Ottawa Senators (33-27-4, 4th in Atlantic)
at Vancouver Canucks (27-32-5, 6th in Pacific)
Saturday, 7 p.m., Rogers Arena.
TV: Sportsnet, CBC. Radio: Sportsnet 650
Two teams. Two hot streaks.
Two very different situations.
The Ottawa Senators arrive at Rogers Arena on Saturday having won seven of their last 10 games. The Vancouver Canucks are 6-3-1 in their past 10 games.
Both are playing some of their best hockey of the season. That’s really good for the Senators, who are chasing a playoff spot — they’re four points back of the second wild-card position in the Eastern Conference — but not great for the Canucks, who would be better off staggering to the finish of the season, because the lower they finish in the overall standings, the better the odds they’ll have of winning the NHL Draft lottery and the chance to pick Connor Bedard.
Better defensive play
Since Rick Tocchet took over as Canucks’ head coach on Jan. 22, the Canucks have given up the fifth-lowest rate of even-strength shot-attempts-against in the NHL. That’s a big change from when Bruce Boudreau was in charge: the Canucks gave up the 13th-most shot-attempts-against from the beginning of the season until when Boudreau was replaced.
The Canucks are giving up about five fewer shot attempts per 60 minutes of even-strength ice time under Tocchet than they did under Boudreau.
Goals, goals, goals
Over that same time period, no team has scored more goals at five-on-five than Ottawa: they’ve scored 3 1/2 per 60 minutes of play. They’re giving up 2 1/2 goals per 60 minutes of even-strength time.
When you’re outscoring your opponents by nearly a goal per game, it’s easy to see why they’re having so much success of late.
But is it sustainable? The Sens are shooting 11.1 per cent over that time, so some of those goals are likely to disappear.
Penalty killing
The Canucks are no longer posting an all-time-worst penalty kill success rate.
After beating Anaheim on Wednesday, the Canucks’ PK has now killed off 68.3 per cent of the penalties they’ve taken this season, 0.1 per cent ahead of the 1979-80 Los Angeles Kings, whose 68.2 per cent is the all-time-worst single season success rate.
The Canucks’ penalty kill is somewhat improved with Tocchet in charge, but they’re still only killing off a mediocre 73.7 per cent of the penalties they’ve taken.
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