FIVE QUICK THOUGHTS
-And with that, the dream of finishing in last place in the National Hockey League is officially out the window. There’s a sentence I didn’t expect to be writing at any point this season back in October. Ottawa’s dreadful stretch of hockey in the last couple months had fans focusing on a 31st place finish and in turn, an 18.5% chance at the first overall pick. But with last night’s regulation win over the lowly Buffalo Sabres, 30th is as far as the Senators can fall. Shucks. They still sit two points back of both Montreal and Arizona with a couple games left to play.
-So while the Senators can drop no lower than 30th, moving up in the standings remains a very real possibility. They have two tough games remaining (@Pittsburgh, @Boston) but there are still three teams within accidental striking distance. Montreal (@Detroit, @Toronto), Arizona (@Vancouver, Anaheim) and Vancouver (Arizona, @Edmonton) are all still within range with a couple games left for each team. Falling into last place was always a bit of a pipe dream but moving up at all at this stage of the season would be pretty disappointing. Although knocking Pittsburgh down a spot or two might be good news for their other first round pick.
-Watching Matt Duchene on a nightly basis continues to be one of the few positives in an otherwise dreadful season. Duchene took a while to get comfortable here in Ottawa but after a brief adjustment period, he has played like legitimate number one centre and produced at an elite level. Last night he notched his 27th goal and 58th point of the season which is remarkable considering just how bad this team has been. One of the most impressive parts of Duchene’s game is his ability to make plays out of nothing especially from down low, including below the goal line. It’s one of those things you would see occasionally on the highlight reel when he was in Colorado but that you really appreciate when you watch him on a nightly basis.
-While Rasmus Dahlin continues to be the consensus number one at the top of the draft, there really doesn’t seem to be much agreement about who might go where after that. At second overall, there seem to be two and maybe three forwards each getting equal consideration including Filip Zadina, Andrei Svechnikov and Brady Tkachuk. Personally, I think there is a bit of separation between Zadina/Svechnikov and Tkachuk but not everybody sees it the same way. In a quick Twitter poll last night, Zadina was the preferred option with Svechnikov in second and Tkachuk in third. I think I would go Svechnikov, Zadina then Tkachuk but its close between the top two. And we can stop with the “Senators won’t draft a Russian” non-sense by the way because Dorion has been out to watch Svechnikov a couple times this year. The fact that he has played with Aaron Luchuk is a plus too.
-And if you want to do some of your own scouting down the stretch, Andrei Svechnikov and Filip Zadina are still playing, as both the Barrie Colts and Halifax Mooseheads have advanced to the second round of the playoffs. Barrie won Game 1 of their series last night while the Halifax Mooseheads get started tomorrow against the Charlottetown Islanders. Would expect that the Senators will have their scouts watching both series pretty closely over the next couple weeks.
Boucher’s Post-Game Comments
Draft Lottery Simulator
League Standings
Boxscore
