FIVE QUICK THOUGHTS
-There are going to be times over the course of the season where the game of ice hockey looks extraordinarily difficult and that’s kind of where the Ottawa Senators are at right now. After getting off to a good start to the year, the Sens have stumbled recently, dropping three straight including a hard-fought but frustrating loss on the Island last night. The Senators got off to a horrendous start in this one and fell into an early hole as a result. To their credit, they fought back over the final 40 minutes but ultimately, ended up on the wrong end of the goaltending duel. Joonas Korpisalo was good. Ilya Sorokin was spectacular. That’s kind of the way it’s gone for the Senators lately. They’re doing a lot of things right but regularly ending up on the wrong end of both the special teams and goaltending part of the game.
-If the Senators are going to get this thing turned around on Saturday night in Pittsburgh, it’s going to have to be the top players that lead the way. DJ Smith jumbled up the forward lines in this one landing on trios of Tkachuk-Norris-Batherson and Kubalik-Stützle-Giroux. Both lines had their moments but ultimately, didn’t really generate enough at five on five and honestly, all six of those guys need to do more if this team is going to have any success. The good news there is both the third and fourth line actually look pretty good right now.
-After a third straight loss and with concern building over the possibility of another season-ruining start, you’re going to see more calls for sweeping changes. The thing is, Michael Andaluer and now Steve Staios were already evaluating all aspects of the organization and they were already trying to determine what this team needed to be “best in class”. Change is a part of that and more change is inevitable. It won’t be because they’ve determined that this mini-three game slide is the ‘fault’ of a General Manager or a Head Coach and if that is how they make decisions, we’re in pretty big trouble. When they do inevitably pull the trigger on those big changes, it’s because they’ve done a full assessment of what this team needs to get to the next level and because they’ve thought about who might be able to help them get there. That was always going to happen.
-Just a terrifying scene during that second period as defenceman Erik Brannstrom was taken off the ice on a stretcher. The team wasn’t saying a lot about his status after the game but watching the play, it’s clear that Brannstrom hit his head hard on the ice. From there, the reaction of both teams said it all as you could see there was real and legitimate concern for his well-being. Brannstrom was able to move his hands and feet in the aftermath but he was transported to hospital for further evaluation. If you listen to the post game interviews, it’s pretty clear that the guys were rattled by the incident and just really worried about their teammate. Hopefully we get some good news on Brannstrom’s status today.
-This Shane Pinto story will go down as one of the strangest in the history of the Ottawa Senators and serve as another case study in not rushing to judgement in situations where we can never be sure we have all the information. Not sure we’ll ever have all the details on this one but what we do know is the Sens won’t have Shane Pinto until the second half of the season, at the earliest. The league has happily crawled into bed with every possible gambling company and allowed their players to do the same as spokespeople but with this suspension, the NHL is drawing a clear line on the fly. It’s Shane Pinto that has to serve as an example. It seems pretty apparent that Pinto made some mistakes along the way here but the 41-game suspension is mostly about sending a message to everyone watching and mostly, avoiding any perception of players gambling on the sport they play.
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