Post-Game Talk: Ottawa VS Columbus

[VikingKarlsson]

Karlsson's lack of ability in the defensive zone is to blame for more than just goals. Anyone watching the Sens can see how bad he is in the defensive end and if you're too blind to see it because you're busy blaming the leadership of the team that's fine. Our defensive corps is not good -- last year it wasn't that good either but we got some of the best goaltending in history to insulate it.

That said Karlsson is still our best defenceman by a country mile. He just isn't good defensively...at all (this season anyway).



Over the last 10 games Spezza has been below 50% only twice (47% each time) and above 50% five times. His last two games he's been 72% and 59%...how is this getting owned in the faceoff dot? Spezza wasn't replaced by anyone -- in fact over the last 3 games Spezza has been, by far, our best forward.



Actually last year the defence didn't have Karlsson or Cowen, two of whom have been some of the absolute worst offenders in the defensive zone. The team is playing a different system too, and the goalies are not posting godlike numbers. Make no mistake...our defence was not that good last year either but the goaltending was historically good.

Get sick and tired all you want, but stop placing blame where blame doesn't belong. If our defence was decent the whole team would be better.

Last years team didn't have Spezza. The whole year. Karlsson came back.. Put up big points to put us in the playoffs when the team needed it. Spezza did nothing.

Spezza is being demoted for a reason. He has been very inconsistent this year. His +/- is in the minus and he is benefiting of lots of secondary assists and empty net goals to pad his stats.

Karlsson is a liabitly sometimes in the defensive end. But he is a dangerous weapon in the offensive zone. He is still the top nhl defencemen in points he is a plus in the +\- category. And he won a Norris two years ago (last year he was on pace to win until he got injured) . You can say what you want about Karlsson the guy is a superstar in the league. He will play for Sweden at the Olympics. He is the ottawa senators best player.. Maybe bobby ryan could be a close fight for that.

Spezza is unfortunately not the player he used to be. Is lazy and has no heart. He will not play for team canada. And he will continue to suffer this year with top end players not padding his stats. The year we get rid of our goofy captain is the year the Sens start build a team to win the stanely cup. Enjoy Spezza's last games in ottawa. He is a joke of a captain.

 

[Jorge Garcia]

Now that the bitter taste of that game is out of my mouth, I realize that we are still only 2 points out of a playoff spot with a game in hand. This conference blows.

Sens have won 3 of their last 5. It's just that the two losses were so agonizingly awful. 4-1 to freaking COLUMBUS?

 

[TheNewEra]

Last years team didn't have Spezza. The whole year. Karlsson came back.. Put up big points to put us in the playoffs when the team needed it. Spezza did nothing.

Spezza is being demoted for a reason. He has been very inconsistent this year. His +/- is in the minus and he is benefiting of lots of secondary assists and empty net goals to pad his stats.

Karlsson is a liabitly sometimes in the defensive end. But he is a dangerous weapon in the offensive zone. He is still the top nhl defencemen in points he is a plus in the +\- category. And he won a Norris two years ago (last year he was on pace to win until he got injured) . You can say what you want about Karlsson the guy is a superstar in the league. He will play for Sweden at the Olympics. He is the ottawa senators best player.. Maybe bobby ryan could be a close fight for that.

Spezza is unfortunately not the player he used to be. Is lazy and has no heart. He will not play for team canada. And he will continue to suffer this year with top end players not padding his stats. The year we get rid of our goofy captain is the year the Sens start build a team to win the stanely cup. Enjoy Spezza's last games in ottawa. He is a joke of a captain.

i agree with most of this post except the bolded, its only been a few games so its a small sample size but i have seen spezza committed to back checking (outside of a few examples as with everyone), leading the offensive charge while taking his usual unnecessary risks (again mostly) and in the last few minutes of yesterdays game he was one of the 3 players who looked like they gave a **** (others being ryan and karlsson). Spezza is slowly maturing into the captaincy role, is he the best captain in terms of pure leadership no, phillips or neil would probably have been better but spezza is the one who is most likely to stick around (if you weigh age and contracts). Spezza started the year off bad but has been turning it around, its easy to blame leadership especially since we were spoiled with alfie as captain for a long time. individually some players need to pick it up, as a team we need to improve but i personally wouldnt question spezzas captaincy until we give him this season to settle and mature into the role

 

[arglebargle]

Karlsson is fine in his own end. The thing is if his D partner can't do anything but stand there, and Karlsson has to outwork guys who are 30-50 pounds heavier than he is while Cowen watches from beside the net, he's going to get tired and thus less effective.

