Senators Snap Losing Streak with OT Win

SensChirp February 2, 2018 881
Senators Snap Losing Streak with OT Win

FIVE QUICK THOUGHTS

-When you have lost six straight games and sit comfortably in 29th place in the National Hockey League, you really can’t be picky about how you win the game.  Just being able to glance up at the score clock and confirm that you indeed scored more goals than the opposition is sufficient.  In all honesty, the Ottawa Senators can be more than content with the way they played last night against what should have been a desperate Anaheim team. It certainly wasn’t an exciting game by any stretch but the Senators did a lot of the things that made them successful last season. Defending as five man units, clogging up the neutral zone and basically outworking the opposition.  The game still had a whole lot of that “here we go again” feeling at times and especially late in the third period. But give the Sens credit for finding a way to get it done. Can’t lose ’em all!

-Goaltending has been Ottawa’s biggest issue this season but there are signs recently that both of their goalies might be starting to turn the corner.  Craig Anderson has been north of a .916 save percentage in four of his last five starts and Mike Condon has now looked solid in his last three outings, stopping 104 of 111 shots for a tidy .937 sv%.  He was probably Ottawa’s best player last night and if not for that dreadful bit of defending on the tying goal, he would have come away with his first shutout of the season.  Condon and Anderson are liking going to split the starts over the weekend but it would be nice to see Condon get a few more starts down the stretch to see if he can get his game going a little bit.

-Watching last night’s game, it dawned on me that a significant portion of this fan base has never really had to cheer for a team that was truly terrible.  For those that started following in the last decade (maybe after the ’07 Cup run), it has been a stretch primarily marked by mediocrity.  Unpleasant for sure but this year is a reminder that it can always get worse.  This is a franchise that has three seasons with 41 points or less under its belt.  For fans that have been around since day one, you are all too familiar with the feeling of meaningless games this early in the season. And what those same fans remember is even after a terrible season, the high pick isn’t always the best consolation prize. Alexandre Daigle, Radek Bonk, Bryan Berard and Chris Phillips all serve as helpful reminders that a high pick doesn’t automatically mean a franchise altering player.

-Another night, another finger injury for Bobby Ryan.  At this point, it’s impossible not to feel bad for the guy.  You could see how frustrated he was last night too. When healthy, Ryan has proven that he is still a quality top six forward but the “when healthy” qualifier is starting to lose all meaning. Ryan scored the first goal of the game and then left the game shortly after. He tried to come back a couple times but it was clear that the hand was bothering him.  With a big contract like he has, it’s sort of predictable that fans would be quick to turn on the guy but that seems sort of unfair considering his biggest issue right now is just bad luck.  Boucher talked about the injury afterwards saying it wasn’t broken but that they would wait and see before deciding if he’ll miss any time.

-It’s pretty incredible to think that Erik Karlsson has already played 600 games.  It feels like just yesterday that Bryan Murray swung a trade and then Daniel Alfredsson walked up to the Draft podium in Ottawa and called out the name of a player most of us had never heard of and that one local scribe called a “garbage pick”.  Now, in his 9th season with the Senators, Karlsson continues to define himself as one of if not the best players in franchise history. 8th in games played, 9th in goals, 3rd in assists and 4th in points and now just 10 shy of 500 on his career. He’s a defenceman, by the way.  He now sits 66th all-time in points by a defenceman and he’s 9th in points per game with 0.817.  He has two Norris Trophies under his belt and he should probably have four.  And in what is widely considered to be one of the worst years of his career, he sits 8th in scoring among NHL defenceman and 7th in points per game.  Crazy idea here but maybe we should hang on to this guy?

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