The Ottawa Senators may have serious injury problems, and after four straight losses, they may have fallen into the second wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference.
But according to their general manager, there’s no need to lose faith now.
“Overall, we’re still in a pretty good spot,” Pierre Dorion said, per the Ottawa Citizen. “We were going to hit a bump at some point in time in the year and unfortunately this bump has come when we’ve seen injuries — we’ve lost our top three defensemen.”
Indeed, the Sens are currently dealing with injuries to Erik Karlsson, Marc Methot, and now, Cody Ceci, who left Saturday’s loss in Winnipeg with a lower-body injury and is expected to be out “a while,” per Dorion.
But the Sens also have a three-point lead on Tampa Bay, with five games remaining to the Lightning’s four. According to Sports Club Stats, even if the Sens went 0-3-2, there’s a 50-50 chance they’ll make the playoffs.
“We’re happy where we are,” said winger Mark Stone. “We’re happy with where we’re at in the standings and obviously we want to have a little bit more separation in the standings but we’re comfortable in these tight games, these close games and most of us have played in pressure games.”
The Sens are in Detroit to take on the Red Wings tonight. Karlsson is not expected to play, but could return soon.