SENShobo
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Sens’ Victory Belies Sabres’ Early Success
by SENShobo on 10/28/08 at 07:22 AM ET
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Today’s Ottawa Senators’ news
- Ottawa powers out five unanswered goals en route to 5-2 win over Buffalo.
- Lalime enjoys greeting his old team, at least before last night.
- Another Presidential contender affects the NHL.
- Sens needed to bring their full effort to win this game, but even I fell a goal short of imagining a 5-2 victory (NHL.com, Ottawa Sun, Ottawa Citizen).
Auld has now lost two potential shutouts in the closing moments. He lost the first one in Stockholm in victory against the Penguins.
Last night, though, he wasn’t complaining.
“This was a huge win for us,” Auld said. “At that point (of MacArthur’s goal), it’s gravy, it’s just a bonus, especially against a team like this that’s off to such a good start.
“It’s a huge boost. We played a lot of the game the way we wanted to play, and showed when we play that way, we can not only win games, but control games for the most part. Other than a few penalties at the end, we were able to do a lot of things we wanted to do. We were very good (last night) and it’s good timing for us.”
There should never be any complaints over a win, especially not after such a strained start. I suggested yesterday that the game would be a key one for the Sens, either as a rut-breaking win or the final slap in the face before one, or else the sign of a long season to come. The Sens’ game has been struggling to start for a long time now, and with this first blast of life there is hope, though it will take a few more games to see if this team roars to life or sputters on its merry way.
Look at the stats, and you’ll much that is the same. The score brought improved both the Sens’ goals for and goals against per game, both now standing at 3.00. The powerplay continued to tick, cashing in on two powerplay goals and a third shortly after the penalty expired, as a result of their hard work. At 28, the shot total was right on par with the average of 28.6.
There were some subtle differences though, some that may have won the game. 27 was the number of shots Buffalo got off, but more important was the number 25, as in the Sens blocked 25 shots. 27 shots and Auld worked hard and was once again close to earning a shutout, but 52 shots and you can’t be as sure that victory would be ours, and that big number was a big advantage. The Sens had averaged 14 blocked shots per game before last night.
Small numbers can matter just as much. 5 is a small number, with Phillips, Donovan, Spezza, McAmmond, and Auld all contributing to that total. 5 is smaller than the Sens’ eight game average of 12, as in it is a marked improvement that the Sens only committed 5 giveaways last night.
The last important number to remember is too long to detail, but too important to overlook. I’ve detailed before just how imbalanced the Sens’ time on ice has been. Last night, however, the extremes of the distribution became more balanced. Only three Sens (Kuba, Phillips, Schubert, all defensemen for a change) topped 20 minutes, and overall more balance was achieved.
It was hard work that won this game, hard work we can hopefully look forward to seeing more of. Instead of scoring from skillful rushes (ok, Spezza did pull another one of those, coming in on Lalime’s left and faking him out before burying it as he’s done before), the Sens scored more from hard work. All five of the Sens goals came from deep in the zone, not from way out at the points. They took advantage of the space the Sabres afforded them, and scored with it. The only goals they allowed came in the same way, when shorthanded they couldn’t stop Buffalo from swarming or screening Auld.
Things even continued working for the fourth line, with Winchester helping to control the puck, giving Donovan the chance he needed to pot his next goal (at even strength, he is tied with Spezza for the lead in goals and one behind him in points). The consistent effort from the fourth line is the one surprise, surprising because of how little time they received, though the many powerplays on both sides likely played a role in that.
The Sens go visit Melnyk in Florida with some good news and high hopes, and indeed they have given us some too. If we can beat the East’s top team, who’ve done so well despite personnel losses, maybe we’ll remember how long we led Detroit, or how well we faced the Pens. On paper, the team has more than even recent successful Senators squads. Can’t wait to see it continue to show on the ice.
- Lalime enjoyed his time in Ottawa, but doesn’t quite get a chance to prove he should have been signed over Auld (Ottawa Citizen, Ottawa Sun).
“It always fun to play against your old team,” Lalime said yesterday morning. “I talked to a few of them (Sunday), and it’s always nice to see them. This is the second time (two years ago in Chicago was the first), and it was a lot of fun on the ice.
“It probably felt a bit like practice a few years ago, to see the guys and talk to the guys on the ice.”
Asked if he’ll be pinning a few dollars on the bulletin board toward a team party, which players usually do when their former teams come to town, he said: “I’m sure there will be a little bit.”
Everyone knows that Lalime almost became a Senator again last summer.
I wonder what happened to those ‘few dollars’? Auld certainly helped prove that we did not make any grave error in signing him over Lalime, but Lalime did have some very good hard-fought saves, especially a couple that had him looking like a sweater in the dryer on ‘tumble’. No really, that’s a compliment.
For some fans, it might seem like a long time ago, but Lalime still holds many records with the Sens, including the season and career numbers for most wins, shutouts, and games played. Hopefully Elliot took a good, long look at the Sens’ longest-serving and most successful goaltender. Elliot looks to be management’s pick to take a shot at all those numbers, and with any luck reclaim them for a modern franchise ‘tender, perhaps even one that could stick around for a while.
- Palin twice made hockey highlights, but Obama keeps his hockey ‘involvement’ low key (Ottawa Citizen).
Just when they’re starting to roll, the Ottawa Senators are about to get sidetracked, by, of all things, the U.S. presidential election campaign.
The Senators, fresh off a 5-2 win over the Buffalo Sabres, were supposed to practise on Wednesday in Sunrise at the home of the Florida Panthers, the BankAtlantic Centre.
But they’re getting evicted because Democratic candidate Barack Obama will be using the arena for a last-minute campaign stop.
At least we don’t have a puck drop to deal with, we can hardly afford to lose another goalie to injury, especially after he’s part of a win.
Filed in: NHL Teams, Ottawa Senators | SENShobo | Permalink
Tags: Barack+Obama, Patrick+Lalime,
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