A cold I've been fighting off has finally caught up to me, hence the lack of witty comments and use of video for the pregame. Thanks to the Ducks I had to wake up from my cold medicine induced coma to get this preview out before the early start.
I know very little about this year's Senators except that Nick Foligno (son of former Ducks assistant coach, Mike Foligno) is dangerous, physically and offensively, and I hear they are one of the surprises in the Eastern Conference. They have the potential to destroy opponents with waves of scoring, but can be beaten if the Ducks are able to fire everything at Craig Anderson (who?!) early. Should be a fun back and forth game. The physical play will be key to keep the scorers at bay. The young Senators will make the Ducks pay for any and all mistakes - something the Ducks were lucky Phoenix couldn't do on Wednesday.
A couple notes going into the game: Center (or since we're playing Ottawa, 'centre') Mark Bell was called up from Syracuse on Friday morning. Friday afternoon saw Kyle Palmieri getting called up - again. Palmieri and Jean-Francois Jacques are neck-and-neck in the race for the Dan Sexton Award for Most Frequent Flyer Miles. Jason Blake and Matt Beleskey sat out practice on Friday to continue to recover from the blocked shots they took in the game against Phoenix. I can't believe I'm actually concerned about another Jason Blake injury. Apparently he's our Tim Tebow (pre-Tom Brady matuchup). Since we need to win almost every game going forward, Jonas Hiller will start once again. He's playing lights-out lately, so only SK isn't excited about this move...