The Need To Knows
- The Time: 7pm PT
- The Place: Climate Pledge Arena in beautiful Seattle, Washington
- Place to Watch: ROOT Northwest, TSN-5, ESPN+, RDS
- Place to Listen: KJR 93.3 FM
- An Opposing Viewpoint: Silver Seven Sens
Know Your Enemy
- The Sens are 14-19-0, and in a bit of a rut; a 3-7-0 record and 28 points in the NHL Standings. That puts them dead last in the Atlantic Division. They’re also coming off an absolute drubbing by Vancouver, they lost to the Canucks on Tuesday 6-3.
- The leading scorer on the Sens is Brady Tkachuk, who has 16 goals in 33 games. He also far and away leads the Sens in penalty minutes with 88, so expect for this little s#!thead (for given definition of “little”) to be trying to get involved in something.
- The points leader for the Sens is Tim Stützle, who has 34 points in 33 games, and all but 7 of those are assists. Unsurprisingly, he’s dishing out a lot to guys like Drake Batherson (who has 14 goals in 30 games) and Vlad Tarasenko, who have some real shooting talent.
- Josh Norris is the power play goal-getter for Ottawa; he’s got 5 in 30 games as a team lead. Not seem like much? That’s a symptom of their anemic power play; they’ve had a 17.5% success rate. In fairness, they really haven’t needed it; they’re 2nd in the league in goals-for at evens, rocking a 3.02.
- However, their goaltending hasn’t been able to keep up with that power. Their starter is Joonas Korpisalo, and he’s currently rocking a .889 SV%. Anton Forsberg behind him isn’t much better.
Game Preview
Welcome the Sens to Climate Pledge for the final time!
Last time these two teams met it was an inglorious 2-0 shutout on Ottawa’s part, but since that point the Kraken have picked up their play tremendously, and Ottawa has just remained…themselves. Hell, a lot’s changed since their last meeting; their coach has been replaced, their GM has been switched, and they’ll likely spend their trade deadline either rapidly selling or buying in order to try and salvage this nightmare of a season they’re having.
Partially the reason the Sens have been so rough to play these days is that penalty trouble is that the Sens are in the back-half of the league in Expected Goals-Against at 20th, Unblocked shot attempts-against at 21st, and in shot attempts against in general at 25th. Their system under DJ Smith was woefully inadequate at running a defense, and so far under their defensively minded new coach Jacques Martin the Senators have been…mostly the same. As a result, a team so many people would’ve had in the playoffs this year has been getting run out of most of the buildings they’ve been in, not just their own.
Of course, part of staying on top of them and the Kraken’s win streak continuing is still keeping up. For as bad as their defense and goaltending is, their offense is world class; Tkachuk, Tarasenko, Norris, Stützle, and Giroux are a nightmare to deal with even on their worst nights, so if the Kraken want to beat them, they need to keep that offense to a bare minimum and make their goalies’ night as easy as you can make it. No shots in the middle, no 2-on-1s if you can help it, and for god’s sake stay out of the box. Even if the Kraken’s penalty kill has been alright recently, that’s not a guarantee. They need to contain and then attack at all opportunities.
Oh yeah, and stay out of whatever nonsense that Tkachuk kid starts. That’ll be a huge way to not get blown up.
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