Make or break, you think? Who do you move out and who do you move down? I imagine Brown won't be well suited for 4th line duty unless D.J. changes his style and balances all 4 lines with offense.

Tkachuk-Norris-Dadonov
Stutzle-Brown.Batherson
Paul-White-C. Brown
Galchenyuk-Tierney-Watson

I imagine Stepan is gone. He's having serious issues being away from his newborn, and Ottawa is looking to help him out. I'd also bet that one of Reilly/J.Brown/Coburn is on the way out. Friedman mentioned that with Brannstrom and Zub solidifying themselves in the lineup, Ottawa will look to move a Dman.

For lines, I'd go:

Tkachuk-Norris-Dadonov
Stützle-White-Batherson
Paul-L.Brown-C.Brown
Galchenyuk-Tierney-Watson.

Gives them 4 lines they can play.

Let's see who they waive at noon today

This is what they did with Brannstrom, brought him up to the taxi squad, then waived Coburn at noon, then once Coburn either cleared or was claimed, brought up Brannstrom from the taxi squad.

Then they will have to waive someone else to activate Wolanin

I'm guessing it will be Stepan out, Reilly to the taxi squad. Reilly was the lowest Dman in time on ice last game, being somewhere around 14min.

I checked it out, he was last in total toi, but when removing special team toi, and the bottom three are all pretty close. Looks like Chabot double shifted with Zaitsev and Gudbranson a few times.

Even---PP---SH---total
20:13 6:05 0:00 26:18 Chabot
17:40 0:14 2:29 20:23 Zaitsev
15:35 0:00 2:29 18:04 Gudbranson
13:51 0:00 1:08 14.59 Zub
13:26 0:00 1:08 14:34 Reilly
13:17 2:42 0:00 15:59 Brannstrom

I agree that it looks like Reilly will be the odd man out when Wolanin returns, unless they send Brannstrom to the taxi squad, because Wolanin might not clear waivers, just until they trade Reilly, we hope.

There has to be some teams in need of defence with all the covid-19 protocol inactives.

I think the ice time will work itself out once he is gone. Either Wolanin or Brannstrom will replace Reilly on the PK, or Chabot will. I think my favourite option would be to scale back Chabot's PP usage and have him killing more penalties, and let Brannstrom take a larger role on the Powerplay. I think long term, Brannstrom will be the better PP QB of the two, though Chabot is obviously the substantially better player.

On a recent sports broadcast, one of the broadcasters stated that they thought Brannstrom was better on the PP than Chabot, but I don't remember which show, or which broadcaster. There's a reddit thread about it as well.

I've quietly had that take for years, but it's not a popular opinion in Sens land lol. Chabot is an all world talent, but specifically when it comes to the Powerplay i don't think he's the best choice to be the QB from the point. He can do it well, but It's not his main strength imo. That's why he does so much better at even strength.

I think Brannstrom's skillset lends itself better to that role. He's got fantastic lateral mobility, he is great at distributing the puck and he is very underrated for his ability to get pucks to the net through traffic. I think he will be the point man on the PP1 long term.

What I would do honestly, would be move Chabot to the left wall. Put Brannstrom at the point, and let Chabot be the guy who can do it all along the boards. He has the skill to make dangerous plays from there, he's strong enough to win board battles, and most importantly it lets him make use of his shot. Thomas Chabot has a World Class shot, and having him available to be the trigger man from the dots makes the PP so much more dangerous. Ottawa has been looking for that kind of weapon since Hoffman, and Chabot can rip it every bit as hard.