Leafs

With Matt Murray on LTIR, Ilya Samsonov will start his second consecutive as the Maple Leafs open the 2022-23 Battle of Ontario season series at Scotiabank ...

He gave us a chance to come back in the game and made some big saves down the stretch. Any time we play Ottawa, we know we are in a game. They have beaten us at key moments in the season. If you are going to beat them, you are going to have to defend. With the way both teams stack up, they have two lines that can really score and two lines that can check and play real hard. We are going to have to be willing to play that exact same way. Now they are in the hunt to make the playoffs. Let’s be honest: They are ahead of where we are in the development. Senators games tabbed for late March/early April in Ottawa (where there is always a great split-crowd atmosphere), playoff implications on the line would certainly make for a fun reanimation of the Battle of Ontario, but there are some big question marks for the Senators to answer in order to make that a reality. Goaltender Ilya Samsonov, after a shaky first period, settled in and shut the door the rest of the way. A lot of people will focus on the huge moves that the Senators made, inking the second-most discussed free agent contract and executing the second-most discussed trade in Claude Giroux and Alex DeBrincat, respectively. If you want to toss in Thomas Chabot’s 8x$8 M deal signed a few years back, you have close to half the cap given to five players, all of whom are signed for at least the next five seasons.