We'll kick today's line-up notes off with a pair of players heading to IR as White and Anisimov will each spend a few weeks off as a result of injuries. Sens GM Pierre Dorion updated the media this morning and shared that White will miss 3-5 weeks with a hip flexor/groin injury while Anisimov is expected to miss 1-2 weeks with a lower body injury. Anisimov had missed a few games prior to his return on Monday but White's injury was a little trickier to pin point how he sustainged it.
"The first I heard of it was against Arizona when he tweaked it going over the boards and a few hard strides," said head coach D.J. Smith about White's injury. "In a game when it's warm, it doesn't hurt as much and then he played the next game (in Dallas) and it got worse."
With the absence of White and Anisimov tonight opening the door for Brown and Beaudin to draw into the line-up, the coach also shared that it was the team's NHL depth at centre that kept Brown from cracking the opening night line-up.
"I thought he had a good camp," Smith said. "We wanted him to play a lot of minutes and to start the year with all the centres that we have, we didn't see an opportunity for him to play more than 10 minutes/night. We didn't think that would be any good for his development but we're in a situation now where we have two centres down and, while we were trying to hold him down there so he could play and develop, it's fortunate for him and us with the injuries that he's coming up."
Here's a look at the Sens projected line-up for tonight...
Tkachuk - L. Brown - Duclair
Namestnikov - Tierney - Ryan
Paul - Pageau - C. Brown
Ennis - Beaudin - Sabourin
Chabot - Zaitsev
Brannstrom - Hainsey
Borowiecki - DeMelo