LOGIN | REGISTER | RSS FEEDS

SENShobo

Ottawa’s Confidence On The Rise

by SENShobo on 10/09/08 at 09:02 AM ET
Comments (0)

This morning’s Ottawa Senators stories:

• More votes of confidence for Gerber.
• Melnyk makes sure Sundin knows the door’s open.
• Fisher continues to work for his return.
• Ottawa’s defensive play sparks Kelly.
• Ruutu’s reviews on the rise.
• Vermette striving to push his limits.
• Donovan happy to play and increase his role.

• Murray sees no reason to think Gerber won’t rebound from his last game, and has a few words about Bass and Nikulin (Ottawa Sun).

“There’s no secret Martin would have liked to have had two or three of the goals back,” Murray said yesterday. “He’s a guy over his career, and I’ve spoken to some of his former coaches about this, and I even spoke to Farjestad (GM) Hakan Loob, who watched the game in Sweden and he said, ‘There are nights like that and there are lots of them that will have a game like that and then bounce back and be really good.’

“We know that about (Gerber). I think we’ve got two really good, solid goaltenders. I don’t think they’re superior. I don’t think they’re Roberto Luongo, but they’re good, solid guys. I think they give us a chance to win.”

Basically, what I’ve been saying all along. Gerber may not like how he left the ice, but he’ll be back in form. Even dealing with becoming the No. 2 to Emery two years ago, he still pulled the team through a great string of wins at season’s end. So far, he’s been a goalie that has shown a great ability to deal with pressure, and that’s all you need right now to get back in the game.

Murray said he told C Cody Bass to go down to the club’s AHL affiliate in Binghamton Monday, get a lot of playing time and he’ll have the chance to come back to the NHL this season. “We want him to do more with the puck,” said Murray. “We told him maybe he has to play some games on Binghamton on right wing to get going up and down the ice with the puck on his stick. He thinks he’s going to be a third- or fourth-line centre and he might be more than that.”

A cryptic statement. I could speculate that Murray sees some potential for more Fisher-esque play from Bass, or that he could be a puck battler with a physical edge joining the skilled guys on the top lines as Neil has done, but at the very least it’s enough of a vote of confidence that Bass should feel a bit less disappointed about being sent down.

Murray is apparently also looking into trading Nikulin as per his request, and has gotten calls from interested teams. Will be interesting to see how this plays out.

• Mats may not be on the ice, but he’s not falling off anyone’s radar (Ottawa Sun).

League sources say Melnyk had a chance meeting with the former Toronto Maple Leafs captain during last week’s visit to Sweden for games against the Pittsburgh Penguins.

While the unrestricted free agent hasn’t decided if he’s going to return to the NHL, he was in Stockholm to drop the puck for the ceremonial faceoff Saturday.

Melnyk told Sundin that the interest shown by GM Bryan Murray is genuine and the club will make room for the 37-year-old centre if he wants to play here. Through a club spokesman, Melnyk had no comment yesterday.

The speculation really is getting a bit old, but it will be out there as long as Mats doesn’t shoot it down. Unless he’s willing to sign a Selanne-like bargain deal though, how much of our future do we want to shuffle off to get him? I, for one, am not sure it’s worth it. As he waits to see where he might like to go, the early season should show him which teams might really be contenders, and help with his decision.

Just as Murray’s been known to kick the tires on deals, but hold back when the cost-benefit ratio was too unbearable, I hope we don’t see ourselves sacrificing all we’ve worked to build to see what Sundin looks like in red.

“It could be tough for Mats Sundin, after all those years with the Leafs, to cross the street and go suit up for his biggest rivals in Ottawa or Montreal. I don’t know if he’s the kind of guy who could make that kind of move,” said a league executive yesterday.

“It might make more sense for him to go to a team like the Rangers. They’ve got a chance to win, they’ve got a strong goalie (with Henrik Lundqvist) and Sundin really doesn’t have any history with that team, good or bad. The Rangers aren’t the Leafs biggest rivals.”

• Fisher wants to play, but caution is the name of the game (Ottawa Sun).

“It’s starting to feel pretty good. It’s not up to going very hard, but I’m just ramping it up a little bit every day and trying to strengthen it as much as possible so it doesn’t happen again,” said Fisher.

Fisher has plenty to offer the team in what will undoubtedly be a hard-fought game against Detroit Saturday, but whether he’ll play or not should be a simple matter. Practice with the team, he plays; otherwise, he’ll join the reporters in the press box. There are 80 games left, and the last thing the team and Fisher needs is to create a nagging injury out of a frustrating one. As a certain series of political ads have been going for the last month, it’s simply “Not worth the risk.”

• Kelly enjoying the team’s new attitude, and the positive results are already coming in (Ottawa Citizen).

“There was one point in the game where (Crosby) was visibly frustrated and he showed it,” Kelly said as the Senators continued to prepare for Saturday’s visit by the defending Stanley Cup-champion Detroit Red Wings. “He could have been frustrated at a lot of things. The way the game was going. The way the ice was. The way his team was playing. The way he was playing.

“I thought we took his time and space away, for the most part. You have to limit his skating, especially through the neutral zone. When he gets the puck, he can skate with the best of them. He’s such a strong player. He hit me once and he’s a solid guy. I don’t think people realize that.”

