For the first time in franchise history, the Ottawa Senators are playing 15 games in the month of October.
The busier schedule can be attributed to the regular season starting about a week earlier than we’ve seen in the past, plus three sets of back-to-back games.
While we have 15 games this month, there is one matchup that was singled out ever since the NHL schedule was released back in July.
The return of Brady Tkachuk has made Wednesday’s visit by the Florida Panthers one of the most anticipated games of the regular season. And if the media interest is any indication, we’ll likely have a playoff-like atmosphere in the building on Wednesday night.
Our press box is close to capacity for this one, including media credentials issued for national writers from Sportsnet, ESPN and NHL.com. This is also our first game on Amazon this season and they will have a large production crew and a full panel on site, hosted by Adnan Virk.
(Adding to the playoff-feel to this game is the fact that we’ve got a 7:45 p.m. Eastern Time puck drop on Wednesday, since it’s a nationally televised game on Amazon.)
Given the large interest in this game, we’re going to offer the Panthers the opportunity to use our press conference room on Wednesday morning, which is something we typically do for visiting teams in the playoffs. The Panthers will have the option to put Brady and Paul Maurice on the podium, using their own backdrop. The anticipation is there will be up to eight television cameras and probably in the neighbourhood of 20-25 reporters in that room.
We’ve seen a lot of the discourse online about whether we should show a video tribute for Brady during the first TV timeout. And I can tell you that we fully intend to show a video in the first period on Wednesday night. Brady spent eight full seasons with this organization and spent a lot of his personal time involved in charitable initiatives in our community. The work he did with BGC in particular, was a terrific example of his connection to the city.
It’s standard practice for long-serving players to receive a video tribute when they return to their old city for the first time. On Saturday night, they played an extended highlight package on the video board for Sam Ersson as he returned to Philadelphia for the first time. He received a really loud ovation and it was great to see.
I can’t predict what the reaction will be from our fans on Wednesday, but I can tell you that as an organization, we would look petty if we avoided the standard video tribute in this case.
As always, if you have strong feelings on this subject – or anything else – we invite you to email us at [email protected].
Trivia time:
Linus Ullmark has been off to a terrific start this season, allowing two goals or fewer in each of his first seven appearances. Ullmark has posted a 6-1-0 record and is now just one win shy of matching the club record for most wins by a goalie in the month of October.
This week’s question: Who is the only goalie to win seven games in the month of October in a single season for the Senators?
Answer at the bottom of this column.
Our next Absolute Non-Sens podcast guest: Fabian Zetterlund
Our debut episode of the second season of the Absolute Non-Sens podcast was a fun one with Linus Ullmark.
For an encore, we’ve got a very engaging conversation with Fabian Zetterlund set to drop on Wednesday this week. Among the things we tackle with the winger:
- Fabian confirms that he was once a Top-10 ranked player in the world in EA Sports NHL ’19. (We are fairly certain this must be the highest any NHL player has ever been ranked in the video game series).
- How many takes did he require to deliver his portion of the infamous Sharks Christmas video?
- Would he ever consider a career in powerlifting or weightlifting when his hockey playing days are over?
It’s an engaging and enlightening chat with a player who has played more than 100 games with the Senators – but who our fans don’t know a ton about.
We also reached into the Dr Pepper fridge and asked Fabian what’s one song he would ban from the locker room playlist and one song he would want to have played before a game.
A reminder you can submit a question that we ask a future guest by emailing us at [email protected]. If we pick your submission, we just might send you an autographed puck from the player who gets your question.
Media roundup: Looking back at some interesting and fun Senators stories you might have missed over the past seven days.
The TSN 5 blackout issue has frustrated a lot of our fans. Callum Fraser spoke to some of them and got a statement from TSN about the situation.
Want the backstory on the Sens fan wearing a Ridly Greig jersey who ended up winning big on the Price is Right Canada? Steve Warne has the details in this story for the Hockey News, including the fact she’s named after Zdeno Chara.
Jackson Starr takes viewers on an inside tour of our 300-level fan deck – which is going to open up soon inside Canadian Tire Centre.
Meet Elliot Lennon, the Sens goalie prospect, who also happens to be a cinephile. Elliot tells our Andrew Wilimek that he showed up at the theatre at 8:30 a.m. on the morning The Odyssey hit theatres.
Trivia answer: Martin Gerber came out of the gates with a 7-1-0 record to start the 2007-08 season with the Senators. Fun fact: The NHL record for most wins by a goalie in October is 10 victories and it’s shared by three netminders, including Craig Anderson, who accomplished that feat with the Avalanche in 2009-10.
