Senators Face Injury Trouble Approaching the Holidays

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Approaching the holidays, the Ottawa Senators are in desperate need of some rest. Though the team has dealt with injuries throughout the year, for a while they’ve seemed to be relatively healthy. Before Sunday night’s game against the Tampa Bay Lightning, the Senators were only missing two players due to injury – Clarke MacArthur and Milan Michalek. Due to the length of both of those injuries (Michalek with a broken finger, MacArthur with a concussion), the Senators have had to fill those offensive holes and have looked good despite the absences.

However, during the game against Tampa, Senators’ players seemed to be dropping like flies. Along with Mark Borowiecki receiving a game misconduct for an alleged hit to the head on Lightning forward Brian Boyle, the Senators lost both Cody Ceci and Bobby Ryan due to injuries.

Ryan’s Hand Giving Him Trouble

After speaking on a current hand injury that was giving him some trouble before Friday Night’s game against the San Jose Sharks, Ryan responded well with a two-point night. Unfortunately, it didn’t take long for the hand to get aggravated again. Having registered only 8:00 TOI Ryan left during Sunday Night’s game and did not return.

There is still no information regarding the severity of his injury, but Senators’ Head Coach Dave Cameron said that Ryan is a question mark for Tuesday’s game against the Florida Panthers.

Cody Ceci Upper-Body Injury

To add to the count of injuries, the Ottawa Senators now have four players potentially out of the lineup. It was Ceci who left Sunday’s game with an upper body injury. After playing just 5:30 in the game, Ceci did not return. His injury led to the Senators having to rotate four defensemen for the better part of the game. By the night’s end, Erik Karlsson and Patrick Wiercioch led the charge defensively with some impressive numbers. Karlsson led the team in TOI with a whopping 36:34 while Wiercioch ate up the bulk of the rest of the extra time posting 29:14.

There is yet to be information on the severity of Ceci’s injury. If he needs time off the Senators will most likely dress their current 7th defenseman, Jared Cowen. Cowen has been a healthy scratch for the past two games.

Ryan Dzingel Gets the Call

Due to the bulk of injuries, the Ottawa Senators have called up forward Ryan Dzingel from Binghamton. With Ryan being a question mark for Tuesday’s game, it is possible that Dzingel could get his first opportunity in the NHL against the Florida Panthers.

Dzingel has been Binghamton’s best forward this season with 7 goals and 15 assists through 26 games played. The 23-year-old has been the brunt of some jokes after his most recent post on twitter – a post he made before finding out he had been called up to join the Senators in Florida.

With one more game to go before the break, the Ottawa Senators will look to even up their month of December at .500 and aim to jump ahead of the Panthers, who are one point ahead of them in the Atlantic Division.