FIVE QUICK THOUGHTS
-This is going to raise some eyebrows and maybe I’m a little too quick to judge after one preseason game but I really liked what I saw from Chris Neil last night. He has apparently come into camp in much better shape and I felt like you could tell the difference last night. He looks quite a bit faster and seemed to be doing a much better job keeping up with the play. Chris Neil is in a contract year and eager to prove he still has something left in the tank. A re-energized Chris Neil would be great news for the fourth line.
-The Senators need to hurry up and send Thomas Chabot back to Junior before Dave Cameron decides to keep him here all damn season. The whole sample size things obviously applies here but I had a whole lot of fun watching that pairing of Chabot and Erik Karlsson last night. Chabot is a smooth skater, handles the puck with confidence and thinks the game incredibly well. Yes, it’s preseason but that kind of poise from an 18 year old playing his first game at the NHL level is damn impressive. Chabot isn’t going to make this team out of Camp but last night, he certainly looked worthy of a longer look.
-The game in Ottawa was certainly the more entertaining of the two. Not surprising considering the talent difference between the two Ottawa line ups but I found that even though I had both games on, I was really only watching the game at the Canadian Tire Centre. Ottawa wasn’t really able to get much of anything going offensively at the ACC which probably isn’t great news for young hopefuls like Matt Puempel and Nick Paul looking to make an early impression. The lone highlight in that one was Mike Hoffman showing a flash of what we saw from him last season, using his speed and terrific shot to score Ottawa’s only goal of the night.
-It didn’t last long but we got our first glimpse at 3 on 3 overtime during the game in Ottawa. It’s hard to get much of a read off less than 60 seconds of action but it’s pretty clear that even the smallest mistake could end up costing you with that much space. The Senators started with a trio of Turris, MacArthur and Karlsson with all three of them playing a sort of rover position. I’m not sure if there’s much strategy from a Coaches perspective but it’s pretty clearly going to be a high risk/high reward kind of thing. Fun to watch though, that’s for sure.
-It’s only been one preseason game and I’m already sick of talking about Jared Cowen. I mentioned it on Twitter but I thought I saw some good things from him in the first but he seemed to tail off a little bit in the second and third period. He did seem to be skating a bit better but was also prone to those same positional mistakes that have become his downfall the last couple seasons. I will say this though- for whatever reason, I watch Jared Cowen closer than any other player during a game. Partly because I want to see signs that he’s ready to turn things around and partly because I’m waiting for the next mistake. And that’s probably not fair because he’s the only player that I watch that way. And based on the reactions to his play during the game, I’m not the only one.
