Disaster Strikes

Amazingly, still better than his play last year.

Frustrating. Aggravating. Irritating. Pathetic. Hopeless.

Pick any three, and that pretty accurately describes what it was like to watch the Senators get spanked by the Penguins last night. Sure, 5-2 doesn’t look HORRIBLE, but don’t let the score fool you—they really, really were that bad. If you didn’t see this game, consider yourself lucky. The entire 60 minutes of play was a frustrating combination of no firepower, even less defense and a general inability to stop even a feather, let alone a Penguin, from getting into the offensive zone.

About the only highlight worth mentioning is that Robin Lehner, wunderkind extraordinaire who came in halfway through the second to replace Elliott, still hasn’t let in a goal at the NHL level and leads the league in save percentage and GAA. You know you’re reaching for a silver lining when your subject hasn’t even played in a full game yet…

Flat-footed, uninspired, effortless games like those seem to be the norm so far, this season. Brian Lee, for one, seemed way more useless than usual. It’s still too early to write the team off for the year, but they need some wins and they need them fast. Of their next three games, (Buffalo on Friday, Montreal on Saturday, Phoenix on Tuesday) our best chance to win looks like Buffalo. The team having Tuesday through Thursday off will undoubtedly be dedicated to bag skates, intensive workouts and a lot of yelling from Cory Clouston. And for all we know, this might help. It definitely can’t hurt, anyways.
It’s the lean days like these where you can really separate the true Sens fans from the bandwagoners, but goddamn do I miss the days where it was easy to be a supporter. The days where we had secondary scoring… hell, the days when we had primary scoring. The days when our defense was the class of the league. The days where our goaltending sucked a bit less. But what about the days when players still gave a shit? Because I’m not seeing any of that so far this season.

Musings on Squandered Opportunity

If only things worked out the way they look on paper...

My apologies for the lack of recaps. With mid-term session in full swing, it's been hard to find a moment to sit down and blog.

That said, there's been an abundance of time to watch the Sens play, and there's no doubt in my mind, or anyone's, really, that this is a team that needs a lot of work. On paper, this roster should not be 1-3-1. Theoretically, we should've been able to beat Buffalo in the season opener. Practically, we probably should have beaten Washington instead of getting a charity point. Factually, we DEFINITELY should have beaten Montreal on the weekend, and would have if not for the typically deflating bad goal by Brian Elliott, combined with a total team collapse in the late 2nd/3rd period.

Is it the coaching? Logic would say no. Clouston's been solid behind the bench for us since he was hired in early 2009. He turned around the fortunes of a then-horrible team and hasn't looked back. Can it be blamed on the 3rd and 4th liners? Hardly. The Ruutu-Kelly-Neil line has been mostly dominant, while players like Jesse Winchester and Ryan Shannon have been solid on the puck.

No, the real blame should be placed on the first liners and the defence. Apart from Milan Michalek's 3-point game against the Canadiens and Mike Fisher's 2-pointer against Carolina, they've been virtually invisible. None of Nick Foligno's success in the pre-season is translating to the regular season. (Brandon Bochenski, anyone?) Peter Regin's great two-way play in the playoffs has returned to the way it was before--reliable defensively, but not putting up many points. Alexei Kovalev has been his usual self, vanishing off the face of the Earth for the first five games. Jason Spezza, although contributing at a point per game average, hasn't done anything to really spark the time. And Daniel Alfredsson, Lord and Saviour though he may be, is beginning to show that he can't make plays single-handedly like he used to.

The defence, meanwhile, has been a clusterfuck, to say the least. It speaks volumes to the atrocity of our defense when people are singing the praises of Brian Lee (that said, his play has improved this year). Chris Phillips is looking flat-footed, Sergei Gonchar is providing none of the firepower he was signed for, Matt Carkner has shown that he can't handle top-4 duty, Chris Campoli has been mediocre and Erik Karlsson is suffering from the "sophomore slump" something fierce.

The only constant on this team, Pascal Leclaire, may as well be a porcelain vase--hell, I'm sure even it would break less. Look for Pazzy to try and rush himself back. On a contract year immediately following a bad year statistically, Leclaire's got something to prove if he wants to stay in the NHL.

