Condon and his $2.4 million cap hit was sent to Belleville.

As for the Lightning, they keep soldering on despite a couple of injuries. Victor Hedman and Ondrej Palat remain out of the line-up and while their fill-ins (Slater Koekkoek and Adam Erne) have filled in admirably, hopefully this is the last game they miss.

Louis Domingue is in line to make his fourth start of the season. His first two starts were solid as he stopped a total of 71 shots and won both games. His last outing was not pretty as he (with the lack of help from his team) gave up seven goals on just thirty shots against Arizona. Ottawa only generates about 28 shots per game so expect him to see less than the 35.3 he’s been seeing in his starts.

Worst Trade in History

There really haven’t been any standout horrible trades between the two franchises. There have been a lot of swapping of mid-round draft picks and a trade involving a General Manager (Rob Zamuner and a 2nd round pick for Andreas Johansson and the rights to Rick Dudley) but nothing egregious.

At the time Ben Bishop for Cory Conacher was hailed as a horrible deal as Conacher was a Calder candidate and Bishop an unproven goaltender moving on to his third franchise. That ended up turning out just fine.

So the choice is going to be a combination of two trades. The first deal made on June 4, 2000 where the Lightning traded Rich Parent for a 7th round pick in the 2000 draft. They never used the pick as three weeks later they traded it to Buffalo for a 2001 4th round pick and a 2001 9th round pick.

They used the 9th round pick on Ilya Solarev a Russian forward who never made it to America. The 7th round pick was traded to Ottawa along with a 4th round pick for a 2001 3rd round pick that they used on Evgeny Artyukhin. The Senators drafted a young goaltender by the name of Ray Emery with the fourth round pick and Jan Platil with the seventh.

While Artyukhin had a decent two-season run with the Bolts he was no Ray Emery. Rich Parent had a seven-game run for the Penguins in 2000-01 and then banged around the minors and Europe for awhile. Still that was more than the Lightning received out of the 7th round pick on it’s own.

Tampa Bay Lightning

Forward Lines

J.T. Miller - Steven Stamkos - Nikita Kucherov

Yanni Gourde - Brayden Point - Tyler Johnson

Alex Killorn - Anthony Cirelli - Mathieu Joseph

Adam Erne - Cedric Paquette - Ryan Callahan

Danick Martel

Defense Pairings

Ryan McDonagh - Anton Stralman

Braydon Coburn - Mikhail Sergachev

Slater Koekkoek - Dan Girardi

Cameron Gaunce

Goaltenders

Louis Domingue

Andrei Vasilevskiy

Senators Lines

Forward Lines

Ryan Dzingel - Matt Duchene - Mark Stone

? - Chris Tierney - Bobby Ryan

Nick Paul - Colin White - Mikkel Boedker

Max McCormick - Tom Pyatt - Magnus Paajarvi

Defense Pairings

Thomas Chabot - Dylan DeMelo

Maxime Lajoie - Cody Ceci

Chris Wideman - Christian Jaros

Goalies

Craig Anderson

Mike McKenna