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SENShobo

No Time To Lick Wounds As Sens Face Sabres

by SENShobo on 10/27/08 at 08:34 AM ET
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Today’s Ottawa Senators stories
(there was a yesterday that had stories too, but my body didn’t realize it had to get up, without any games going on, or maybe it didn’t want to wake up after yet another loss)

• Buffalo welcomes Sens tonight.
• Senators stumbling at every turn.
• No trades will ‘come to the rescue’.

• A top team against a puzzled team: tonight, as with nearly every Sens game this season, the tables appear turned from last season (NHL.com).

The Sabres have allowed a league-low 1.62 goals a contest, and they have a good opportunity to continue their success on defense in the opener of a three-game homestand. Ottawa (2-5-1) has lost four straight, and scored fewer than three goals in four of its last six games.

Buffalo, meanwhile, has allowed five goals in three home games, winning each of those contests.

It’s sad, but that’s what I consider to be relevant in today’s game, what Buffalo’s looking like. The Sens just have not been able to pull out of this funk of theirs, and there are few excuses I’d buy. You miss Redden and Meszaros, but Kuba’s outscoring the pair of them, so what’s to miss? There’s no shortened offseason to miss, since it was as long as it could be while still keeping the playoff appearance streak alive. Even Murray says he feels he’s cleaned the dressing room of any and all the bad attitudes.

In reality, the Sens are leading the charge currently in the draft lottery. Only the Islanders have fewer points, one less at four, but they have a game in hand with which they could leapfrog us into such an unfamiliar position. I wonder if Hartsburg might even now be considering the Wilson brand of accountability, which saw him bench Blake after a slow start, though for all of Fisher’s (and he’s far from alone) offensive slump, the fans would probably rage at the decision, as if we’re the new Toronto.

Maybe even a less drastic approach of the Leafs should be adopted. Among the Sens, you have six players topping 20 minutes, five in the 15-20 minute range, and three of those top six minute-eaters are forwards, no surprise who either. The Leafs, however, only have four that top 20 minutes, but have slotted a whopping 10 players with 15-20 minutes, and their top five minute eaters are all defensemen. For any who doubt the effectiveness of our players, lest we forget that it was the fourth line that the Leafs feared most, with both McAmmond and Donovan scoring from it, while the top lines hardly got any threatening sniffs.

Buffalo is the League’s best team defensively this season, and among the leaders in scoring. It will not be an easy game. The team has gotten away so far this first tenth of the season with saying the right things. Never, though, have you really felt that they were doing the one thing that mattered most: giving their top effort night in, night out.

Maybe they fear a quick start followed by a slump, but if you start out winning, you can still pull through in the second half and be a top team, or at worst have a slump and still make the playoffs. Play like the team’s playing now, and you’re at the bottom of the heap, and you might well finish there, with only a small chance that you claw your way into a final playoff spot.

No more fancy moves, no more giving players time they haven’t earned. No more doing anything but working hard. I don’t want to see a bag skate, but we know, the players know, everyone knows that this team has the potential in them. We are just waiting, and it’s high time for the waiting to end.

Update - 11:30AM

According to Allen Panzeri of the Ottawa Citizen, Lalime will be in net for Buffalo. Maybe that will give the Sens a hand, since Miller’s been a brick wall. But then again, we thought having Thomas sit would be a boon..

• If the Sens don’t stop scratching their heads soon, they’ll wear clear through to the bone (Ottawa Citizen, Ottawa Sun, Ottawa Senators’ web).

Ottawa Senators coach Craig Hartsburg shuffled his lines once again heading into Saturday’s game against the Toronto Maple Leafs, but by the second period he had hit the default button and put Daniel Alfredsson, Dany Heatley, and Jason Spezza together again.

He wasn’t just throwing up his hands in desperation. He had a purpose in mind.

The Maple Leafs were all over the Senators in the first period. They were on their way to outshooting them 21-9 and most of the game was being played in the Ottawa end.

