Ottawa’s senators have a simple order on Tuesday evening. If you defeated the Columbus Blue Jackets on the street, the franchise will win a playoff base for the first time since 2017.
By fulfilling this task, it may not be so easy, although the senators (42-29-6, 90 points) drive a three-game winning shop. The last two games were Shutouts, including a 4-0 shipping from Sunday of the Blue Jackets (34: 33: 9, 77 points) on home ice.
After the team has missed the playoffs in the last seven seasons in the last seven seasons, the coach Travis Green is important to get there after the shutout on Sunday.
“Everyone lives a good life when they are in the NHL, and that’s very nice, but at the end of the day everyone in this league wants to win a (Stanley) cup,” said Green. “The first step is that you have to take the playoffs to have this chance.”
Ottawa also seems to be closer to being completely healthy. TSN reported on Sunday that the strikers of Brady Tkachuk and Nick Cousins will travel to Columbus on Sunday with their teammates to reach the last street game of the regular season of the squad. However, it is uncertain whether both will play.
Tkachuk, the captain of the team, last played in Pittsburgh with a defeat on March 30th. He leads Ottawa with 29 goals and took third place with 55 points.
Seven skaters each scored a goal for the senators when they hid the Florida Panthers and Blue Jackets on consecutive days. In the meantime, the defense was solid because Ottawa has a shutout strip of 153 minutes.
The goalkeepers Anton Forsberg and Linus Ullmark registered the Shutouts at the weekend. Ullmark, the top Netminder of the senators, stopped all 30 shots with which he was confronted with Columbus. It has a 7-2-2 career record against the Blue Jackets with an average of 2.08 goals and a percentage of 0.937.
While Ottawa is just in front of the playoffs, the blue jackets turn closer to the elimination. On March 1st, Columbus held the top place for wildcards in the Eastern Conference AB-The same place where Ottawa is currently claiming. Since then, the team of coach Dean Evason has only had four wins in the last 16 games (4-11-1).
With 77 points with six games in their season, the Blue Jackets are eight points behind the Montreal Canadiens for the last Wildcard-Spot-Aber with three teams between you and Montreal.
Columbus lost three in a row and spent the weekend in Ontario without points. Toronto hidden the Blue Jackets 5-0 on Saturday.
“Our task is to prepare for the next game, and we have to do that, regardless of how we feel emotionally or physically,” said Evason after the game on Sunday. “We have to get up and go again to go again. We are still in a position in which … We believe that at the end of the year we will be in a good place when we can get into a role and enter here.”
Defender Zach Werenski leads Columbus with 54 assists and 74 points. The 27-year-old Blueliner has determined the personal bests in these categories, while his 20 goals for what he achieved in the 2019-20 season. However, he has not scored a goal since March 4 and became senseless in nine of his last 12 competitions.
-Media on the Level field
