Player Discussion ATOI of vets in season opening slump vs after

[senseimike]

Really exciting stuff to see the Sens playing so well these days. I remember the Sens better play has coincided with DJ Smith playing the younger players more and leaning less on the vets so I was just wondering any of you guys know the stats demonstrating the shift in ice time? Like, what the avg time on the ice was for veteran players in that first bunch of games that the Sens sucked (we were what, like 2-15 or something?) vs afterwards?

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[DanyHeatley]

I think it was like 2-15 or something at first and afterwards it was something like 18-12 or something.

 

[BankStreetParade]

It's really not that simple. Looking at it purely as body in and body out doesn't really take into account that the long layoff, lack of proper training camp or exhibition games, road heavy start to the year and a nearly full overhaul of the roster contributed to the team's early woes.

Structure takes time to develop, young players take time to get their bearings, young teams don't typically perform well on the road and integrating so many new bodies into the roster takes time to bear out.

But yeah, if we'd played the kids earlier on we'd obviously have a much better record...

 

[Samboni]

A strong finish to this season doesn’t equate to a successful next season. We’ve been down this road before.

 

[SpezDispenser]

A strong finish to this season doesn’t equate to a successful next season. We’ve been down this road before.

Not often with vibrant youth filling out the roster card for the next season.

 

[aragorn]

It's really not that simple. Looking at it purely as body in and body out doesn't really take into account that the long layoff, lack of proper training camp or exhibition games, road heavy start to the year and a nearly full overhaul of the roster contributed to the team's early woes.

Structure takes time to develop, young players take time to get their bearings, young teams don't typically perform well on the road and integrating so many new bodies into the roster takes time to bear out.

But yeah, if we'd played the kids earlier on we'd obviously have a much better record...

And goaltending being horrendous to start the yr, but they were just as affected by all those things too.

 

[Sweatred]

We had significantly more penalties against in January than any other month including often 2 or 3 kills in the first period - our PK sucked and teams crushed us. Our PP wasn’t good enough to score on its chances anyway.

Conpare that to last nights game where MTL had one PP late in the game. DJ has them playing good but a lot of those calls are discretionary

Those calls took us out of the season on the first round trip.

 

[bacon25]

Really exciting stuff to see the Sens playing so well these days. I remember the Sens better play has coincided with DJ Smith playing the younger players more and leaning less on the vets so I was just wondering any of you guys know the stats demonstrating the shift in ice time? Like, what the avg time on the ice was for veteran players in that first bunch of games that the Sens sucked (we were what, like 2-15 or something?) vs afterwards?

Question I have is, does playing the rookies when Ottawa has already played itself out of contention for a playoff spot, equate with playing those same rookies when Ottawa is still fighting for a playoff spot. I feel there is considerably less pressure on the team once they fell into a hole and had nothing left to lose.