Sens looking up, way up, at expansion cousins
The waiting game came to an end for centre Zack Smith.
After missing five games, the Ottawa Senators winger returned to the lineup Friday against the San Jose Sharks at the Canadian Tire Centre. Smith was taken off Ottawa’s injury-reserve list Friday and centre Filip Chlapik was sent back to the club’s AHL affiliate in Belleville.
Coach Guy Boucher is pleased to get Smith back.
“We can’t afford to lose those players,” he said. “The domino effect of who’s replacing those guys hurts too much compared to the quality of a guy like that.”
The Senators haven’t scored enough goals and Smith is willing to go to the net to make that happen.
“Scoring more goals is about the work at the net,” Boucher said. “Smitty is a guy that is first on puck, he drives, he goes to the net and he’s a bigger body.”
He should also help when the Senators welcome the high-flying Tampa Bay Lightning to Canadian Tire Centre on Saturday.
Nikita Kucherov is having a breakthrough season with a league-leading 26 goals and 57 points through the Lightning’s first 40 games.
Here are five things to watch for Saturday:
1.
No excuses
Boucher insisted the Sens ran out of gas in dropping a 5-0 decision to the Boston Bruins last Saturday. This is the second straight weekend his team is facing back-to-back home games. Nobody wants to hear that again.
2.
Win at home
This shouldn’t be that difficult, but it sure has been for the Senators. The team went into Friday’s visit by the Sharks with a 7-7-5 record at home. To make matters worse, one of those victories was in Sweden and the other was at Lansdowne Park. Pathetic.
3.
Score the first goal
It’s a novel concept, but it sure hasn’t been easy for the Sens to grasp. They had allowed the first goal 21 times before the Sharks came to town and had a 3-13-5 record in those games.
4.
Goals from Hoffman Since his name has surfaced in trade rumours, cries have been coming from everywhere to not deal high-scoring winger Mike Hoffman. OK, but how about he gets back to being high scoring? He had zero goals in 14 games before facing the Sharks.
5.
Special teams step up They’ve changed the responsibilities of assistant coaches Marc Crawford and Martin Raymond, so it’s time to see improvement in the power play and the penalty kill. The Senators are in the bottom half of the league in both categories.