Anderson starts, Greening and Wiercioch sit for Senators in Toronto
Colin Greening and Patrick Wiercioch will be healthy scratches and Craig Anderson will get the start in goal when the Ottawa Senators face off against the Toronto Maple Leafs at the Air Canada Centre Saturday night.
Colin Greening and Patrick Wiercioch will be healthy scratches and Craig Anderson will get the start in goal when the Ottawa Senators face off against the Toronto Maple Leafs at the Air Canada Centre Saturday night.
That means the three players called up from AHL Binghamton Friday will get the chance to experience the first edition of the 2013 Battle of Ontario.
Defenceman Eric Gryba (No. 62, for those without a program) will draw in and play alongside Marc Methot, while winger David Dziurzynski and (No. 59) and centre Derek Grant (No. 57) will line up with Jim O’Brien on the fourth forward unit.
It’ll be the first look at the Senators since they lost defencman Erik Karlsson to a lacerated Achilles tendon Wednesday night.
Coach Paul MacLean said the message to the new guys is simple.
“We just want them to be them,” he said. “We’re not asking anyone to be anybody that they can’t be, we’re just asking them to come here and play and show us what they do and how they play and if they play hard, we’re going to like the results.”
Daniel Alfredsson didn’t take the morning skate, but he will be in the lineup.
Meanwhile, Ben Scrivens is expected to start in goal for the Leafs after No. 1 netminder James Reimer went down with an MCL injury earlier this week. Scrivens is 2-3-0 this season with a 2.66 goals-against average and a .912 save percentage.
He’ll be facing a Senators team that has lacked offensive punch thanks to the rash on injuries, something he insisted wasn’t really on his mind.
“We’re obviously aware of who they’ve got in and out of the lineup and what they’re trying to do, but we have to really just focus on what we’re doing out there.”
The Senators have lost five of their last seven games and have struggled to score since losing top centre Jason Spezza to back surgery at the end of January.
I wasn’t expecting anything last night with the SENS. Any losses they experience game wise, pales in comparison to the loss of all of our big guns. I think that most hockey fans knew what the final outcome would be last night & that is exactly what happened, but I am glad that Mac is taking this opportunity to give members of Bingo the opportunity to play in the big league. This is after all the 2nd yr of rebuild, & rebuild is all about experimenting with your boys on the farm team. I suspect that this season will be a write off now due to most of our team out with season long convalescence, but ya just never know. Last yr was a big surprise to the NHL when Ottawa made it into the playoffs, so anything can happen. Perhaps Murray will spend some of the cap money on an experienced D man & a well known sniper. I am happy to hear that he is not willing to give up our future though in order to try for the playoffs. That would be a big mistake. I believe that everyone got a brief glimpse of what this team is capable of when we are at full strength, & now we can get to focusing on the rebuild as originally planned.
JMO…GO SENS GO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!