FIVE QUICK THOUGHTS
-After a solid final twenty minutes on Tuesday night against Edmonton, the Ottawa Senators came out flying in this one. They controlled the play through the opening twenty minutes but much like the other night against the Oilers, they just couldn’t buy a goal. It’s becoming a theme lately. Much better effort and structure than we saw during the depths of that nine game losing streak but still not getting rewarded for it. Whether it’s a run of bad luck or just a general lack of skill, it’s pretty clear that nothing is going right for this team. Considering the way they started the game, that early second period goal by the Jets almost felt like a back breaker. The Senators never really recovered from that point on.
-Obviously the biggest story coming out of this one is what appeared to be an injury to Matt Murray. While he was able to finish the second period, you could tell that something wasn’t right after that collision in the crease. For what it’s worth, he wasn’t even on the bench in the third period. DJ Smith said he was taken out of the game as precaution and they’ll see how he feels tomorrow. As we’ve seen frequently throughout the early part of the season, Marcus Hogberg certainly isn’t a reliable option in net. Not right now anyway. He is in desperate need of some time to find his game and he’s just not going to be able to do that in this division. Filip Gustavsson is currently with the taxi squad as the team’s third goalie. Eeep.
-It was only a matter of time really. After getting through the first quarter of the season mostly unscathed, the North Division is encountering its first COVID-related issues. No games cancelled yet but the start of the Edmonton/Montreal game had to be delayed after Jesse Puljujärvi was placed on the COVID-19 protocol list. And then in the lead up to this one, Ottawa defenceman Artem Zub had to be pulled from the game after an inconclusive test. It’s worth pointing out he previously had a negative test. Obviously the hope is this ends up being an isolated incident for the North Division but as we’ve seen in the other divisions, it can get out of hand pretty quickly.
-If you haven’t had a chance, highly recommend checking out this brief interview with Derek Stepan from earlier today. Stepan’s status has been talked about a lot in the last week, so it was nice to actually hear from the player about what’s been going on lately. And even though he didn’t get into a ton of detail, it’s pretty clear that the family issues are weighing on him right now. And while that’s the biggest issue, you can also hear in his voice that maybe he’s a little bit disappointed in himself. Partly because of his own play but also, that maybe he overestimated his ability to juggle hockey and priorities away from the rink. Another good reminder that hockey players are people too.
-As usual, Bruce Garrioch’s between periods segment was full of interesting notes. On Marcus Hogberg, Bruce mentioned that it would likely be some time before we saw him back in the Ottawa net. At least that was the plan until Matt Murray left with an injury. Garrioch mentioned with a back to back looming next week in Toronto, we could see Joey Daccord could make a start in the NHL in the not too distant future. It also sounds like Logan Brown is likely to join the team in Toronto next week too. He’ll have a chance to play a couple games at the AHL level as a tune-up before stepping into the NHL lineup next week.
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