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SENShobo

Out, But Not Fully Down

by SENShobo on 02/24/09 at 08:23 AM ET
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A few days to clear their heads, the Senators are back at it tonight.

Is everyone fully prepared to admit that only the dreaded foe of mathematics has yet to eliminate them?

Of course, still no word who will be starting, as somewhere deep down inside we all wonder if this will be the tandem for next season, this an audition for them as much as anybody else, and it could still go either way. Something like seven points is all Ottawa would be able to miss out on in order to sneak into a first round beatdown at the hands of the Bruins, Capitals, or Devils; motivation needs to be found elsewhere. Tonight, an easy source could be in taking the fans’ frustration at Corvo, not to mention the goals he’s potted against Ottawa, and using it as motivation to ensure that the highest Carolina climbs is 9th place. Spoiler is the name of the game now.

Of course, there are the contracts. Murray appears done with handing out the big deals, and is anything but keen to make a Sather signing (see Redden). Now, it’s up to the players to decide what matters.

From the Ottawa Sun,

Was it a mistake to leave Ottawa in the first place.

“That’s a good question,” he said. “The situation I was in, where we had success here, I enjoyed playing in Ottawa and I enjoyed living here. The problem was, at the time, there was a few free agents that hadn’t been signed and because of the cap situation, they didn’t know how much (cap) room they had.

“It wasn’t because I didn’t want to stay here. We just didn’t know how much room there was. And now that I’m back I’m excited and we’ll see how it goes.”
....
With the Senators unlikely to come close to matching his current wages, Comrie was asked if money will be the primary factor in the signing of his next contract.

“I don’t think at any time a player ever truly should realistically think only about that,” said Comrie. “It’s just my opinion. Sports guys have a short life span in their job, but for me in my situation I’m excited to play in Ottawa. It’s a great place to play hockey, it’s a great group of guys. You look around the room and there’s a lot of skill. It’s fun to be back. ... It’s fun to play this game with the pressure and the excitement.”

Another Ottawa Sun story,

“He said if we brought him here in a deal, he would be very interested in staying,” said Murray, who last week acquired Comrie ... “I don’t know what the dollars are, and they have to fit our budget. I told him what we would do is watch the final 25 games and we would talk. (Comrie’s side) indicated to me that they now realize Ottawa is pretty good place to play, that he had a great experience here, that he wouldn’t be anything other than reasonable as far as negotiating a contract and getting him to stay.”

Kuba said he likes Ottawa and the Senators, adding that he hasn’t been asked yet to waive his no-trade clause.

“We’re talking right now,” he said of negotiations with the team. “There was some contacts happened already, but there’s nothing right now that’s final.”

While Kuba might be able to help a contending team, he could also be in line to get a significant increase on his $3-million salary for next season. But not in Ottawa.

“Basically that’s something we’ve talked about, possibly keeping him around,” said Murray. “But he has to want to be here, and he has to want to be here at the contract I suggested. And if not I would entertain other thoughts.”

Sounds like a better plan of attack for Murray. Sure, we’re not Detroit, we’re not getting Zetterberg to a just-north-of $6 million deal, but certainly among Eastern Conference hockey-mad areas, Ottawa has its charms. Even for all the hustle and bustle, many players like Alfie and Donovan are able to live a quieter paced life somewhere between Scotiabank Place and Carleton Place. The egos in the dressing room have gotten smaller, and there are things to be desired in this neighbourhood. Getting tough in contract dealings might be best for the team in the end, though Neil and Kuba are likely to depart for it.

Comrie, I’m not so sure. There’s bound to be more than a deal left up Murray’s sleeve, or waiting in some excel spreadsheet, but I think that the discussions he and Clouston had about him, both having had him during high points in their day, would indicate he’s likely to stay parked next to Fisher on the ice and in the dressing room. Maybe Carrie Underwood and Hilary Duff could share a suite to watch them play sometime; Carrie might even be a bit embarrassed by the thought of ducking behind the four-years-her-junior Hilary.

Especially if Us Magazine has her pinned down right (courtesy Paul),

“I like to sit in the audience, you know I don’t sit up in a box or anything, and people started to know that I’m sitting there, and they’ll be like ‘Mike sucks!’ Or [they] try to rile me up,” Duff told Rachael Ray on the set of her talk show. “And I’m like, ‘Hey, watch it! I’ll come up there, you know.’”

She added: “I try to not be that crazy girlfriend.”
....
“The first couple of games I went to, I’m like, ‘These people are nuts,’” she says. “They are, like, so into it. And then, I got really into it once I started learning about the game.”

For any who wondered what Fisher had that made him special enough to attract Underwood’s interest, this Ottawa Citizen piece gives a good look into his seldom-mentioned top character,

In seasons like this one, Mike Fisher thinks of the message he jots on his hockey sticks, the same one that helped him over an even tougher hurdle—success.

Inside the stick’s rubber grip, he has written Rom 12:12, referring to Paul’s letter to the Romans: “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.”

“It’s just a verse that I’ve always liked ... ‘Be glad in all God’s planning for you’,”

Fisher said after the practice on Monday. “Sometimes, even this year, you go through struggles on the ice, and it’s just to keep things focused on God. Things seem to make a little more sense.”

But, for the utmost of hockey character, the Ottawa Citizen pegs it right where it should be,

Why? Why risk more serious injury to a jaw with a hairline fracture? This isn’t the Stanley Cup playoffs, nor are the Senators a playoff team. When I asked him on Monday, Alfredsson said: “I didn’t want to look back and say, ‘Maybe I should have played.’ It’s only a week before I was planning to play, anyway. Maybe we do get something going.”

Alfredsson is a special presence on this team and in this community. Not because he’s tough, but because of the person he is, and the class with which he conducts himself throughout the day. As someone in the organization said Monday, people aren’t going to fully realize until he’s long retired what a unique player and captain Alfredsson has been.

And as a final note, I’m giving Twitter a try, for the times when a thought isn’t enough to merit a full post, an idea too simple to build a thorough argument around, or a musing too much to not share. You’ll find it over in my links section, if that’s what you fancy.

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

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