FIVE QUICK THOUGHTS
-Never has a five quick thoughts felt so daunting. This was an absolute disaster of a game from the moment the puck was dropped. Every team is going to have bad periods over the course of a season but five goals against in a single period just doesn’t happen in the NHL. There’s no excuse for it. In fact, it’s something the Ottawa Senators haven’t done since 1994 when Peter Forsberg and Quebec Nordiques embarrassed the third-year Senators. Let’s hope it’s another 20 years before it happens again.
-Really don’t feel the need to over-analyze this one but because I need to say five things about the damn game I better at least say something about exactly what went wrong. Obviously goaltending was a big part of the issue but for whatever reason, the Senators just weren’t ready to play in that first period. People like to put that on Coaching but having watched enough of HBO’s 24/7, I have a hard time believing that the little 30 second pep talk from the Coach before puck drop makes that big of a difference. This has been a tough road trip with a busy schedule in a different time zone but even that doesn’t explain the five goal first. Just an awful period of hockey, really.
-Okay, how many thoughts was that? This is only number three? Oh boy. This is tougher than I thought. If you’re looking for positives, I kind of liked the way the line of Michalek-Zibanejad-Ryan played from the second period on. If Kyle Turris is going to be out of the line up for any prolonged period of time, they are really going to need Mika Zibanejad to take it to another level and I thought at times, he looked pretty good last night.
-Ooo I thought of another positive! Shane Prince. He was finally given a little bit more ice time with the game out of reach and was one of the few players creating offence. He sprung two teammates for breakaways in the third period and then drew a penalty on his next shift. At this point, I don’t really know what Shane Prince has to do to force his way up the depth chart but you would think his play in the second and third period might help his cause a little bit. Although he didn’t find his way on to any of the late power plays so maybe not?
-Every team is going to have it’s low points over the course of the 82 game season. I probably don’t need to remind you of that fact because we have certainly witnessed our fair share this season. But for a playoff bubble team like the Senators, it’s all about how they respond to games like this. They played pretty well in the second and third period and have a chance to bounce back tonight against the New York Islanders. There are a lot of home games coming up for the Sens and they need to take advantage. Ottawa will only play three road games in the next month.
