BOSTON - Everybody wants on the Senators’ bandwagon, even Jason Spezza is ready to climb aboard.
The Senators centre wasn’t supposed to return until after the Olympic break, but after taking part in the club’s 30-minute skate at Scotiabank Place he declared he expects to suit up Saturday afternoon against the Boston Bruins at the TD BankNorth Garden.
While Spezza was a little non-committal about playing, he was back on the top line with Milan Michalek and Daniel Alfredsson Friday. Then, after practice, Binghamton callup Zack Smith, who was solid, was sent back to the club’s AHL affiliate before the afternoon flight to Beantown.
The Senators may be without defenceman Anton Volchenkov. He suffered a upper body injury against the St. Louis Blues in a 3-2 victory Thursday and took part in practice. Coach Cory Clouston called him “questionable”. If Volchenkov can’t play, Alex Picard suits up.
Naturally, getting Spezza back is big.
“I felt pretty good. I’m just going to wait to see how it goes the rest of the day,” said Spezza. “It’s a different pace out there with the guys. It’s tough because they’ve been playing so much. I haven’t really had the chance to practice with them that much.
“I felt really good and things have gone really well. I had a good day (Thursday) and good day (Friday) so I am itching to get back.”
Spezza suffered the injury on a faceoff Dec. 14th against Toronto. There was a belief he was going to be gone until after the Olympic break, but the injury didn’t require surgery, there wasn’t a lot of swelling and Spezza was able to get back to work on his rehab immediately.
Yes, the last month has been tough. He didn’t want to wait any longer to return, especially with the club playing well.
“You pay attention to what’s going on with the team, but I’m anxious to just getting back to play,” said Spezza, who has 5-14-19 points in 30 games this season. “When the team had lost five in a row I was probably more anxious to get back playing to help the team win.
“Now, that things are going well, I’m excited to get back and be part of the good feeling they’ve got going on. When you’re out, you find the positive in trying to motivate yourself to get back. A week ago, it was to get back to help the guys. Now, it’s to help even more fun to get back with the winning. As a player, you just hate sitting out.”
Having Spezza back will give coach Cory Clouston options. He doesn’t want to break up the trio of Mike Fisher, Ryan Shannon and Alexei Kovalev, however, he did switch the other three units in practice.
“(Spezza’s) an elite player. We’ve got to guard against - just like when we brought (Michalek) back and (Alfredsson) back - we’ve got to make sure that other guys don’t let their game drop,” said Clouston.
“We’ve got to make sure that everybody keeps their game at a high level. It gives us a lot of options (on what to do with the lines) and a lot of offensive ability. His skill level is very high and when he gets back he’ll be able to help our team.”
Spezza said he wanted to get back before the Olympic break.
“The biggest thing is I didn’t have a lot of swelling early on and they say that kind of speeds things up for you,” said Spezza. “I’ve been able to have some good skates. I’m really happy. The injury was supposed to take a little bit longer. It’s obviously a bonus when you can get back ahead of schedule.”
The wait would appear to be over.