 

[Nac Mac Feegle]

nah...Karlsson does have to get better in his own end. He's at his best when he uses his superior speed and agility to angle players to the boards and uses that quick stick of his to strip pucks away. He's been trying to be a little more physical in his own end and it just doesn't work all that well...he'll never be strong enough to brute strength his way around the defensive zone.

 

[Ice-Tray]

It will be HF fact within a week. Found this from last week, where I read it as MacClean wants Spezza to play a 200ft game.
http://www.ottawasun.com/2013/11/10/ottawa-sens-captain-jason-spezzas-eye-on-stanley-cup-not-goals
Spezza is saying the right things in that interview.

Exactly, I read that and thought it was a really positive article. His defensive play on the ice has already begun to illustrate this commitment. How does this article show argument, anger, and defiance?

Crazy

 

[Ice-Tray]

I will see if I can find the quote, but it might be a bit hard because i believe it was from two seasons ago. But I do remember Spezza saying it.

The term defiance seems fitting here because it is defined as open disregard or bold resistance to authority. That seems to accurately describe if a disagreement became heated between Spezza and MacLean.

In my previous post I wasn't trying to imply that Spezza and MacLean have a poor relationship or that Spezza has some type of character issues. I was simply stating, based on my interpretation of Spezza's comments, that on occasion, at least in the past, Spezza has made a bit of a "scene" in regards to his disapproval, displeasure or simply differing position to MacLean's commands.

Now that Spezza is captain, and considering the fact that this team is so young, there are more potent implications to any open disagreements or outright defiance, as defined above, between Spezza and MacLean. The young players may misinterpret these disagreements, if any, and conclude from them that they should also question, or at least have the capacity to question MacLean's commands rather than simply being obedient.

With that said, Spezza may, at this point, be completely obedient and possibly even enthusiastically comply with MacLean's coaching demands which in turn would make everything I have stated irrelevant. But, if this behavior, in some way shape or form has persisted into this season then it may have adversely effected MacLean's capacity to control this group.

Check this out: http://www.ottawasun.com/2013/11/10/...-cup-not-goals

 

[MiscBrah]

http://scores.espn.go.com/nhl/gamecast?gameId=400484546

Gamecast shows that the Sens had a lot more shots from high scoring areas (thought the same thing when watching the game). Final shots were 30-22 in favor of Ottawa

I think I saw many people saying that the Sens played putrid, horrible or whatever hockey. If they had more goals and more saves, would the people say the same or what do they expect from the team at this point? Despite starting the game really bad, we gave up less than 10 scoring chances all game, and the jackets scored 4 goals. On the other end, we converted only 1 chance on many. Finish and PK/goaltending killed the Sens in this game. Converting on scoring chances wins you games and the Jackets did. It's as simple as that

Anyway, not really interested in reading this thread so I'll just post my observations on what went wrong :

- PK didn't do the job (3 goals on the first 3 shots). It includes Andy
- Bobrovsky simply outplayed Andy
- Lack of finish in the offensive zone. Grant scoring on his breakaway could have totally changed the complexity of the game, for example.

Also need to be ready to start the game and not look like it's our first game of the season for 10 minutes.

I wouldn't try to look further than that to explain what went wrong in this game. Oh ya, maybe we got the short end of the stick in calls but who knows?

I agree with a lot of this. I saw lots of nice shots from our players. The one thing I was really impressed with was how much they were utilizing the one timer this game. I saw zbad, Spezza, Ryan and Karlsson all get off some really nice one timers. I noticed this had been missing from Ottawa's game for awhile and I'm glad they've started to introduce it.

 

[YNWA14]

Last years team didn't have Spezza. The whole year. Karlsson came back.. Put up big points to put us in the playoffs when the team needed it. Spezza did nothing.

Karlsson was awful when he came back from injury last year, but ok. He did put up a bunch of points though.

Spezza is being demoted for a reason. He has been very inconsistent this year. His +/- is in the minus and he is benefiting of lots of secondary assists and empty net goals to pad his stats.

