The Ottawa Senators are throwing in the towel with any hope of making the Stanley Cup playoffs now officially out of reach.
The Senators have 3 games remaining on their regular season schedule with a a matchup against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday followed by a pair of games against the Carolina Hurricanes and Buffalo Sabres next week, but many of the team’s core players will not be present for those games.
On Saturday, the Senators announced that they would be shutting down 3 defenseman with Jakob Chychrun, Thomas Chabot and Travis Hamonic all wrapping up their seasons prematurely. Chychrun and Chabot are under contract for next season so it makes perfect sense to shut both players down and avoid any potentially serious injuries. Hamonic will be an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season but the Senators could look to resign him, or he simply could be banged up and in need of respite.
The Senators will, despite the huge blow to their blue line, still feature many of their regulars today including captain Brady Tkachuk and veteran forward Claude Giroux. Here is how their lines looked during the morning skate:
Tkachuk Stützle Giroux
DeBrincat Pinto Batherson
Joseph Gambrell Brown
Sokolov Kastelic Gauthier
Sanderson Zub
Brannstrom Holden
Kleven Bernard-Docker