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Sens’ New Lines Debut Tonight
by SENShobo on 10/22/08 at 08:03 AM ET
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- Sens host Panthers as schedule kicks into gear.
- Gerber to start yet again.
- Spezza facing a leadership test on new line.
- Hartsburg asking more of players than any coach has before.
- Sens avoiding penalties in disciplined gameplan.
- More new Alfie contract speculation.
- Don’t expect the Panthers to necessarily be an easy start to the busy parts of the Ottawa Senators’ season (NHL.com).
Florida (2-3-0) has been held to two goals or less in each of its last three games, including Monday’s 3-1 defeat at Montreal.
“We have to have more traffic, more of a killer instinct and hunt down rebounds,” Panthers coach Peter DeBoer told the team’s official Web site. “We have to stand in there and take a shot to score a goal. We’re a little outside and a little on the perimeter and we have to have that killer instinct around the net.”
DeBoer, though, said he doesn’t feel a need to shuffle his lines, with Florida averaging 34.0 shots per game.
After more rest than you’d like to have between playoff series, tonight marks the start of the full-on schedule. Florida will be offering up plenty of interesting stories for the Sens to watch tonight. It will be Cory Stillman’s first visit to Ottawa since signing with the Panthers this offseason. Tonight will also feature the first arrival of sure-to-be-fought-over (even if Florida is a part of that fight) upcoming UFA Jay Bouwmeester.
For added intrigue, often stellar netminder Vokoun will sit in place of tonight’s starter, Anderson, who has yet to play a full game after being pulled one period into a game against the Wild or start one, as Vokoun was pulled after allowing four goals on 22 shots through two periods against the Wild with Anderson replacing him for the final period, allowing two goals in that span. Perhaps even more interesting to some will be seeing Hartsburg face off against Peter DeBoer, a fellow candidate for the Sens’ head coaching job this past summer.
- Gerber has shown dedication, consistency, and effort, and gets rewarded in Hartsburg style with the start tonight (Ottawa Sun).
Determined to solidify Martin Gerber’s status as the Senators’ No. 1 netminder, Hartsburg yesterday announced his starting rotation for the rest of the week. Some might say it defies logic.
Gerber will work tonight’s game at Scotiabank Place against the Florida Panthers, Alex Auld will get the call for Friday’s home game against the Anaheim Ducks, and Gerber will be back in goal when Ottawa visits the Toronto Maple Leafs Saturday.
“We’ve got a busy schedule coming here, and I’ve thought Gerber has played very well,” Hartsburg said of his decision. “I want to get him back in the net again. He’ll play two out of three this week instead of playing back to back.”
Is it such a shocker that Gerber will start? The stats point in one direction, but I’ve watched as Gerber’s been the hardest working and most consistent player on the ice for several games, and I’ve had a great deal of trouble trying to fault him for the goals in those games.
Trying to pit players against their old teams isn’t going to work either, especially when you consider that Auld played for Phoenix, Boston, and Florida. Yes, he looked great in his game against Pittsburgh, but Gerber has been battling for the Sens every other game, and he has always done it without the aid of a team with any kind of plan playing in front of him.
To bench Gerber for games lost because of the team sends a very wrong message to him, just as benching him for any other superfluous reason would. Hartsburg is showing he has a lot of respect for Gerber, and for good coaching. Now let’s just see if the team can’t start backing Gerber up for the first time.
- Spezza’s new line has plenty of potential, and it will be a testament to his determination what he helps make of it (Ottawa Senators’ web, Ottawa Citizen).
“I have to make sure that I’m good and help those guys out,” Spezza said in discussing head coach Craig Hartsburg’s latest attempt to balance out the team’s scoring beyond the top line. “Nicky’s played really well (this season) and Winch is a good guy along the boards. I think we can be an effective line.
“I’ve been around now for a little bit, and we probably won’t be facing the top checking from the other team’s top defense. I’ve got to find a way to take advantage of that, and if we can be a successful line, it can only help the team.”
You certainly won’t see Spezza, as well as Heatley, billed in the same way as these two, let alone sharing the same apparent rivalry, but tonight they need to start playing like Crosby and Ovechkin.
No, Spezza’s far from a shoe-in to take home the Art Ross, and Heatley has plenty of competition for the Richard, but that’s not what I’m getting at. Since they have played in Ottawa, the two have played together, for better or for worse, and been inseparable for all the coaches we’ve had. Now Hartsburg is trying a new approach to balanced scoring, by taking Spezza away from Heatley and Alfie, and putting him on a line where he has the most seniority, and the most offensive prowess.
Heatley and Spezza find themselves pocketing a great deal of change for their skill, with Crosby and Ovechkin raking home more still, but not such a great deal more. If you accept that the extra amounts given to those two come from the increased scoring they will give their teams, along with a host of other factors, there is one thing we should be able to take away from those two and expect from our pair: individual greatness.
