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The Senators and Devils have basically announced who's available


With Monday’s NHL trade deadline around the corner, the most intriguing part of Thursday’s matchup between the Ottawa Senators and New Jersey Devils may have been the warmup.

The game featured two of the league’s bottom three teams that are nowhere close to even sniffing the postseason. As a result, everyone was curious to see who would be playing and who would be scratched in order to minimize risk of injury and hurting their trade value.

It had been speculated that Matt Duchene would be scratched for the contest (as well as the Senators’ contests against the Columbus Blue Jackets on Friday and Calgary Flames on Sunday). However, there were some other notable absences at both ends of the ice.

The biggest name on that list has to be Stone, who many within the organization were quite enthusiastic about when it came to his future earlier this week.

According to Bruce Garrioch of the Ottawa Sun, Sens owner Eugene Melnyk and general manager Pierre Dorion wanted to have an agreement completed with the pending unrestricted free agent by Thursday evening. With him scratched, it’s seems safe to believe that the 26-year-old will be dealt before Monday.

As time continued to tick away, it appeared more and more likely that Ottawa’s two top point producers would be watching Thursday’s game instead of playing. The fact that the squad called up forwards Darren Archibald and Filip Chlapik from their AHL affiliate in Belleville earlier today came as no surprise.

Stone currently leads the Senators with 28 goals and 62 points in 59 games. And although the team has a minus-33 goal differential, he’s plus-13 this season.

Ottawa’s fourth-leading scorer and third intriguing unrestricted free agent that shouldn’t be forgotten in all of this is Ryan Dzingel. With him scratched as well, the Senators have announced loud and clear that they want to make some moves in the next few days. On top of that, those players have also made it clear that they want out.

Meanwhile, when it comes to the Devils, leaving Marcus Johansson out of the lineup isn’t that shocking. He’s struggling in his first full season with the Devils, only collecting 27 points in 48 games. He’s making $4.583 million this season and will be an unrestricted free agent once July 1st rolls around.

As for Lovejoy, the right-handed blueliner has seven points in 51 games and is making $2.666 million this season, according to CapFriendly. Like Johansson, he’s a UFA following this year.

(Getty Images)
(Getty Images)

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