Exactly the type of play we expect and need from Kelly. I doubt we’ll see any Wings visibly frustrated, however. Crosby and Malkin will be replaced with Zetterberg and Datsyuk, joined by Hossa and Franzen and what could be a very frightening team to face this season. I wouldn’t be surprised to see, should Fisher be back, a pair of lines set up to frustrate Detroit as Kelly helped do to Crosby. Then again, I would be even less surprised to see Detroit anything but frustrated.

• Ruutu opening eyes, showing that ‘pest’ is only one of the many roles he can play for this team (Ottawa Citizen).

Last season, he was a 10-minutes-per game spark for the Pittsburgh Penguins, with six goals and 10 assists to go with 138 minutes in penalties, second on the club to Georges Laraque.

Don’t be surprised if those numbers grow in Ruutu’s expanded role with the Senators. Against his old Pittsburgh teammates on the weekend, Ruutu averaged nearly 15 minutes in the two games, was a plus one and caused no end of havoc. If Ruutu wanted to impress his bosses, general manager Bryan Murray and head coach Craig Hartsburg, he delivered.

“He’s better than I thought he was when I got him,” Murray said yesterday, overlooking the first practice since the team’s return from Europe. “He kills penalties, he’s smart with the puck, goes to the net aggressively. He may be one of those net presence guys on the power play occasionally. I haven’t talked to Craig about that, but I could see that being the case.”

“He’s very quickly becoming a big part of our team,” Hartsburg says. “I think everybody around the NHL knows about the feistiness, the grittiness, but I think, for me, behind the bench, how he reads the game and how he thinks the game as far as team play has been very impressive.

“He gives us a lot of energy on the bench. Like I say, he has become a very, very important player for us.”

Both Murray and Hartsburg praising you as a newcomer; that has to be a big boost to your confidence. Ruutu’s non-agitator skills this past weekend were what kept impressing me the most, especially defensively and on the penalty kill. In the new, more defensively responsible system of Hartsburg, Ruutu seems sure to fit right in. Not that it doesn’t seem like he’d rather be a little too big to fit into his spot on the ice, hoping to bump into his opponents no matter where he is.

• Time for Vermette to shine, as all stars begin to align (Ottawa Senators’ web).

“That’s the way I want it,” the 26-year-old from St-Agapit, Que., said about the new opportunity he believes has been presented to him in the seasons to come. “You always want to push yourself and make yourself the best player possible.

“I’m looking forward to this year. I’ve been working hard and I’m sure all the guys (on the team) have been doing the same thing. Personally, I look forward (to the new season) and it should be a good one.”

While Vermette has combined with Chris Kelly to form a standout penalty-killing duo in previous seasons, he believes more responsibility is on the way in the season to come. But it is something that he readily embraces.

“That’s what you want as a hockey player,” he said. “You want to get yourself in a better situation and always push your limit. I think that’s going to come with (the new contract) and I’m very excited about it.”

This season should be a rebound year for everyone, and with a locker room filled with guys like Alfie, Phillips, Heatley, Fisher, Smith, and Kelly (all current or former captains), there’s plenty of motivation and inspiration. The defensive focus of the team might take a hair away from the top line’s production, losing their run-and-gun ways, but for the rest of the team once trusted mainly to hold down the fort, it should only add to their opportunity to make it onto the scoresheet, Vermette most certainly included.

It’s good not only to hear that Vermette wants to add more to his offensive game while remaining rock-solid defensively, but that he enjoys the chance to stay in the city that now feels like home. Hope that means you aren’t itching to move on then, because I’m sure I’m not alone in hoping you stay right here.

• Donovan working hard to make Ottawa’s grinders a key cog in the Ottawa machine (Ottawa Senators’ web).

“(Donovan) is an experienced guy that competes hard, brings speed and energy,” said Hartsburg. “On that fourth line, that’s what you need.”

There was plenty of that during the Stanley Cup playoffs last spring, when Donovan was one of the team’s top forwards in the first round against the Penguins. His performance prompted general manager Bryan Murray to re-sign the veteran forward to a two-year contract.
Donovan knows exactly what the team expects from him in return.

“They want us to play on a fourth line here that checks with speed and some grit and hit and finish,” he said. “Just make it so you tire out whatever line other teams put out (against you). The coach wants to have enough trust in us so that they can throw us out against anybody and tire them out.”

Already netting his first goal in our first game, Donovan seems anxious to keep contributing. Part of the downfall last year might be attributable to the overuse of some players, and the underuse of others, notably the fourth liners.

Everyone has to remember how well the Pens’ and Ducks’ fourth lines were readily tossed out against any of ours, frustrating us to no end. If we can trust and get the same hard work out of our fourth line, then we’re well on our way to continuing to defy and improve upon what the critics expect from the Senators this season.

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

Comments

Be the first to comment.

Add a Comment

Please limit embedded image or media size to 575 pixels wide.

Add your own avatar by joining Kukla's Korner, or logging in and uploading one in your member control panel.

Captchas bug you? Join KK or log in and you won't have to bother.

Most Recent Blog Posts

About Kukla’s Korner

Kukla’s Korner is updated around the clock with the work of our own talented bloggers, plus links to the best hockey writing around the internet.  We strive to bring you all the breaking hockey news as it happens.

The home page allows you to see the latest postings from every blog on the site. Subscribe here.  For general inquiries and more, please contact us anytime.

Get the top online sports betting bonuses available to sports betters!

Go Ad Free On KK

Kukla’s Korner is always a free service for readers, but it costs some money to maintain. If you’re ever in a position to donate a few dollars to help out, we’d be very appreciative.