–The Ottawa Sun‘s Bruce Garrioch writes about trade speculation (link), saying “Columbus GM Scott Howson is the most active working the phones. The only Jacket not being shopped is LW Rick Nash. Pretty much everybody else is available … and the objective is to get rid of money.” He speculates the Sens might be interested in Derrick Brassard and continue to have interest in Kyle Turris. He says there isn’t much interest in Filip Kuba or Brian Lee.
-Both Garrioch (link) and The Ottawa Citizen‘s Allen Panzeri (link) write about Milan Michalek‘s hot start; there’s not much substance, with Michalek saying, “It would be great if I scored more than 30, but I’m not thinking about it. I’m just taking it day by day and trying to be better every game. Everything is going good and I just hope it keeps going like that.”
-ESPN, TSN and The Hockey News have their updated power rankings out (link and link and link), with Ottawa 23rd, 26th and 24th respectively (ESPN adds, “Goaltending and team defense are still a significant challenge for the young Sens“).
–The Ottawa Sun‘s Chris Stevenson writes about the decision not to suspend Milan Lucic for his hit on Ryan Miller (link) and points out an obvious flaw, “I’m guessing Lucic wasn’t going to say something like: “Oh, yeah, Shanny, I saw a chance to lay out that skinny ’keeper and I got him good. Oh, Shanny, you see his mask go flying? Ha, and not one of those Sabres even hit me with a pillow.'” I have no idea what Shanahan thought he was going to accomplish asking Lucic his intentions.
-Joy Lindsay’s game story includes comments from Tim Murray and Randy Lee about Binghamton’s performance (link), “We don’t shoot the puck at all — ever. Penalties put us in trouble, and they had complete control of the period until late, when we started to play with some urgency and got a power play. It’s consistent with the way a young team plays.” Lee adding, “You can tell they’re young, and you can tell they’re struggling to score goals. But at least some of the guys are accepting the challenges, and as an organization, we’re happy about that. But we also need to be competitive every game.”
-Joy Lindsay Tweets (link) that Francis Lessard and Andre Petersson are injured; given how short-handed they are, they’ve signed Mike Bartlett to a PTO (he is 6-2-4-6 in the ECHL)
eyeonthesens 