Intelligent Hockey: Best bets for Saturday's NHL slate

The regular season feels like an eternity. But now, with the end in sight, it’s hard not to feel a tad wistful. Days offering ten or more games will soon be over. Half of the teams in the league will be rendered irrelevant. Still, we have several more weeks to enjoy. This Saturday, we zero in on a few games where the spunky underdog gets clocked by the playoff-bound squad.

Florida Panthers at Ottawa Senators Saturday, March 26 – 7:00 PM ET

The Ottawa Senators want to be taken seriously. Coming fresh off a win where they played spoiler against the Winnipeg Jets, the Senators showcased that they could foil Winnipeg’s playoff hopes with a north-south, power game. 

The Senators tested the Jets’ defensive acumen by challenging them to take away their sticks and box them out in the paint, and they utilized the low-to-high play with their defencemen. Perhaps most importantly, the Senators carried over a good habit showcased in a previous loss against the Islanders: better gap control and puck support. 

Against the Jets, the Senators’ tighter gaps helped them generate counterattacks and maintain offensive zone possession. Ottawa may also welcome back right-winger Drake Batherson, who was scoring at an over-a-point-a-game pace before his injury. Ottawa is frisky.

Sadly, Ottawa is facing an opponent equipped to dismantle a lively underdog. With Claude Giroux now in the mix, the Panthers’ available top nine are the best in the East and arguably the NHL. 

Giroux made his debut on Thursday night with Aleksander Barkov and Carter Verhaeghe, and while they were adapting to each other, the trio still generated offence almost at will.  They outshot Montreal 10-2 at 5-on-5 and tripled them in high-danger chances. They scored a goal and