Stone most likely to inherit Neil’s vacant ‘A’
HUMP DAY DECISIONS
The Senators will make significant roster decisions on Wednesday, which puts an added importance on how prospects perform in the back-to-back games Monday and Tuesday.
The club will break into what will loosely be defined as an NHL group and an AHL group.
It’s possible that a player in the AHL group could dress for future exhibition games – the Senators host Montreal on Saturday and travel to Summerside, P.E.I. on Sunday for a Sept. 25 contest against the New Jersey Devils – but Boucher wants to get into smaller working groups as soon as possible.
SWISS HOPE
Pius Suter will play in his one and only pre-season game Monday against Toronto before returning to Switzerland, but don’t discount the possibility he could be back in the NHL at some point.
Suter, 21, scored 43 goals and 29 assists with Guelph of the OHL in 2014-15, is attending camp on an amateur tryout offer and has an obligation to return to Zurich in the Swiss League, the club formerly coached by Senators associate coach Marc Crawford.
While he’s short on NHL size (5-11, 165 pounds), he owns NHL speed. He’s also quite familiar with Maple Leafs star Auston Matthews. The two played on a line together in Zurich a few years ago.
“Yeah, he’s all right,” said Suter. “We had a couple of games together, playoffs too.”
And, he was asked, he helped Matthews score some points?
“Sure.”
EXERCISING CREASE CAUTION
Senators number one goaltender Craig Anderson could play half of Monday’s game against Toronto, but Boucher was promising nothing Sunday.
If there’s any concern about pushing him too hard, too early – Anderson didn’t see the ice Sunday – he won’t see action. In that case, Danny Taylor and Marcus Hogberg would each play half the game.
Anderson will not travel to Toronto for Tuesday’s game and Andrew Hammond is expected to play half of that contest.
Chris Driedger, meanwhile, continues to nurse a groin injury and hasn’t taken part in scrimmages during the past few days.