Introspection

A 5-3 win against Wild. The sens came back 3 goals down in the first period to win this one.

This is always how good the sens have looked when the big 3 are getting their points. They were involved in 4 out of 5 goals. So we moved one spot ahead on number 12. Well, this 4 game streak will win something if they make it 6 or 7. Otherwise, the hole is just too deep to get out of. Good to see that Auld was able to perform when he was called upon. Ottawa had 2 short handed goals in a game to quote people from team 1200 it is a statistical anomaly.We should be happy that we had it but there is nothing more that we can read from it.

Brendan Bell has been playing well for Ottawa he is a good defenceman but he is not consistent. At his salary he was a steal for us. I am certain, if he plays a full season he will get over 30 points, more if the team is having a good year.

Also, leaves won 6-2 vs Pens, today. It is time that we all realize that leaves actually have a better team then they give themselves credit for. For them it all beings in the defence. They have an excellent pmd in Kabarle and 3 solid defencemen in Finger, Frogren and Schenn.

Even though the numbers might not suggest so, Toskala is a genuine number 1 goalie and comes up good more times than not. Their supposed lack of talent up front is compensated by a bunch of player vying for existence in Leafland and NHL. If they can get a 2 genuine top 6 forwards they will be as good as any other team. That thought is scary at best.

In the meanwhile Green has become the first defenceman in a very long time to get goals in 8 straight games. Also, Jason Blake's play has really improved this year. He had a career high 9 points in January and continues to score goals. He is a tenacious, persistent winger and I would be happy to see him in
Ottawa if Leafland don't want him.

  Once again the CASH line is scoring and once again all the wins are looking easy.

Looked like Elliot ran out of luck in the 3rd period, It was possibly because senators stopped attacking in the 3rd.

I don’t like how Brian Lee gets hit by pretty much every player in the opposition. It was happening yesterday and continued into today’s game. The manner in which he gets hit doesn’t lead me to believe that it’s because he was trying to make a play and got hit. Boy, Winchester is not afraid of getting hit and I don’t know whether I should be happy about it or not. He does compete hard every time but maybe he is not all that deft in avoiding hits. Good to see Heatley get a couple of goals. Also, the hard working Bell got a point. What a drive to the net by Vermette in the end to get a goal. Good to see Foligno get a goal too, IMO he just doesn’t seem to compete all that hard after getting a point. 

Man, if only this team played this well early on in the season. I think they are more aggressive in scoring goals and they are getting it too if, this is due to Clouston’s system then good luck to him. 

I would like to see Patrick Weircioh as soon as possible in the senators lineup along with Jim O’brien and Karlsson.

I think, this season, senators haven’t been defensively too bad. I think it is due to the fact that the two major pieces in the senators defensive game Phillips and Volchenkov are still with the team, unlike, the PMD Redden, Meszaros and Corvo.

Hopefully Neil will be back in the line up soon.

Meanwhile, Gerber is putting up good numbers in Binghampton I believe. Maybe someone looking for a backup will trade for him?

It was a hard fought game by the sens which turned out to be shootout loss. If only they played all their games like this. I really like how Foligno plays, he fights hard for the puck every time has got some skills.

Fishers hard play penalty at the end was worth every second of it.

I am at peace with the fact that the sens will miss the playoffs this season. It had to happen sometime, so this year is as good for it, as any other. Only thing we can hope for is that they make a comeback  next year. In that regard its important to keep playing hard like they did in this game and to create a strong committed core. Get a goalie, if we can on top of Elliot, 1 puck moving defensemen(on top of Karlsson), 1 top 6 forward and I think we'll be good next season. Spezza has to drop his childish smirks and become a bitter man in order to do a  better job being more physical like Pronger. Somebody needs to shake Kuba to the core to do the same.