The Senators are in Pittsburgh tonight to face the Penguins, who have only won one game (vs the New York Islanders) at their new arena. Ottawa should have a good chance at winning this one... but then again, if things happened as they "should", Ottawa wouldn't be a 1-3-1 team and Toronto sure as shit wouldn't be undefeated. Pittsburgh has Brent Johnson in nets, while the Sens are going with Elliott. Should be entertaining if for no other reason than the growing rivalry between the two teams. The game will be on Sportsnet at 7pm.

Memo to the Senators

Did you get the memo?

To: Ottawa Senators
From: Lewy
Date: October 10th, 2010
Re: Shellacking by the Leafs

At this point it's painfully obvious that no one got the first memo I sent around except Leclaire and Foligno, so here's the upshot of it: THE SEASON HAS STARTED. Though, Nick, any time you want to pretend it's the preseason again is fine with me.

After being two games in, usually a fanbase has a sense of direction as to how the season's going to go--Cup contender? Dark horse? Sneaking in the backdoor of the playoffs? In line for a top draft pick? If the first two games have shown anything at all, you should probably be brought to a shed out back and be put down. No effort. No heart. Two goals, both scored pretty much the same way. 0/9 on the powerplay despite bringing in powerplay specialist Sergei Gonchar. And if it weren't for another great game by Snoopy, you would have lost by a wider margin than four goals. Against the Leafs.

I'll let that sink in.

The fans are starting to panic, and rightly so. A one-goal loss would've been acceptable if there had been any real sense of trying. A four-goal loss is pretty much always unacceptable, but last night's was made all the worse by bad skating, sloppy passes and some of the worst penalties I've ever seen a team of "professionals" take. Zack Smith's boarding on Schenn in the first, right after theteam showed their first signs of being awake? Terrible timing. Chris Kelly's holding the stick after being knocked down? Nearly as selfish as Fisher's penalty against the Rangers in the preseason. And, to top it all off, Kelly's penalty (along with a smart penalty by Gonchar) led to the 4-0 goal.

And the goal to make it 5-1? Good for you, Spezza, for not celebrating much. For one, the game was already over. Two, it was a lucky bounce on a bungled icing call. Thirdly, that pass was so perfect even Jesse freaking Winchester could've scored it.

Pull your heads out of your asses and show up for Monday's game against Washington, because the last team to have an 0-3 start was the Toronto Maple Leafs from last year, and we all know how well that season ended.

So, get it together, already.

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

One game down, eighty-one to go in the regular season. Though the 2-1 final score seems to indicate a close game, the Senators were outplayed for a large part of it, including most of the second period--oddly, the only period in which they picked up a goal.

If Ryan Miller weren't Superman, we might have a different game recap here. In the span of the first few minutes, Ottawa forwards were buzzing around the Buffalo end while the Sabres defensemen looked stymied. Crisp passes and great scoring chances were there, but Miller shut down each and every one, and the Sabres never looked back from then on. They dominated most of the game except for the last bit of the 3rd period, in which the Sens had two powerplays and a pulled goalie but couldn't score the equalizer--this despite a great chance by Alfredsson at the side of the net and another where Leopold got a stick on the puck before Regin could.

The story of the game for the Sens though, of course, has got to be Leclaire's game. As a self-admitted Leclaire apologist, I was beyond happy for Snoopy, who seemed to be getting nothing but flak last year (most of which was rightly deserved, mind you). He made a few great saves, including a couple where Connolly was essentially pushing Leclaire out of his crease. As the always astute Ryan Classic (editor at Silver Seven Sens) pointed out on Twitter:

"Pascal Leclaire is the pitcher who gets no run support, no matter how well or poorly he plays."

And really, if you think about it, there's a lot of truth to that analogy. The offense rarely shows up when he's lights-out, and when he flops completely, there's not much the offense can do to salvage the situation. A strong defensive team seems like the best place for Leclaire, but... uh, have you seen our defense? Then again, having a point-per-game player in Jason Spezza sitting out tonight's game didn't help the offensive production, either.

But for all the above, there's one really important thing to remember: it's only one game. There's no way we can safely assume that this one game is a microcosm of our season. Otherwise, Chris Kelly would be an 82-goal scorer and Daniel Alfredsson would be held scoreless all year long. Likely? No. So there's no point getting irrationally upset or torn up about tonight's loss.

If we lose to Toronto tomorrow night, though? Whole other issue.

Hockey's Future Update

Hockey's Future has been updating their list of organizational depth for each team, and today was finally the Senators' turn.