I don’t mine (and have often advocated) for the separation of the two, especially since Heatley looked so good when Spezza was injured, thinking and doing more. Like Crosby, who turned the Pens’ version of Phillips into a sniper in Sweden, along with a host of other players, and Ovechkin, who never seems to care who’s feeding him the puck as he goes on to score his goals, Spezza and Heatley need to be able to produce, regardless of their time together.
That is real talent, that is why they are being well compensated, and that is most definitely what is best for the team, having those two elevate the games of those around them to new levels. It might feel like a lot of pressure, but come on; this is the NHL, the hockey mad city of Ottawa, so would you expect anything less?
- Hartsburg is slowly removing any and all lax attitudes from an Ottawa squad used to the old days where heaps of skill would carry them through (Ottawa Citizen).
In calling out his team five games into the season, Craig Hartsburg revealed as much about himself as he did about the Ottawa Senators.
Hartsburg might be new to Ottawa, but he’s not new to coaching. He has a track record in the Ontario Hockey League and the NHL, an established philosophy of how he believes the game should be played.
This is the guy general manager Bryan Murray hired, and the tough love he demonstrated following Saturday’s 4-2 home-ice loss to Boston, after a couple of other uninspired efforts from the heroes, helps explain why Murray hired him. The country club days at Palladium Drive are over, may they rest in peace.
Hartsburg was, in all honesty, the least acclaimed of the potential coaches over the summer. He didn’t have the very forward and demanding style of Tortorella, nor the very high OHL pedigree of DeBoer. Yet the accountability we wanted the players held to, Hartsburg has indeed brought.
Splitting up Heatley and Spezza is a move no other coach has ever seriously tried, forcing each of them to work harder and grow, while pulling up the skill level of those around them, and it’s far from the only positive change he’s initiated. Keeping Gerber in has shown he has the vision to recognize his most consistent player, and is not tempted to make him pay the consequences for the disappointing play of the rest of the team.
Further accountability might come in tonight, as the patience of Schubert and Richardson might find them rewarded with a roster spot, to replace others who haven’t been able to play to the level or with the consistency Hartsburg asks of them. It’s only five games in, and we’ll see how long these new attitudes last, but the fact that we are seeing them at all, especially so early in the season and in his Ottawa career, that should garner Hartsburg a great deal of respect.
- Hartsburg’s positional play replacing penalties as the secret to playing a sound game (Ottawa Sun).
Chris Neil, the Senators’ all-time PIMs leader, disagrees that teams might be starting to think they’re in for an easy night physically when they drop by The Bank.
He also says the lack of infractions is not indicative of the team playing soft.
“We’re more positionally sound,” Neil said. “We’re not reaching and hooking and stuff. Those are a lot of the penalties you get. If you go out and play a hard-nosed game with hits and stuff, they aren’t going to call those. I think there was some good hits (in a zero penalty game against Phoenix on Friday), it’s just that we weren’t fishing for the puck.”
Good positional play is bound to help the team at both ends of the ice, without taking any penalties. Let’s hope, though, that we don’t see too much kindness, as the Sens continually showed the Bruins in letting them walk right up to Gerber unopposed, often en route to quality scoring chances or goals.
The story also speculates that we could find Richardson substituting in for one of our rookies on defense, and Schubert’s graceful acceptance of his recent healthy scratchings could find him taking the place of Donovan or Neil. I think it would most likely be Lee that gets replaced, as he hasn’t quite been able to find the spark he displayed late last season yet, and Picard has that lovely powerplay goal against the Wings.
Of Neil and Donovan, it’s hard to say who might sit. I think that of the two, Neil has been the less reliable contributor early in this season, but not only have coaches appeared to have a reluctance to bench him, but of the two, I think Neil could wind up contributing more, if he gets back on his game.
- While there may not be any new news on an Alfie extension, we could always use reminding of the possibilities, right? (Ottawa Sun).
Talks are continuing quietly on a new contract for Senators captain Daniel Alfredsson.
The two sides have been kicking over how long the new deal will run and seem to be getting close to deciding on a term (four years?). Once that’s in place, they can talk numbers.
It seems everyone has agreed where the finish line is: Senators owner Eugene Melnyk wants Alfredsson to be a “Senator for life,” and Alfredsson wants to finish his career here. Getting to that finish line isn’t quite as easy given the market conditions and restrictions of the CBA.
Such quiet talks indeed, that there appears to be no real news, not even a quote here to glean over. But the suggestion is good: pay Alfie what he should well be able to earn for at least a year or two more, and then drop down his salary for what might well be the time when his age starts to catch up to him, you know, when he only scores a single point per game, no extra ones, and you can ‘only’ count on him for 20 minutes a game, no more. Besides, if he does keep up his play for another half a decade, how much would there really be standing in the way of them ripping up the contract as they’re doing now, in order to give him yet another new deal?
Filed in: NHL Teams, Ottawa Senators | SENShobo | Permalink
Tags: Daniel+Alfredsson, Jason+Spezza, Martin+Gerber,
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