Senators shuffling lines to find right balance for the playoffs
Senators coach Travis Green is juggling lines heading into the playoffs. How is that looking lately? Alex Adams takes a look.
OTTAWA — Seven points clear of the playoff cutline in the Eastern Conference, the Ottawa Senators may not have officially clinched a post-season berth yet but, with a 98.6 per cent likelihood they will get into the playoffs, according to MoneyPuck.com, it’s high time to settle on lines and defence pairings that will give the team its greatest chance for success in Round 1.
In Thursday’s 4-3 win against the Detroit Red Wings, head coach Travis Green shook up his forward lines by putting Brady Tkachuk back with Shane Pinto and Ridly Greig, while moving veteran Claude Giroux next to Tim Stutzle and Fabian Zetterlund. The result was four goals at five-on-five, an area the team has needed to improve on all season and one that will take on more importance in the post-season.
The Senators rank 28th in five-on-five goals per game this season, worse than any other team in a playoff spot. There’s reason to believe Thursday’s line changes could be the combination that unlocks more scoring potential throughout the lineup.
The Zetterlund-Stutzle duo has grown comfortable and familiar with each other. Off the ice, the two are living together, and on the ice they found instant chemistry since they were first aligned on March 20 against Colorado.
They have driven play and tilted the ice in Ottawa’s favour at five-on-five, out-chancing the opposition 31-12 and generating 65.17 per cent of the expected goals in the minutes they’ve been together. They factored into both of Ottawa’s first-period goals on Thursday that gave the team an early 2-0 lead.
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Though Tkachuk also factored into Stutzle’s first-period goal, the captain played only 1:01 with the pair against Detroit. Tkachuk can carry any line he plays on and his presence is needed more alongside the Pinto-Greig duo to better spread out Ottawa’s overall scoring threat.
Tkachuk played with Pinto and Greig earlier this season, from late December into early January, and the trio was effective when no other lines were scoring. The Tkachuk-Pinto-Greig line has an expected goals share of 61.8 per cent on the season and out-attempted the Red Wings 15-8 on Thursday.
Meantime, the David Perron-Dylan Cozens-Drake Batherson line stayed red hot, with Perron scoring his seventh goal in March, and they may be the team’s best line at the moment.
If Tkachuk can continue to elevate the Pinto-Greig combination, and the Zetterlund-Stutzle duo keeps chugging with Giroux, the Senators become a threat to score across three lines. This appears to be the lineup that gives Ottawa its best chance to address a season-long weakness and make it more of a threat to pull off a playoff upset.
On defence, Green inserted Nikolas Mantinpalo into the lineup for Travis Hamonic and presented Ottawa’s best blue-line setup for the playoffs.
Mantinpalo and Tyler Kleven weren’t noticeable — in a good way — against the Red Wings, and continue to look like the best third pair Ottawa could ice. On the season, Mantinpalo has a lower expected goals allowed per 60 minutes (2.53) than Hamonic (2.72), according to Evolving Hockey. The Kleven-Mantinpalo duo has been on the ice together for eight goals against in 256 minutes of five-on-five play, while the Kleven-Hamonic pair has allowed 11 goals in just 190 minutes together.
It’s clear which of these pairs is working better together.
Although Green’s approach is always that lines or defence pairs can be switched at a moment’s notice because the coach wants to stay flexible, Thursday’s game provided more evidence that Ottawa has a specific lineup that makes it most potent on offence, and sound on defence.
Penalty-killing improvement
The Senators killed five penalties in the first 22 minutes of Thursday’s game and struck twice immediately after getting back to full strength.
Ottawa’s penalty kill showed its resolve for a unit that has been up and down all season, but has improved of late. Before the trade deadline, the Senators’ penalty kill ranked 22nd, but has been 11th-best since and helped the team to an 8-3-1 record in that span. The weak spot has been the right side of the PK unit, which was specifically noticed when Nick Jensen missed four of the past 12 games.
Jensen and partner Thomas Chabot have the lowest goals allowed per 60 minutes on the penalty kill of any Senators defensive pair.
Ottawa had killed 14 straight penalties with Jensen in the lineup since the deadline until it allowed Patrick Kane to score in the third period Thursday, which Jensen was not on the ice for. Meanwhile, in the four games Jensen did not play after the deadline, the Senators allowed four goals in 12 shorthanded situations.
Struggling to hold leads becoming a concern
Before the Senators faced the Leafs nearly two weeks ago, they were 25-1-1 when holding a lead heading into the third period. However, Ottawa has held a lead after 40 minutes four times since March 15 and been outscored 9-2 and outshot 51-24 combined in those third periods.
The team did hang on to win three of those four games, but this is a troubling late-season trend that needs to be snuffed out before the playoffs begin against a division winner.
