It’s only October and the Senators have a chance to beat their road point total against last season’s Western Conference teams.

The big news to pay attention to tonight is the health of Linus Ullmark and Shane Pinto. The Sens sent Leevi Merilainen back to Belleville this morning, which is a good sign for Ullmark’s availability for the game, while Shane Pinto is listed as a game-time decision and Cole Reinhardt has been called up from Belleville.

Given the start time, we may not get updated rules, so here’s what they were during practice yesterday:

Game notes

• Assuming Ullmark is 100%, do you start him or Forsberg? On the one hand, you probably want to get Ullmark back as soon as possible, but on the other hand, he wasn’t able to train again until yesterday and Forsberg is coming back from a good performance in Salt Lake City.
• An odd stat early in the season: the Senators have more Power Play goals than 5v5 goals. While some of that is the absurd PP% of 40.9%, the team also has eight mediocre 5v5 goals in their six games so far. You’ve got to get that number up a bit before the power play comes back down to earth
• Speaking of power plays, the Vegas PP is also popular. While that may give the initial impression that this could be a special teams battle, it’s worth noting that Vegas is allowing the fewest draws and the fourth fewest penalties per game so far this season.
• On the Vegas side of roster news, Shea Theodore missed their last game due to a day-to-day illness but was at practice on Wednesday. Maybe he was suffering from gold fever
• Theodore is proving his worth so far this season. He currently ranks third among defensemen in points per game – tied with our very own Jake Sanderson
• Please note the eastern start time of 6:00 PM. TSN5 and RDS2 will provide the broadcast

Statistics

Team stats

Player Stats