Senators Lose Jake Sanderson for Brutal Back-to-Back

The Ottawa Senators are about to find out exactly how much duct tape it takes to hold a blue line together. According to a report from Daily Faceoff, star defenseman Jake Sanderson is set to miss at least the next two games with an injury.

Losing your top-pairing anchor is never ideal, but the timing here is especially brutal. Ottawa is staring down a nasty road back-to-back, starting with the Boston Bruins tonight and wrapping up against the Detroit Red Wings tomorrow.

"Daily Faceoff reported Sanderson will miss at least two games."

The Senators just pulled off a gritty 3-2 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday. That is exactly the kind of early-season momentum you want to build on, not immediately test by removing your most reliable defensive piece from the chessboard.

Sanderson eats massive minutes and handles the toughest matchups on the ice. Without him, the rest of the defensive corps is going to have to play up a weight class against two Eastern Conference teams that love to grind you down. If you are looking at the puck line for this Boston matchup, you have to factor in the massive hole left on Ottawa's back end.

We will see if this is just a quick two-game breather or something that lingers into next week. For now, Ottawa has to survive a 48-hour gauntlet in Boston and Detroit and hope their defensive depth is more than just a theoretical concept.