Ottawa Senators at New Jersey, April 3, 2007

Ottawa Senators: 79GP; 47W-24L-8OTL; 102 points; Last 10 games: 8-1-1; 2nd Northeast; 4th Conference
New Jersey: 79GP; 47W-24L-8OTL; 102 points; Last 10 games: 5-5-0; 1st Atlantic; 2nd Conference

Season series: The Devils lead the season series 2-1. Here are the previous meetings between the two teams:
October 22: Ottawa 8, New Jersey 1 at the Corel Center
November 17: New Jersey 3, Ottawa 2 at the continental Airline Arena.
January 6: New Jersey 3, Ottawa 2 at the Corel Center

Tonight is a showdown of the Eastern Conference. Four teams face each other, the Devils play the Senators and Buffalo travels to Pittsburgh. These four teams are the teams with the best record in the East.

The Devils and the Senators have exactely the same record. Tonight could be a possible first-round playoff preview. If the Devils don't win the Division they could end up 4th or 5th in the conference and face the Senators. Tonight's result could make the difference as to who wins the Division and who the Devils face in the first round.

The Devils will play tonight with Lou Lamoriello behind the bench. He replaced Claude Julien yesterday in a surprising move after he fired the coach. Lou Lamoriello coached the Devils to the Atlantic Division title last year after replacing Larry Robinson who resigned in December.


The Devils travel to Philadelphia on Thursday to face the Flyers for the last contest between the two teams this season.


John Madden scored a goal and had two assists in a 3-1 win against the Rangers at Madison Square Garden for Lou Lamoriello's first game as a coach last year. The Devils were 14-13-5 at the time while the Rangers were 20-10-4.


The thing to look for tonight is to see how the players respond after the surprising firing of Coach Julien. Lou Lamoriello made this move because he had the feeling the team wasn't going to be successful the way it was playing. We will see tonight how the players react to the situation. Most of them played under Lamoriello last year and they did pretty well after he took the team over. He went 32-14-4 in 50 games.