-Certainly wasn’t the most entertaining game of the season but as Bobby Ryan pointed out on Twitter, “You don’t sell tickets on the road.” The Senators took control of the game from the moment the puck was dropped, playing one of their best periods of the season to start last night’s contest. Then in the third they put Minnesota away. Pretty much a text book road game.
-Big win for Robin Lehner obviously. After watching Craig Anderson string together six solid outings in a row, he knew he was going to have to earn his ice time down the stretch. And while he wasn’t tested a whole lot, he certainly picked a good time to get his first shutout of the season. Craig Anderson is this team’s number one goalie but Lehner is more than capable of starting some important games down the stretch. Great situation for the Sens.
-Pretty strange allocation of ice time among the defenceman last night as once again, Marc Methot found his ice time cut back to just 15:31. Meanwhile Jared Cowen was up over 24 minutes. Now a lot of that has to do with Cowen being paired with Karlsson but it still seems like Methot is capable of playing a little bit more. Something to keep an eye on moving forward.
-Thought this was as good as Jason Spezza has looked in weeks. Really seemed to be moving his feet more and was much stronger on the puck than he has been. He really seems to be finding some chemistry with Mark Stone these last couple games as you can see they are starting to find each other on the ice. Not sure Colin Greening is the answer on that line though. If Murray does end up making a trade for an impact forward, the left side with Spezza and Stone seems like the ideal hole to fill.
-Man, how good is Kyle Turris? Really a treat to watch out there. His patience with the puck seems to get better with every game and he has an uncanny ability to make the “right play” just about every time. Unbelievable hockey sense. If you’re ever having a bad day, just take a look at the contract Kyle Turris is locked in at. It should put a smile on your face.
-Well I guess it was only a matter of time before “Erik Karlsson avoiding the media” became a story. Don Brennan took a run at the Sens star defenceman for not speaking with the media in 2014. First of all, I’m not sure many of the Sens fans I know really care about little generic quotes from players before and after the game. So to me, this is no big deal. But I can understand Brennan’s frustration. With that said, by admitting he’s going to pry about Karlsson’s New Year’s tweet, he’s showing exactly why Karlsson made the decision to avoid the distraction and cut off media altogether. This isn’t a long term solution for Karlsson though and at some point, he’ll have to just step in front of cameras and say, “I don’t want to talk about it.” And I would expect that from there, the media will respect the man’s privacy.
-You’ll notice the “Log In” button as moved from the top of the page to the menu bar. Just in case anyone is having trouble finding it this morning.
