PREVIEW: Red Wings set for Atlantic Division road tilt versus Senators on Monday

OTTAWA -- In Canada’s capital city for the first time this season, the Detroit Red Wings will face off against the Ottawa Senators at Canada Tire Centre on Monday night.

“They’re a divisional rival and have been pretty good over the last few years,” Marco Kasper said. “You always want to win these games. It’s important for us to be physically engaged. They play heavy, and we don’t want to be pushed around, so we’re going to go out there and do the same to them.”

Both 6-3-1 in their last 10 games, Detroit (24-15-4; 52 points) and Ottawa (20-15-5; 45 points) will drop the puck at 7:30 p.m. Broadcast coverage will be carried on FanDuel Sports Network Detroit and the Red Wings Radio Network (97.1 The Ticket in Detroit). And for fans in Canada, Monday’s game will be available for streaming on Amazon Prime.

In the wake of Saturday’s 4-1 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins, a contest which the Red Wings registered a season-low 12 shots on goal, head coach Todd McLellan shuffled his forward lines at practice at Little Caesars Arena’s BELFOR Training Center on Sunday afternoon. Then in the evening, the Red Wings announced John Leonard was being recalled from the American Hockey League’s Grand Rapids Griffins.

McLellan said Leonard, who has four points (two goals, two assists) in seven games with Detroit this season, will step into the lineup for rookie Nate Danielson against the Senators.

“We’re going to give the Copp line an opportunity to stay together,” McLellan said. “When you look at 5-on-5 scoring and plus-minus in the last month, they’ve easily led the way. And everything analytically tells us to keep that line together. Some of the other lines, we haven’t been getting as much out of. Certainly there’s some concern with some of our top players, so we’ll mix them up. Things can get stale, so we’ll keep an eye on them. It doesn’t mean we can’t change on the fly. We do that anyhow, but I believe we can get something from them tonight.”

McLellan also stressed that while “the proof will be in the pudding,” Detroit’s depth and the chemistry his players have with one another gives the coaching staff confidence to mix and match trios to try to spark the offense.

“What I’ve liked so far is that there hasn’t been anybody pouting,” McLellan said. “I think they understand that they needed to brush up on some things and maybe a change or the staleness had set in. Practice yesterday was a real good practice. The morning skate [on Monday] was real good. So, let’s see a real good performance, everybody holds their heads high and works with each other.”

Seven points back from the Red Wings in the standings, the Senators have won two games in a row, most recently a 4-2 victory over the Winnipeg Jets on Saturday.

With an assist against the Jets, Tim Stutzle extended his point streak to 12 consecutive contests (8-11—19 over that span) and leads Ottawa with 43 points, including a team-high 19 goals, this season. Drake Batherson (16 goals, 22 assists) and Dylan Cozens (11 goals, 19 assists) follow Stutzle with point totals of 38 and 30, respectively.

Leevi Meriläinen, Mads Søgaard and Hunter Shepard are being relied on to share the goaltending responsibilities while Linus Ullmark is on a leave of absence for personal reasons. In 12 starts this season, Meriläinen has a 6-7-0 record with a 3.34 goals-against average and .875 save percentage.

“You have to be disciplined,” McLellan said about managing emotions when going against a divisional opponent like the Senators. “You hope they take some penalties, you get on the power play and their emotions boil over. It’s a real important part of the game. If you play a young team and don’t have any, you often end up with games like [Saturday].”