The Senators Are Finally Ready to Play Hockey

Something feels a little strange about the Ottawa Senators right now. It’s like the rest of the NHL started, but they didn’t. They haven't played a regular-season game yet.

Everybody else has been talking about the first week of the NHL season, checking standings, worrying about bad starts, and getting excited about good ones. The Senators have mostly been waiting. And now, tonight, they get to play hockey.

Their first game is against the Maple Leafs in Toronto on Saturday night, which seems like a pretty good way to end the waiting. Toronto has already played twice, going 1-1, while Ottawa is walking into its season opener. There might actually be something interesting in that.

Ottawa Has Had Time to Get Healthy.

The easy thing is to say Ottawa is rusty. Maybe. But there might be another way to look at it. The Senators have had a few extra days to practice, recover and get some players healthy. Jake Sanderson is the obvious example. He missed time with an undisclosed injury but is now ready to go against Toronto. That's pretty important news for Ottawa because Sanderson isn't just another defenceman. He is expected to play on the top pairing and the first power-play unit.

That changes the way this game looks a little. Ottawa isn't simply showing up for its opener. It is showing up with one of its most important young players back in the lineup. And then there is Linus Ullmark.

He is expected to get the start, which makes plenty of sense. The Senators paid him to be a big part of this team, and opening night against Toronto is exactly the sort of game where a goalie can make an impression. Ullmark has faced the Maple Leafs 16 times in the regular season, so this isn't exactly a new experience for him.

The First Ten Minutes of the Game Might Tell Us Something.

This is where I get interested. Toronto has already played two games. Ottawa hasn't played one. So who has the advantage? Honestly, I don't know. The Maple Leafs have the benefit of having already gone through the nerves of opening night. They've had real game action. They know what their systems look like when another team is actually trying to wreck them.

But Ottawa has had time to practise and to heal. Time to think about what it wants this season to look like. That makes the first ten minutes pretty interesting. If Ottawa comes out flying, maybe all that waiting wasn't so bad. If the Senators look like a team trying to remember where everybody is supposed to be, well, that's a different story.

Either way, this is finally the beginning of the season for the Senators; that's probably the most important news of all. The waiting is over. Now Senators fans get to find out what this team actually looks like.