Video: Ottawa Senators Coach Travis Green Gets Ready for the Sabres, Linus Ullmark's First Start, and the Next Wave of Cuts

Ottawa Senators head coach Travis Green held court with the media today in advance of the club's third pre-season game and some looming roster cuts. Green announced that Linus Ullmark will make his first pre-season start for the Senators.

Watch the video of today's news conference (above) or read the transcript (below).

Media: What are you expecting tonight against the Sabres?

Green: Hopefully a lot of the same. We want to be a work-based team that competes hard. And it's always going to start there and continue to see progress in our system play. And obviously as you get deeper into camp, there's guys that are vying to win spots on the team and whether it's to start the year or later in the year, leaving a good impression.

What's your goalie situation for tonight?

Linus will start.

Do you expect him to play the whole game?

No, half a game.

Any update on Artem Zub?

No.

You said this yesterday, that some guys aren't going to be moving on past today. What's your message to some of those players ahead of this game for effort?

It starts there. Like I said with our group. We wanna see effort, whether we're practicing, or whatever we're doing. We wanna be a work-based team that competes at whatever they do.

How does Buffalo's lineup affect anything in this game?

Not at all.

You can kinda slot yourself, can't you? Like where you are in the organization in these types of games, like you said, guys can make an impression, be called up later?

As a player? Yeah, for sure. Well, I think if you look at our lineup tonight, there's some guys that are trying to make the team, quite honestly. And I don't talk personally to them about that, they know that. And you hope they all play well, and you got tough decisions to make at the end of the day.

Carter Yakemchuk kind of spoke to us earlier today and talked about how his full potential is to try to find a spot on this team. Just what do you wanna see from him in this secondary season game?

More of the same. You don't really know what you're getting with a young player when he gets drafted. A, I've never seen him play. And B, how is being in the NHL camp gonna affect him? And how does it affect him as camp goes on? The games change as you go. Players get tired as you go through camp. But he seems to, every day, he's been fine with it so far, and we'll take it day by day.

Ullmark yesterday just mentioned how excited he is to put the Senators' jersey on for the first time. What eagerness are you sensing from him for his first start?

I think maybe a little bit of frustration that he hasn't been able to be in practice fully every day. He's been on the ice a lot. I think maybe he missed one day on the ice, but he skated on his own with (goalie coach Justin Peters) and had to put in a lot of hard work. I think for any player, they get excited to get into a game. And they get sick of practicing, to be quite honest. And for us as a staff and for him too, we wanna see our players in games and he wants to play.

Drew Doughty gets injured in a preseason game. What's it like for you as a coach to balance getting vets some time out there? I mean, he's gonna make the team, but then also balancing the act that they could get injured in a preseason game.

Yeah, I mean, that's part of it. You hope guys don't get hurt during the regular season. But your chances of getting hurt are a lot higher if you haven't played enough games and you're not up to speed. We're not gonna see veterans play every game. But I think there is a bit of a sweet spot that you should play to get yourself ready for the pace of the first game, the physicality of the first game. And if you don't, you probably have a better chance of getting hurt during the regular season or not playing well.

Are you still expecting make cuts after this game and if so, how big do you expect them to be?

In the next 24 hours, we'll cut down. We'll talk about it after the game and we don't wanna make hasty decisions. But we're getting to that time where you gotta start cutting down, so we will.

A big cut or a small cut?

Medium cut? I don't know. Yeah, probably a bigger cut. I mean, I'd like to get closer down to our group here sooner than later. We're going to play the game in Sudbury and we're probably not bringing a lot of guys to that game. So you can expect us to be getting down in numbers by then for sure.