Chabot returns as Senators host Blackhawks

Travis Green hadn’t received any birthday presents from his team by the time he met the media before the Senators host the Blackhawks on Saturday afternoon, but he was only hoping for one thing, anyways.

“A win would be nice,” deadpanned the now-55-year-old Green when asked what he was hoping for.

Coming off their first shutout win of the season, the morale around the team has been high in recent days. Adding to the good vibes Saturday morning was the news that Thomas Chabot would return to action on the blueline after missing 15 of the last 16 games with an injury.

“Nothing more than his normal game, he might be a little rusty,” said Green of what he’s expecting from his defenceman, the longest-tenured Senator. The head coach said he’s expecting Chabot, who is averaging just under 22 minutes of ice time a night, to take on a full workload in his return.

The Faceoff

The Blackhawks will be without leading scorer Connor Bedard, who was injured taking a faceoff on Dec. 12 in St. Louis. Green said the gameplan will stay the same despite his absence.

“Every team has injuries, we’ve had our share of injuries. We expect to win when we have injuries and they expect to win when they have injuries,” said Green. “We’re not changing the way we’re going to play.”

Leevi Meriläinen will start against the Blackhawks for the first time in his career.

Loose Pucks

With Chabot’s return, Green noted that Nikolas Matinpalo will slide out of the lineup. Olle Lycksell will replace Kurtis MacDermid on the fourth line.

Tim Stützle appeared in his 400th career NHL game on Thursday evening against the Pittsburgh Penguins. Only Jason Spezza and Alexei Yashin tallied more points than Stützle in their first 400 games with the Senators.

Stützle has also collected 10 points over his last five games (four goals, six assists). This is the first time since the 2023-24 season (Nov. 4 – 16, 2023) that Stützle has collected 10 points over a five-game span.

This current stretch is tied for Stützle’s second-most productive five-game span of his NHL career. The only five-game span that was more productive came from Jan. 31 – Feb. 17, 2023, when Stützle racked up 11 points (four goals, seven assists).

Brady Tkachuk netted a pair of goals in Ottawa’s 4-0 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins on Thursday evening at Canadian Tire Centre. In the process, Tkachuk became just the third player in franchise history to record 20 multi-goal games on home ice.

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