I'm particularly happy that Jim O'Brien isn't in our top four, like he was last year. It speaks very much to the great job Murray & co. have done to restock the proverbial cupboards. Ignoring the question of whether Karlsson should be considered as "graduated" from the prospect list or not (he should), a few quick observations about the list:

• In what should come as a surprise to absolutely nobody, four of our top five prospects, according to HF, are defensemen. Our depth at D, while nice on paper right now, will be beastly in practice a few years down the line. This, of course, assumes that Karlsson, Cowen, Wiercioch and Rundblad continue their development instead of falling into the Brian Lee Downward Descent into Development Doom.
• I find it interesting that Louie Caporusso is listed higher than Wick, Butler and Smith. I've never seen Caporusso play, so for all I know he could be great down the line, but it seems to me that a prospect who's closer to cracking the NHL is a more valuable commodity than one who hasn't gotten much buzz since being nominated for the Hobey Baker award in 08-09.
• Hoffman at 19 seems a bit low, given the outstanding seasons he's had over the past two years and his training camp, which has been solid, albeit unspectacular. Having him below O'Brien seems less about their respective skill levels, but more about O'Brien's high draft position.
• Lehner's ranked a solid 5 on our list, but Sens need to draft another goalie or trade for one. There's just not enough long-term depth there to sustain. (This comment assumes that Brodeur bolts once his contract is up after this year.)

Thoughts on the list? A prospect you like not getting enough love? Someone on the list that you feel is overrated? I'd love to read your thoughts in the comment section.

Kuba takes a hit

If this is any kind of indication about the upcoming season, we're screwed.

Less than fifteen minutes into today's first practice of the year, Filip Kuba's skate caught a rut in the ice and he crashed awkwardly into the boards before being helped off the ice. No word yet on the seriousness of it, but the fact that it's Kuba is cause enough for concern. He missed 29 games last year and 11 games the year before with various injuries, most of which were classified as "lower-body injuries" -- though it's important to note that a lower-body injury could be anything from a sore hip to a hangnail on his pinky toe.

Does Pascal Leclaire take the backseat in terms of the team's official Player Made of Glass™? Will Kuba recover anytime soon? More importantly, if Kuba's still sidelined when the season begins, does that spot in the defensive corps become Jared Cowen's to lose? Will Brian Lee finally show why he was drafted 9th overall? Does Patrick Wiercioch or Eric Gryba make enough of an impression at camp to be kept on, even if only temporarily? Or, failing all of the above, what about David Hale?

Regin locked up

News out of the Senators organization today is that Peter Regin has signed a two-year contract with the club, avoiding an arbitration hearing which was scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. The deal will pay Regin $950,000 in his first year and $1,050,000 in the second for a cap hit of $1M.

For what it's worth, I believe this deal is one of the better ones in the NHL at the moment IF Regin can keep up the pace he was setting during the playoffs. Finding a top-6 left winger at $1M a year is a steal. For that matter, I'm not sure such a player exists as of now.

Regin, who was born and raised in Herning, Denmark, has the potential of becoming an offensive dynamo on the first line, alongside Jason Spezza and one of Alexei Kovalev or Daniel Alfredsson. And while some have gone so far as to call him Denmark's Gretzky, it's important to keep things in perspective and realize that, while his playoff production was stellar, it was a somewhat radical change from his game in the regular season, where he tallied 13 goals and 16 assists -- impressive for his first full year in the NHL, but nothing spectacular.

I'd argue that it's likely for him to be, at worst, a solid 2nd line winger with speed and a scoring touch. He has the size to be a third line grinder, but that just isn't his style. It would be a complete waste of talent, much like sending Chris Kelly in alone with just the goalie to beat would be a complete waste of a breakaway.

I like Regin's game, and this year looks like his time to shine. The fact that Bryan Murray was able to sign him to a cap-friendly deal and let him prove it wasn't a fluke can only help the organization, both in the short-term (less money locked up in a guy who hasn't proven much) and long-term (hopefully, easier future negotiations because of the loyalty the organization is showing and the faith they have in him).

With this signing, the only potential roster player still unsigned is Chris Campoli, who was acquired along with Mike Comrie in exchange for San Jose's first round pick and Dean McAmmond in 2009. The predicted salary range for Campoli, should he get to arbitration, is somewhere around $1M. At that price, the Senators would have no choice but to accept the ruling, as any award of slightly over $1M or less must be accepted. Allowing Campoli, Lee and Cowen to fight it out for the last spot on the defensive corps could be beneficial and create competition so no one gets too complacent.

Just food for thought.