FIVE QUICK THOUGHTS
-All things considered, I thought that was a pretty solid sixty minute effort from the Senators. Down their top centre and playing most of the game with only five defenceman, I thought the Sens did a good job hanging with one of the top teams in the Eastern Conference. And actually, the Senators sort of took it to them in the third period. Just couldn’t find a way to get a puck through Ben Bishop. I think we all knew this was going to be a pretty tough game coming in but this loss is fairly devastating to Ottawa’s rapidly fading playoff hopes. Seven points back and the Penguins have two games in hand.
-I don’t like revisiting old trades usually. It’s always easy to look back and say that Management should have done things differently. The reality is when a particular move is made, there are a number of reasons why it makes sense at the time and it’s pretty easy to forget those reasons as the years pass. But when I watch Ben Bishop play, I pretty quickly forget/don’t care what those reasons were. Letting Bishop go to a division rival is tough. I know he was a free agent to be, and I know they had Anderson and Lehner, but goalies like Bishop don’t come along very often. The combination of size and athleticism is just so rare. Felt like nothing was going to get by him last night.
-The debut of Scott Gomez was pretty much what I expected. He’s a smart hockey player and generally knows where to be on the ice to create offence. Like he mentioned in his pregame media scrum, the head and the hands are always the last thing to go for a hockey player. He made a couple nice plays to set up Alex Chiasson but other than that, it was a pretty quiet night for him. Obviously he had that one flubbed play at the Tampa Bay blueline that led to a goal but that was sort of a bouncing puck. Going to be interesting to see if Gomez is considered an “every night” player down the stretch.
-It has become a common talking point in the comment section of this site but I think it’s probably time to separate the line of Hoffman-Zibanejad-Ryan. Those three guys are counted on to be difference makers for the Senators and I find that for long stretches of the game, I barely notice them. I know it’s tough with Turris/MacArthur out but I think it might make sense to switch Stone and Ryan. That would leave Hoffman-Zibanejad-Stone and Smith-Pageau-Ryan. Worth a look anyway.
-It looked like a fairly harmless play but it sounds like the Senators are going to be without Mark Borowiecki for a prolonged period of time. In speaking with the media after the game Cameron described it as a week to week situation and the official in-game update from the team said he would be out “indefinitely”. Neither of those terms sound overly promising for Boro. Borowiecki’s absence represents an opportunity for Patrick Wiercioch though. And quite possibly, his last in a Senators’ uniform. Hopefully he is able to make the most of it.