I'm wondering if you even watch the games. He has 9 goals only 1 of which is an empty netter, he has more primary assists than secondary assists and over the last 3 - 5 games he has been by far our best player. Yes, he was very underwhelming at times earlier in the season, but a lot of that inconsistency can probably be attributed to coming off 3 separate injuries.

Karlsson is a liabitly sometimes in the defensive end. But he is a dangerous weapon in the offensive zone. He is still the top nhl defencemen in points he is a plus in the +\- category. And he won a Norris two years ago (last year he was on pace to win until he got injured) . You can say what you want about Karlsson the guy is a superstar in the league. He will play for Sweden at the Olympics. He is the ottawa senators best player.. Maybe bobby ryan could be a close fight for that.

Karlsson is a superstar, and he is a great player no doubt. That doesn't change that he has been awful in his own end since his injury last year. Although I find it funny that you claim Spezza is benefitting from secondary assists and empty netters when last year after coming back 6 of Karlsson's 7 assists in the playoffs were secondary and he has more secondary assists than Spezza does this season (5 to 4). That said I think primary or secondary doesn't really mean much given that a lot of the time the secondary assist comes from driving the play and sometimes the person that creates the entire play doesn't get an assist at all.

Spezza is unfortunately not the player he used to be. Is lazy and has no heart. He will not play for team canada. And he will continue to suffer this year with top end players not padding his stats. The year we get rid of our goofy captain is the year the Sens start build a team to win the stanely cup. Enjoy Spezza's last games in ottawa. He is a joke of a captain.

You don't sound biased at all. You're right though, Spezza is only a career p/g player in the regular season and the playoffs because of others padding his stats and his 4th overall in scoring 2 years ago as well as his hart nomination (above Karlsson btw) were all because of those stat padders Michalek and Greening.

 

[NyQuil]

I'm wondering if you even watch the games. He has 9 goals only 1 of which is an empty netter, he has more primary assists than secondary assists and over the last 3 - 5 games he has been by far our best player. Yes, he was very underwhelming at times earlier in the season, but a lot of that inconsistency can probably be attributed to coming off 3 separate injuries.

By far?

His face-offs have been good.

 

[YNWA14]

By far?

His face-offs have been good.

Well he's been good in both ends of the ice and producing while also being solid on the PK and at faceoffs. Our 'top' line of MacArthur, Turris and Ryan has been trailing off pretty hard and none of the other forwards have really been playing on his level.

Meanwhile the defence is just an absolute mess. I'm not saying that Spezza has been the best player in the world or anything as it's not actually that hard to have been the best player on this team over the last 5 games, but yeah.

 

[Sensinitis]

Smith has been playing really well too.

 

[YNWA14]

Smith has been playing really well too.

I've been impressed with Smith all year TBH. He had a couple bad games to start the season IIRC, but maybe since MacLean singled him out as one of the best performers he's just been very, very good for his role.

Wouldn't mind seeing them try Smith - Spezza - Ryan (or Conacher) for a little while and move Zibanejad back to his more natural position of centre.

Smith - Spezza - Ryan
MacArthur - Turris - Conacher
Michalek - Zibanejad - Condra
Greening - Grant - Neil

 

[ReginKarlssonLehner]

I'm wondering if you even watch the games. He has 9 goals only 1 of which is an empty netter, he has more primary assists than secondary assists and over the last 3 - 5 games he has been by far our best player. Yes, he was very underwhelming at times earlier in the season, but a lot of that inconsistency can probably be attributed to coming off 3 separate injuries.

I love Spezza, he has been picking it up huge but out of those 9 goals... 5 were basically empty-net shots. (2 Phoenix tap-ins, 1NJD, 1 Dallas stars tap-in, Karlsson pass wide open) Regardless it takes good vision to know where to be and all and 9 goals is 9 goals.

That's not my point. Empty net or not they were important goals. What I'm saying is that Spezza has been no where near as good as you're making him out to be. By far our best player? Lmao.

Spezza does seem to be taking a turn and I don't think there is a captain who didn't struggle with adversity early in his captaincy. However, Spezza needs and must be better.