Alfredsson
Heatley
Spezza
Fisher
Foligno
Top 6 - Connolly, Franzen, Zajac, Booth, Zherdev, Afinogenov, Knuble, Ryan Klowe ! ,
Neil
High 1st Round draft pick

Phillips
Volchenkov
Karlsson
Bowmeester or Cam Barker ( dream on!)
Kuba

Nicklaus Backstrom ( best dream eva!)
Elliot


I think the tradeline madness this year and free agent frenzy will not be completely insane like last year due to the economic situation. Teams will have to keep in mind that the year after next year the salary cap will most likely come down and therefore the price of players will come down too. Looks like Hossa's decision to wait 1 year and then sign might not be that lucrative after all. Though teams would still be willing to spend between 7-7.5 million on him.

I think players will look for safe markets to sign in which do not have a chance of going belly up in the next few years. In that regard, I think Canadian markets like Ottawa are stable as they are still growing and will continue to get more populous and have a good chance of getting some of these players.

What would the Canadian opposition look like in 2010? There are basically two teams that look like that can give the Canadians a run for their money - The Swedes and Russians. The Americans and Czechs will also have a good roster but i doubt that they can be considered as the favorites.

For the Canadians there can only be one goal after the shock in Turin. That is, Gold and nothing less than that.

This is what the Swedish and Russian squads may look like:

Swedes:
Lidstrom
Alfredsson
Zetterberg
Franzen
Holstrom
Kronwall
Nickaus Backstrom
D. Sedin
H. Sedin
Naslund
Nylander
Mats Sundin?
Peter Forsberg?
hedman
Karlsson
Lundsquist

Russians:
Ovechkin
Kovulchuk
Malkin
Datsyuk
Kovalev
Semin
Radulov
Filatov
Frolov

Gonchar
Volchenkov

Khabibulin
Ilya Bryzgalov?


Looks like the Russians have all the forwards they need Who are the other Russian defensemen and Goalies? Are there any playing in KHL that we don't know about?

The senators ended a 12 game road losing streak by a win against the Oilers.
It is nothing to be too happy about as the Oilers are not in the playoff picture so far. At the same time we didn't do well against solid teams like Calgary and Vancouver.

If it wasn't for the confusion between Phillips and Alfredsson near the sens net resulting in the first goal by Oilers, we would have had a more comfortable lead. Good to see the Ottawa Senators fans in the Oilers crowd tonight.

Two years ago at this time the senators had turned a page and went on multiple game winning streak around newyear. Only such a turn around this year will save their season and the jobs of the management and coaching staff.

So we won against the Dallas Stars, another lowly placed team in the league.

Just like any pathetic hockey team out there the Ottawa Senators have made it a habit of giving away leads. Thrice we took the led and thrice we relinquished it like a pathetic team. In the end we got a goal from the unlikliest of places: Jason Smith, his first goal in 104 games.
 
Daniel Alfredsson is out with an 'upper body injury' when he sustained a hit from a Dallas player along the boards. It didn't seem like it was a vicious hit, but It was just agonizing seeing Alfredsson lying on the ice like that. I am just hoping and praying with the rest of the senators fans that its nothing too serious and he will be back next game because the senators have missed him sorely, every time he has been out.

Good thing for senators though is that they scored 5 times in this game from a bunch of different players. Anytime you do that you give yourself a chance to win.


What a shame that a home game is not telecast on any of the channels. Instead i had to go looking for pathetic quality, streaming videos. This kind of thing happens only with the sens game you will never see this happen
with the habs games. They broadcast every single one of their games on RDS every single time but for senators we have to go looking at all the sports channels and hope that its showing on one of them. And then I wonder how this franchise came so close to bankruptcy once and even now it seems like it
teeters on the edge all the while.


Late tonight the Chicago Backhawks won 3-1 against the Vancouver Canucks. I think the hawks are the only hidden threat against the wings and the sharks. They have 4 lines, they are well coached and they seem to enjoy playing the game that they play.

How is is that every team in  the nhl starts by scoring a goal within a minute of the puck drop?  The sens play was so bad I watched  the Canada-Sweden game instead.


