Gästebuch » Two teams going in opposite directions will meet

Tuesday at Bell Centre when the Ottawa Senators bring their three-game winning streak into town to face the Montreal Canadiens Jamie Benn Jersey , who have lost six of their past seven games (1-4-2).Despite their recent struggles, the Canadiens (12-10-5) owned the second wild-card position in the Eastern Conference heading into games Monday.The rebuilding Senators (12-12-3) have been riding some improved defense during their winning streak to pull within two points of the Canadiens in the standings. The Senators, who have allowed the most goals in the NHL (109), have given up five goals in their past three games and just two in their past two games.Article continues below ...“At the start of the year I knew we were not going to be good defensively,” Senators coach Guy Boucher said Monday, “no matter how much time we would have spent on it because of personnel, age, experience and so on. You need to have something to hang your hat on and have something that makes you feel good.”Boucher said the team instead concentrated on scoring goals (which has worked http://www.officialstarsproonline.com/authentic-adidas-jason-spezza-jersey , the Senators have scored 98 goals, third most in the NHL).“We bet on the right thing,” Boucher said. “The offense was there. The defensive part of the game is extremely dependent on the experience part. We knew it would take a lot of time for the young guys to get that experience.”Boucher said the players have made a commitment collectively to improve defensively.“Right now there’s a huge commitment,” he said.The Senators are coming off a 3-0 win against the New York Rangers on Thursday and a 6-2 win against the San Jose Sharks on Saturday.“We’ve seen ourselves grow in the last two games,” Senators goaltender Craig Anderson said. “The last game against the Rangers, we were outstanding for 60, and (Sunday) again, outstanding for 60 minutes. We’re starting to string some momentum together John Klingberg Jersey , and playing in the right direction, playing the right way, and I think our guys are getting rewarded, too. We scored (six) goals.”The Canadiens are coming off a 3-1 loss to the Sharks on Sunday at Bell Centre. The Canadiens got behind early to the Sharks, 2-0, and never recovered.“We’re still a young team that’s still trying to improve,” Canadiens coach Claude Julien said on montrealcanadiens.com. “Learning to win is part of the development for a young team. You have to learn from these kinds of games, even if I found that we played well in the second and third periods.“We can’t start games like that and think we are going to win.”“Those two goals at the start hurt us Mattias Janmark Jersey ,” Canadiens forward Phillip Danault told the team’s website. “They cost us the game. … We got some momentum back in the third period, but it wasn’t enough.”This will be the second game of the season between the Canadiens and the Senators and the first of three in a stretch of 12 days. After the game Tuesday, they meet in Ottawa on Thursday and back at Bell Centre Dec. 15.The Senators twice overcame two-goal deficits to win 4-3 in overtime in their first meeting Oct. 20 in Ottawa.Defenseman Justin Falk, signed as a free agent by the Senators on Friday, is expected to play his second game after a strong debut Saturday. Senators defensemen Mark Borowiecki and Maxime Lajoie are out with injuries. TAMPA, Fla. — The Tampa Bay Lightning will look to slow down Connor McDavid and the Edmonton Oilers when the two teams meet at Amalie Arena on Thursday.McDavid continues to put up points on a consistent basis and sits second in league scoring with 22 points through 14 games. The Oilers’ captain has registered a point in 13 of 14 games this season with seven multi-point games to this point. The only team to hold McDavid off the scoresheet this season is the Nashville Predators, who shutout Edmonton on Oct. 27.But as has been the case the past couple of seasons in Edmonton, the Oilers supporting cast ranks far behind when it comes to offensive production. While McDavid has already hit the double-digit mark in goals and assists Radek Faksa Jersey , Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Leon Draisaitl are the only other players on the roster to hit that mark in points, with 16 and 15 points, respectively. No other player has recorded more than seven points through the first month of the season.Article continues below ...McDavid had one of the two Edmonton goals on Monday as the Oilers saw a five-game road winning streak come to an end with a 4-2 loss in Washington.“We gave it away early and when you’re playing that quality of team you can’t give up goals like that,” Edmonton head coach Todd McLellan told The Edmonton Journal. “We didn’t give up much after that but when you’re chasing against the Stanley Cup champs, you’re going to lose more often than not.”Things won’t get easier for the Oilers while facing the team Washington beat in the Eastern Conference finals on the way to that Stanley Cup title as Tampa Bay uses its depth at forward as a strength.The Lightning have seven different players who have already reached the 10-point mark and four with at least five goals. And of the 20 skaters who have dressed so far this season to appear in at least two games, 12 have scored at least two goals.That includes leading scorer Brayden Point, who was named the No. 3 star of the week by the league on Monday. Point leads the way with 17 points and eight goals while tied for the team lead with nine assists.Point does all this while taking on the top defensive assignments on a regular basis — Point picked up five points last week while matched up against New Jersey’s top line that includes reigning MVP Taylor Hall — and he figures to see plenty of McDavid when the two teams get together.“He’s been doing it for a couple years now, and he’s the guy that has to face those big lines more often than not and it’s a bonus for us Authentic Stephen Johns Jersey ,” Lightning head coach Jon Cooper said. “It’s somebody who is such a good two-way player to be able to have that assignment of not only playing a big part in shutting down a team’s big line but then to get the points he was getting on top of that, that’s what makes him the player he is today.”Tampa Bay remains without the services of defenseman Victor Hedman (upper body) and forward Ondrej Palat (lower body), both of whom have missed five games and remain questionable for a return this week.