The Sens head to Jersey tonight, looking to extend their winning streak to 5 games, in a battle of the walking wounded. Both teams are many injuries and you may not recognize half the players tonight.For the Devils, they are missing Rob Niedermayer, Paul Martin, Johnny Oduya, Jay Pandolfo and Dainius Zubrus. The Sens will be looking to exploit their lack of depth tonight, but it can still be quite difficult, as the legendary Martin Brodeur will be in between the pipes. He will looking to tie the all time shoutout record tonight, hopefully we can avoid the milestone. The devils have won 4 straight at home after a rocky start, so should be a good game.
Not to be outdone, the Sens also have a bunch of injuries to be concerned with. Of course Anton Volchenkov is still out but is close to returning, Alexei Kovalev won't suit up tonight but will be back in the lineup tomorrow, Shean Donovan continues to sit with his horrific injury and Pascal Leclaire with his brutal luck, is of course out.
The unexpected news we found out today of course, is that red hot Mike Fisher hurt himself in practice yesterday and will not play tonight. That's a lot of talent not playing tonight, against a very hard working team. Of course Brian Elliott will get the start in net tonight and Mike Brodeur (no relation) was called up to replace Pascal.
Prediction: The Devils are always hard to play against with their annoying trap can stiffle even the best offences, but I see a big, gutsy effort from the Sens tonight, especially guys like Neil, Ruutu, Winchester, Shannon etc. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say the Sens pull off a very hard fought, simple road game. Sens win 3-1.
Thoughts?
2 comments:
I think the Sens played a good team game tonight, however some players (Spezza) just have to be hungrier around the net. Injuries are going to force the issue here because there really is no one else left to put the puck in the net. The Sens have to go without a powerplay once again, even though Rutuu got cut open right in front of the ref, this is getting very frustrating.
Phillips continues to impress, he had a huge hit in the third. I think Picard actually played well tonight and did good to come back after being buried by Peters.
Michalek has to use his speed like he did on that break more than once per game. If he is playing with Spezza and Alfredsson he could really create some space for them if he can back the D off with his speed.
I think Elliot played great, although he does seem to have trouble tracking the puck sometimes.
Spezza has 0 goals and 2 assists for 2 points and a -4 in his last 9 games. Although he is playing better defensively, he is still below average in his own end. He is moving his feet but just does not seem to have chemistry with his linemates, I would suggest playing him with Kovie when he returns.
Hopefully Fisher is not hurt that badly.
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