Hartsburg was looking for one line to give his team a spark and turn the momentum. He thought it might be the big three.

Instead, like everything else recently, the move turned sour.

So sour, in fact, that while the Sens managed 9 shots in the first, a fine total except when you consider the 21 shots they faced, the second period with the CASH line saw the Sens sink to a mere 4 shots. Every role the players get placed into, they can’t seem to get a handle on. Maybe, crazily enough, to restart both the offense and the defense, the players need to stop thinking about roles.

There’s only one juggle left for the big line, and that’s shuffling the three off to three separate lines. Sound crazy? The big three of Alfie, Heatley, and Spezza have scored 3-4—7, 4-5—9, and 3-6—9, respectively, and that’s not all bad, right? However, take away their powerplay points, and they fall to 0-2—2, 1-1—2, and 1-3—4. That puts them with the likes of Donovan (2-2—4), Foligno (2-1—3), Kelly (0-2—2), and Ruutu (2-0—2) in even strength scoring. Put them back together on the powerplay, sure, but where’s the merit in putting all your eggs in that lone, not-so-impressive even-strength basket?

Take Vermette, Fisher, and Alfie, and you’ve got a defensively sound line that, based on last year, you know can produce. Spezza’s been working so hard at forechecking and fishing the puck out in the offensive end, why not give him Foligno and Neil, guys that’ll work hard, and give you someone waiting in the crease Holmstrom-style. Heatley did well in Spezza’s absence a while back with Kelly, so play those two together, and give them Winchester’s puck-digging and sensible skills. That leaves only the fourth line untouched, and seeing as they’ve been so good in their roles, I would not touch them at all. I would shuffle the defenders, pairing the defensive-minded ones with their counterparts.

Crazy you say, but second-worst in the League brings out pundits by the barrel-full. You don’t see it working, but every combination that you thought you could see working has fallen flat on the ice, so there’s nothing to lose. Bring the players’ ice times closer together (I hate to say it) Toronto style, and it’s not so much 1st, 2nd, and 3rd lines, just a handful of combinations. The players and fans may not know what to expect, and so all the guys can do is play hockey, work hard, harder, and harder still until they find not their game, but the game. Typecasting really can hurt, and so you need to break down that mould, and build each player up again. Then you can have your players back, your team back, and find yourself back on the right track. That’s hockey, and that’s the punditry you’ve earned.

• The team may be lost, but it’s not a trade that will get them out of the woods (Ottawa Sun, Ottawa Citizen).

“If (players) are waiting (for changes), it’s only because it’s being talked about elsewhere,” Murray said in the wake of the Senators’ 3-2 loss to the Maple Leafs in Toronto on Saturday. “We made changes this summer, we did bring people in.

“I don’t think seven or eight games into a season, after making seven or eight changes, you should be looking. I mean, I can make some trades. It’s not hard to make a trade. All I have to do is give a better player than I get back. That’s all I have to do, but I don’t want to do that. There are a couple of players who are not playing at the level that they should be playing at and if I trade them now, it will come back to haunt us.”
....
“We just need people playing ‘your role’. We’ve got some of our better players trying to do too much and I only mean that by running all over the place. All they have to do is be like Shean Donovan and Dean McAmmond (against the Leafs): Play your damn position, use your ability, take the puck wide and somebody go to the net.”

Enough moves have been made, and the fans should be content that the Sens aren’t in the position that the Ducks were in, having to pawn players around the League just to fit under the cap. There are plenty of teams who’d love to add someone from our top 6 forward or top 4 defenders to their team, because they know what they could be getting out of it.

Mortgaging our future to satisfy our wants of the present is anything but a brilliant move (that’s partly what this whole recession thing is about), and as much as they have staved off a real drop, you can tell the Pens wouldn’t mind having Armstrong, Christiensen, and Malone back in their roster.

Filed in: NHL Teams, Ottawa Senators | SENShobo | Permalink
 

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