Looks like Auld's good run with the senators is finally coming to an end too.
He will go back to being an average goalie after the first 20 games as he has
always done in the past.


In the meanwhile Mats Sundin has signed with the Canucks. So there goes our another chance of getting a quality player here.

This is the 4th straight win for the sens in their black jersey's and lets hope it continues. Auld made an excellent save with 30 seconds left in the game to save the day for Ottawa. Spezza got 3 goals and hs third goal was the best one and I know some people will disagree with me. But if you watch the slow motion replay, he banked that shot on purpose, from the leg of the defenceman and it wasn't an accident.

Kudos to Neil for taking on the Pingu's  toughest guy Godard and coming out of it without a scratch. The last few seconds went to show why I like Phillips so much. Phillips is a big, strong defenseman and even though he never fights, he is extremely useful in scrums This is the 2nd time i have seen him make Malking really mad, by the little face wash after which he just whaled on another player for a few seconds just to humiliate the pingu's.

I loved the fact that today, Spezza was not afraid to get hit. When he went flying near the boards at one point he took it like a man and just kept going strong. But, he took a dumb penalty around the boards and it almost cost us the game. This was also the stuff he did in the game against Islanders but they wern't able to caplitalize.

The only reason we are winning these is because our big three are clicking once again because they are on the same line once again. But, we need Fisher, Vermette, Foligno and Kelly to chip in because they
really dont seem to be doing anything.

If it is black magic that the senators new black jersey is doing than its working. I say they should be allowed to wear that on the road, in their houses, in the shower and even go to sleep in it!

But, why is it that they end up giving a goal so soon after every time they score one is what baffles me. Except for the goal given by him at the start, Auld was very impressive throughout the game.In the end we shouldn't be too happy with ourselves, this was the just another team at the bottom of the league and they have the lack of talent to show for it. While at the same time the sens showed what they could do on nights when there big three click. Man I didn't know Wichester can fight!!! But what a delight to see Bass fight that 6-7 240 lb Vlabik!

The game on saturday will be absolutely huge. Boston and the Pingu's are the team to watch from eastern conference.

Sens Lost to the Carolina Hurricanes 2-1. Gerber was the starting goaltender in this game. He was given the goaltending in this game because this was a second game in two games and the coaches like to keep the workload of the goaltender less by resting him in the second game.

Once again Joseph Corvo proved to the senators killer. He assisted on the first goal for Carolina and scored the 2nd game winning goal. It just brings back the memories about his trade to Carolina and if that was necessary. After some thought i had come to the conclusion that he had to be traded. He was extremely unhappy in Ottawa. He was unhappy that the media and fans were contantly on his back for the stupid turnovers he did which negated the effect of all the good work he did in power plays. And that is only highlighted by the comments he made about the Ottawa market.

The truth about that is, that the Ottawa market is no different than any other market in Canada, where fans are knowledgeable about the game and demand accountability from their teams. 
 The reason for his trade was explained by Murray in the post-trade interview given to the media. Patrick Eaves had the separated sholder at that time, Corvo was unhappy with his stay in Ottawa and the Senators were in the middle of a bad slump where secondary scoring was missing. Murray said during the interview that his talk with Jim Rutherford involved doing something so that the senators address some of the issues that the canes were facing while the canes addressed some issues that the senators were facing. Therefore, canes parted with Stillman a veteran and a top 6 forward on any team along with Commodore a 'rugged' defenseman. Whereas senators parted with Eaves who was a 'soft' player very much like your beloved Spezza. And the Whining and complaining Corvo. Now, dont tell me that you think for a second that Murray didn't try to sign both of those players! The price is always too high for players who choose to go to the UFA way. I would have very much liked to see Stillman signed at the price he was signed by Florida. But I strongly believe that the market for free agents is overly inflated and its just a bubble waiting to get burst just like the sub-prime mortgage market. And only in that regard do i consider Murray's decision of lettling Stillman go as something that only time will prove to be right or wrong.