FIVE QUICK THOUGHTS
-Just a nice little Saturday afternoon walk in the park. While the Los Angeles Kings may have held an edge on the shot clock, this was a game the Ottawa Senators controlled from start to finish. No passengers either. Just a complete team effort for the full 60 minutes. Not sure how many times you could say that about a Sens game last year but that’s twice already this year. It is abundantly clear that this group of guys legitimately care about each other and like playing together. There are still going to be bumps in the road with a young team like this but one thing is painfully obvious- it’s just going to be a lot more fun to watch.
-Raise your hand if you thought the Senators would actually get more offence from the back end this year. Okay now those of you that raised your hands please lower them because you’re lying. Safe to say nobody, and I mean nobody, saw this coming. Guy Boucher has his defenseman playing a far more aggressive brand of hockey so far and it’s paying off in a big way. With Chris Wideman’s two goal effort including a slap shot through Peter Budaj’s soul, Ottawa now has 8 of their 20 goals scored by defenceman. Stunning. Thomas Chabot’s two point effort gives him 8 points through 5 games. Yesterday, Ben Harpur looked sharp in his season debut and Christian Jaros looked comfortable in sheltered minutes.
-One thing to keep in mind during this surprising start to the season is the fact that Mark Stone and Matt Duchene have actually both got off to relatively slow starts. Although you can see that it’s starting to click for them now. In the case of both players, this was probably their best game of the season. While the team really hasn’t provided much in the way of details, pretty sure Matt Duchene is a little bit banged up but yesterday you could see flashes of his old self. Looked much more confident with the puck on his stick. Hopefully a sign of things to come for him.
-Yesterday also just happened to be Craig Anderson’s best game of the season too. Outside of the odd read he made on that Trevor Lewis breakaway, Anderson was rock solid in the Ottawa net. The Senators did give up more shots than they probably would have liked but they did a good job of keeping those shots mostly to the outside. That makes Anderson’s job fairly easy assuming he can make those saves and control the rebounds. He did both those things well against the Kings. It has been a bit of an up and down start for Anderson this year but if he can give this team goaltending like yesterday’s effort on a regular basis, they’ll be just fine.
-Belleville followed the lead of their NHL affiliate yesterday, cruising to 6-2 win over the Manitoba Moose. The line of Rudolf Balcers, Filip Chlapik and Drake Batherson combined for a ridiculous 10 points along the way including a couple highlight reel goals. Obviously it’s early in their season but based on what we saw last night, it will be tough to keep those three in the AHL all year. Filip Gustavsson, what started his year with a brief stint in the ECHL, was sharp in goal and earned his first win of the season. You can see highlights from the game here. Ottawa Rising, indeed.
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