 

[DylanSensFan]

Karlsson's lack of ability in the defensive zone is to blame for more than just goals. Anyone watching the Sens can see how bad he is in the defensive end and if you're too blind to see it because you're busy blaming the leadership of the team that's fine. Our defensive corps is not good -- last year it wasn't that good either but we got some of the best goaltending in history to insulate it.

That said Karlsson is still our best defenceman by a country mile. He just isn't good defensively...at all (this season anyway).

Our coach is also blaming the leadership group of this team...

http://senators.nhl.com/club/blogpost.htm?id=22892

Well we're going to lean on them heavy, if we haven't already. We're going to make some demands of them to make sure that the team — it's their team. It's our team, it's their team, but they need to, as individuals, do a better job of getting themselves and getting the team prepared to play. That's what the representatives, captains and alternates are for, that's part of their job. But also, leadership is part of everyone's job and we all need to be better at it.

 

[YNWA14]

In what way are you getting that he's blaming the leadership? Talk about manipulating the message in that quote.

I love Spezza, he has been picking it up huge but out of those 9 goals... 5 were basically empty-net shots. (2 Phoenix tap-ins, 1NJD, 1 Dallas stars tap-in, Karlsson pass wide open) Regardless it takes good vision to know where to be and all and 9 goals is 9 goals.

...so basically 90% of the goals in the NHL are empty netters. Good call bro. Might as well call point shots empty netters when they're deflected too, right? The Karlsson pass would have been mishandled by anyone else on the team but Spezza...did you see how hard it was? What a joke. You "love" Spezza as much as the next person with an agenda against him.

That's not my point. Empty net or not they were important goals. What I'm saying is that Spezza has been no where near as good as you're making him out to be. By far our best player? Lmao.

Ok, so who has been our best player over the last 5 games if not Spezza? I'm all ears.

Spezza does seem to be taking a turn and I don't think there is a captain who didn't struggle with adversity early in his captaincy. However, Spezza needs and must be better.

Spezza has been better, but he's also been good more than he's been bad. If a player is struggling and still putting up a point per game with the majority of them being goals that should say something...but I know while the whole rest of the team is failing that burden falls on Spezza. When the whole team was failing two years ago it was "just a young team that needed time to improve and Alfredsson was a great mentor for that".

Meh.

 

[DylanSensFan]

He is telling them to take responsibility for the teams starts... how much more clear can that be?

 

[YNWA14]

He is telling them to take responsibility for the teams starts... how much more clear can that be?

He's calling on them, the coaching staff and everyone to take more responsibility. Obviously the leadership core is a big part of that, but he's in no way blaming them for the way the team has performed. He's asking them for help to turn it around. There's a big difference.

 

[Asquaredx2]

Karlsson needs to be more intense but he's being asked to do too much. He's playing way too much and the entire transition game runs through him. They need a guy like a Campbell or Ehrhoff on the second pairing to take some minutes from him and keep the puck moving forward so that he doesn't have to drag the whole team out of the zone. I think you'd see an increase in his intensity as a result.

People talk about the forwards on the backcheck but IMO a big problem is we have no forecheck. Keep the opposition hemmed in their zone and the shot totals against will go down and there will be fewer opportunities for defensive blunders. But the forwards can only forecheck if they're going forward and most of our blue-line has been terrible at making that happen.

So IMO the blue-line needs to be the focus. Our offensive production is still pretty high because our top-end players are super-talented. Spezza, Ryan, Turris, Karlsson are good enough to turn any breakdown or slip-up by the other team into a goal. But the rest of the team is not which is why you see such a disparity in points between the top-4 and the rest of the team (excluding MacArthur I guess). Get more of a forecheck going (facilitated through quick-transition D) and I think the secondary scoring goes up.

 

[OD99]

I will see if I can find the quote, but it might be a bit hard because i believe it was from two seasons ago. But I do remember Spezza saying it.

The term defiance seems fitting here because it is defined as open disregard or bold resistance to authority. That seems to accurately describe if a disagreement became heated between Spezza and MacLean.

In my previous post I wasn't trying to imply that Spezza and MacLean have a poor relationship or that Spezza has some type of character issues. I was simply stating, based on my interpretation of Spezza's comments, that on occasion, at least in the past, Spezza has made a bit of a "scene" in regards to his disapproval, displeasure or simply differing position to MacLean's commands.

