It’s a battle of the Bag Heads tonight. The Edmonton Oilers are in Ottawa to take on the Senators. After a busy trade deadline season for the Senators they will march on through the rest of the season without their top line of Dzingel- Duchene – and Stone as all three were traded away as pending UFA’s for picks and prospects mostly. The Senators are currently last place in the NHL with a meagre 49 points. For reference the Oilers who are in the midst of their own miserable season have 59 points, a whole 5 more wins than the Senators points wise. To make matters worse for Ottawa fans besides the fact that they traded away their entire top line, and over the summer traded away their best defensemen in Erik Karlsson, leaving the roster completely decimated. They gave up this year’s 1st round pick to the Colorado Avalanche in exchange for Duchene who lasted only a season in the Nation’s Capital city.
The Senators did have the choice to give the Avalanche last year’s 1st round pick which ended up 4th overall, with which they took Brady Tkachuk who is a very good player and will be for a long time. They bet on themselves to do better this year but that has not been the case. Now they have to give Colorado this year’s 1st and it’s looking very likely to be the number 1 overall pick and the highly coveted Jack Hughes who is projected to be much better than Tkachuk. Another misstep in what has seemed to be a multitude of missteps for this organization.
I am writing many words about Ottawa’s misfortunes because it helps me forget how bad the Oilers were last night (especially) and throughout this season as a whole. It makes me feel better to think, hey at least we aren’t Ottawa and we still have Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl who is on pace to score 50 goals this year. That’s something to look forward too. McDavid can also push to set a new career high in points this season for the 4th straight season of his career. Nugent-Hopkins has now tied his career high in points as of last night, his next point will be a new personal best. Looking on the positive side is something nice to do for a change, instead of grumbling about how bad the Oilers are all the time.
The Oilers are coming off a stinker of a game last night, and who better to play to set them back on the right path than the last place Senators. With playoff’s all but a dream at this point, a win tonight is still just a moral victory that has a 2 point bonus.
Lineups
Oilers (Based on @EdmontonJack description via Twitter)
RNH – McDavid – Kassian
Rieder – Draisaitl – Chiasson
Lucic – Cave – Currie
Gagner – Malone – Rattie
Klefbom – Larsson
Nurse – Russell
Sekera – Benning
Koskinen
Senators (Courtesy of http://www.DailyFaceoff.com)
Tkachuk – White – Duclair
Smith – Pageau – Ryan
Batherson – Tierney – Boedker
Paajarvi – Lindberg – Gibbons
Chabot – Demelo
Borowiecki – Ceci
Harpur – Jaros
Anderson
