Despite being activated from the injured reserve, Ottawa Senators goaltender Linus Ullmark will miss his ninth consecutive game. Despite taking part in regular practice drills at practice, the Swedish netminder will not play in Tuesday's home game against Alexander Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals. Samuel Ersson will make his third straight start for the Senators, and prospect Jackson Parsons will back him up.
Luckily for the Senators, Ersson has held down the fort between the pipes and has led his team to three straight wins over his last three starts. Over his last five games, he has an impressive 0.922 save percentage and looks far more confident in net. If Ullmark continues to miss time, hopefully Ersson can keep stealing points for the Ottawa Senators, who currently sit in the first wild-card spot in the Atlantic Division.
The rat is back
Despite the Ullmark setback, all signs point to forward Ridly Greig returning to the lineup after missing the last two games with a lower-body injury. This should give the Senators some more consistency in their forward lines, which head coach Travis Green has been mixing around each night.
It seems as if the workhorse from Whitehorse, Dylan Cozens, will be back on the team’s top line as centre Tim Stützle’s right winger, with Fabian Zetterlund on the left side. This line has been used in three games so far this season and with just over 22 minutes played together, they have an excellent 76.2% expected goals percentage, as per Money Puck. The line with the most remarkable expected goals percentage of 86.7% will also be reunited as Greig re-enters the lineup between Michael Amadio and Claude Giroux. Hopefully, these lines can pick up where they left off and give the Senators some much-needed offensive power and speed.
Where does Tomasino belong?
One of the more questionable decisions is the swap of off-season acquisition Phil Tomasino and veteran Nick Cousins. Cousins is normally a fourth-line winger but has spent some time in the Senators’ top-six over the last couple of games due to injury. With his elevated minutes, Cousins scored the game-winning goal in the Senators' 4-2 win over the Utah Mammoth.
So is that the reason they’ve demoted point-per-game Tomasino to the fourth line? He seemed to be heating up on the Senators’ second line with Shane Pinto and Drake Batherson, yet Green mentioned that Tomasino still has more to learn about how the Senators play and needs to elevate his game another notch. Green is clearly looking at more than just point production. Tomasino is one of just eight players in the franchise’s history to be a point-per-game player in his first four games with the Senators.
The Senators face the Capitals tonight in what should be a rather fair matchup. The Capitals are coming off a Saturday night win against the Florida Panthers.
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