Game Preview: Ottawa Senators vs. New York Rangers

Thursday March 8th, 2012

7:30 pm

SNET-E, Team 1200

7th East (35-25-8)VS.   1st East (42-16-7)

The Senators close out their four game series with the New York Rangers tonight at Scotiabank Place. The Senators have gone 2-1-0 against the Rangers so far this season, the most recent a strong 3-0 shutout victory, led by Jason Spezza’s two goals and Anderson’s 34 saves.

Sens are coming off a much needed bounce back win over the Tampa Bay Lightning. They made fans (for the most part) forget about their disappointing loss to the Panthers Sunday by scoring seven against the Lightning and getting a much needed two points. Milan Michalek joined an exclusive club as one of only three NHL-ers to ever record a hat trick with the help of two empty net goals, the other two being Lemieux and Dionne. Ben Bishop made 25 saves but allowed three goals in his debut as an Ottawa Senator. He picked up the win however and will get the start again tonight.

It will certainly be a tough task though as the Rangers currently sit first in the league with 91 points in 65 games. They lost their most recent though against the conference rival New Jersey Devils. A 4-1 loss Tuesday made it three straight games where Lundqvist has allowed at least 3 goals. With a Sens team who scored 7 goals on Tuesday and 40 in their last ten (an average of 4 goals per game), the Rangers defense will need to be better if they want to win. One significant change will be that Martin Biron is starting in net. For the Senators, it’s certainly something they should try and take advantage of early o by just getting shots on net.

Sens forward Jesse Winchester seems to be getting closer to a return but isn’t quite ready yet. With the offense and secondary scoring finally regaining it’s touch Tuesday the line-up will likely remain the same. This means Konopka, Butler and Carkner are expected to be the healthy scratches.

Player To Watch:

Ottawa: Ben Bishop – Bishop went 2-1-0 in his three games in Bingo while posting a 2.35 GAA and .944 save percentage. He made his Senators debut Tuesday against Tampa Bay and played fairly well though he wasn’t overly tested. It is certainly unfair to make any judgements on a single game however and it will be interesting to see how he perfoms tonight as he is officially welcomed by the Scotiabank crowd.

Check back here after the game for SenShot’s full game recap. Enjoy the game and GO SENS GO!