FIVE QUICK THOUGHTS
-Another solid effort with plenty of positives and no points to show for it. Frustrating for the players I’m sure but a tankers’ dream. The Senators honestly looked like the better team for most of the game last night and they really didn’t give the Washington Capitals much of anything in terms of scoring chances. The Caps sit in first place in the Metro Division but they looked rather ordinary against the 29th place Ottawa Senators. The Sens were able to cut the Washington lead to one in the third period on a ridiculous goal by Erik Karlsson but they couldn’t find the equalizer, despite a couple good looks late in the game. Ottawa sits three points back of the 28th place Vancouver Canucks and just three points clear of the Buffalo Sabres. 20 games to go, folks.
-As much as we might want to believe that the Erik Karlsson rumours were just trade deadline hype, it’s pretty clear that is not the case. While there’s no doubt that the Toronto media was enjoying having such a big name to talk about in the week leading up to deadline day, they obviously weren’t pulling the story out of thin air. And the fact that all insiders (Friedman, LeBrun and McKenzie, in particular) seemed to generally agree on what was going on combined with the radio silence from Dorion and Karlsson should give you a pretty good indication that there were serious discussions underway. Thankfully those didn’t materialize at the deadline but there’s no doubt that the story will linger into the summer. In the meantime, let’s try to enjoy the next 20 games of Erik Karlsson. Because last night, he looked like himself again. It’s clear that all the speculation was weighing on him a little bit.
-As the rumours surrounding Karlsson swirled in the days leading up to the Monday trade deadline, I found myself looking back on his career in Ottawa and admiring his offensive production over the last nine season. And then I glanced at his career point total and noticed he was just two points shy of 500. The idea of him potentially hitting that incredible milestone with another team was just so disappointing. Thankfully Karlsson is still around and last night he became just the 64th defenceman in NHL history to hit 500 points and appropriately, it took him just 613 games to get there. And he’s just the 21st defenceman in league history to put up 500 points with one team and only the 11th defenceman to reach the milestone before his 28th birthday.
-Karlsson’s offensive pace through the first 613 games of his NHL career has been nothing short of remarkable. He sits 9th all time at .816 points per game, alongside some of the legends of the game. And when it comes to active defenceman, his point per game pace is by far the best. And in fact, nobody is particularly close. Second on that list is PK Subban and he’s at .651. To give you a sense of how big a gap that is it is essentially the difference between PK Subban and someone like Alex Goligoski. To be as productive as Karlsson has been and for that many games, and throughout some pretty lean years scoring-wise, is well…it’s generational.
-Pretty cool to see Jim O’Brien back in a Senators uniform last night. After more than five years out of the organization – including stops in Binghamton, Novokuznetsk, Hershey, Albany, New Jersey, San Antonio and Belleville- the former first round pick has miraculously landed in Ottawa again. O’Brien fought and clawed his way back to the NHL and while there are obviously younger guys with higher ceilings that could be plugged into that spot, it’s nice to see the Senators reward O’Brien with a chance to play some guys down the stretch. And if the 4th line centre is only going to play 6-8 minutes a night (he played 7:29 last night) then it makes sense to go with a guy like O’Brien. For what it’s worth, O’Brien had a couple decent shifts, showing pretty good speed and a willingness to battle down low. No drop passes, though.
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