Game Day - Ottawa @ New York Rangers, 3:00PM, Satursday, October 29, 2011

VS
Who: Ottawa Senators @ New York Rangers
When: Satursday, October 29, 2011 @ 3:00PM
Where: CBC, NHLN-US, RDS2 (HD), MSG

Ottawa

The Senators (5-5-0) bring their 4-game winning streak to the town that never sleeps ... for an afternoon game.

Traditionally, afternoon games have not been very good to the Senators. Especially in New York, so they don't even have time go to Central Park for a quick game of dodge ball. The Sens find themselves back at .500% and, briefly, held the 8th spot in the Conference. A win this afternoon will put them back in a playoff spot. Peter Regin will be gone for 6-8 weeks (but does not require surgery) which means Stephane DaCosta is our 2nd line center. Luckily we have the top center in the East (yeah, I heard it on the radio) as our 1st line center. Spezza is having a great start to the season, statistically speaking, so cue the long-term-injury pool. It appears that coach MacLean has given Spezza a longer leash in terms of on-ice assignments, and it is paying dividends. Michalek and Greening do the mucking in the corners and most of the back-checking, and Spezza is allowed to spread his considerable wings more in the offensive zone. The vets on the team are contributing and we are finally getting good goaltending. It also doesn't hurt that Boston and Montreal have both had horrendous starts to the season, to say nothing of what's about to happen in Philadelphia.

The Rangers (3-3-2) started their season with a marathon road trip that began in Europe. By the time they got back to their newly-renovated (did I hear $800 million???!) arena to face the Leafs they had little left in the tank. After getting an early 1-0 lead they surrendered four straight goals en route to a 2-4 loss to Toronto. They should be well rested for this afternoon's game, however the Rangers have not found consistency in scoring, particularly on the powerplay, where they sit 29th in the league. Tortorella has already had a press conference that lasted 16 seconds, so he's obviously not happy with his team's performance (and bad boy Sean Avery is no-longer around to throw things at).

Breaking News: Lehner was recalled to back-up Andersson, as something is up with Auld. With back-to-back games we just *might* see a battle of two of the Swedish Monsters on Sunday, against the Leafs.

NHL Game Day Preview

Side-by-side stats:

GO SENS GO!!!!!

More stats/odds/etc than you can shake a hockey stick at:

http://msg.sportsdirectinc.com/hockey/nhl-matchups.aspx?page=/data/NHL/matchups/g2_summary_2.html

Auld has an undisclosed injury according to Garrioch's tweet.

Part of the renovations includes a "Supersuite" above the ice. Here is an undated computer model of what it would look like:



P.S. I am assuming this is the "Supersuite" because I heard about, and this image, frankly, I can't really think of anything else it could be. Except maybe a "Superconcourse"?

And a couple of before/after shots:

Here's an actual image:


I don't actually see what they showed in the computer model, though.

Nice GDT, Rangers will be pissed this aft., so we'll need to come out playing hard.

Here's the Sens press release on Lehner/Auld:

http://senators.nhl.com/club/news.htm?id=597998

It's an emergency injury recall. No details given on Auld's injury. The recall happened yesterday, which was a travel day for the Sens. I don't think they practice yesterday. Speculations?

Apropos of nothing, did anyone watch the "Grimm" premiere last night? Heard good things about it. Of the two fairytale-related new shows this season, it has much better critics' reviews than Happily Ever After (which I watched last week -- so-so).

Anyhow, with an afternoon game, more time to catch on the PVR tonight. I'm about 4 hours behind, and that's with all the World Series-related reruns last couple of weeks.

Hey, Shabbs, is the away-white getting the start tonight? 'Cause you know the equation:

SunGarrioch Bruce Garrioch
by TGORSteve
Auld came out of practice with an injury. Day to day. Lehner will come back to Ottawa.

"S is for scoreboard ..."

If Auld is out for an extended period of time you can pretty much count on Murray going out and grabbing a backup.

NEELY wrote:If Auld is out for an extended period of time you can pretty much count on Murray going out and grabbing a backup.

SunGarrioch Bruce Garrioch
by TGORSteve
Auld came out of practice with an injury. Day to day. Lehner will come back to Ottawa.

Game almost on!

We be represented at MSG (no idea who this is):