Now that Spezza is captain, and considering the fact that this team is so young, there are more potent implications to any open disagreements or outright defiance, as defined above, between Spezza and MacLean. The young players may misinterpret these disagreements, if any, and conclude from them that they should also question, or at least have the capacity to question MacLean's commands rather than simply being obedient.

With that said, Spezza may, at this point, be completely obedient and possibly even enthusiastically comply with MacLean's coaching demands which in turn would make everything I have stated irrelevant. But, if this behavior, in some way shape or form has persisted into this season then it may have adversely effected MacLean's capacity to control this group.

Holy cow...you used a ton of words to essentially say:

"I have no evidence to back up my outlandish claim."

And what is with the terminology? "...being completely obedient", "...outright defiance.", "...enthusiastically comply." "...defiance seems fitting here because it is defined as open disregard or bold resistance to authority."

These are grown men and nobody is going to be "completely obedient" and shouldn't be expected to. Spezza is a star in the league and I am sure MacLean is very interested in his thoughts and discusses things with him rather than throwing out demands.

Sorry if this is harsh but there is nothing to your post. Even if Spezza did say something about having heated exchanges with MacLean 2 years ago it is a non-story.

 

[OD99]

I love Spezza, he has been picking it up huge but out of those 9 goals... 5 were basically empty-net shots. (2 Phoenix tap-ins, 1NJD, 1 Dallas stars tap-in, Karlsson pass wide open) Regardless it takes good vision to know where to be and all and 9 goals is 9 goals.

That's not my point. Empty net or not they were important goals. What I'm saying is that Spezza has been no where near as good as you're making him out to be. By far our best player? Lmao.

This doesn't make sense to me...those are all NHL goal scorers goals, not gimme plays. Being in the right position and burying your chances is what makes players great.

What about the blast he scored on in Phoenix? He single-handedly brought the Senators back into that game.

Anyway, Spezza is not the problem - no one player is the problem!! We could pick apart each player one-by-one and find out we have no good players the way this board works...amazing.

It isn't about Spezza being captain, it isn't about Karlsson not being very good or giving an effort on D (although that is something that can and should be improved) and it isn't about Andy not stopping all the shots.

This team is not executing and that is it. The passes out of our end are atrocious and that goes for the whole team - just as many forwards are screwing up a pass once the D gets it to them and our forwards work through the neutral zone has been pretty brutal too. It is a rare occurrence that we have more than 2 passes connect on the tape in a row.

Trading Cowen or Spezza won't make a difference. Having Alfie back won't make a difference.

Until the players execute and make plays under pressure there is nothing anyone can do and having a system of chipping the puck out only ensures we have the puck less each game.

They will either work their way out of the funk or they won't - I really believe there is no magic answer or coach or player that can turn this around. It is up to the guys in the room now.

 

[Tampacuseforever]

This doesn't make sense to me...those are all NHL goal scorers goals, not gimme plays. Being in the right position and burying your chances is what makes players great.

What about the blast he scored on in Phoenix? He single-handedly brought the Senators back into that game.

Anyway, Spezza is not the problem - no one player is the problem!! We could pick apart each player one-by-one and find out we have no good players the way this board works...amazing.

It isn't about Spezza being captain, it isn't about Karlsson not being very good or giving an effort on D (although that is something that can and should be improved) and it isn't about Andy not stopping all the shots.

This team is not executing and that is it. The passes out of our end are atrocious and that goes for the whole team - just as many forwards are screwing up a pass once the D gets it to them and our forwards work through the neutral zone has been pretty brutal too. It is a rare occurrence that we have more than 2 passes connect on the tape in a row.

Trading Cowen or Spezza won't make a difference. Having Alfie back won't make a difference.

Until the players execute and make plays under pressure there is nothing anyone can do and having a system of chipping the puck out only ensures we have the puck less each game.

They will either work their way out of the funk or they won't - I really believe there is no magic answer or coach or player that can turn this around. It is up to the guys in the room now.

While I agree with all this the only thing I would add is this coaching staff needs to stop messing with our young guys, Gryba, Weircioch, Conacher and Zibanejad need a little more patience to be shown to them. Veterans can make the same mistakes over and over again with no reprecussions, these guys make one slip up and they go from playing to the press box, or from the first line to the forth line. If you want them to play with confidence show them some confidence. It's not like the veterans are getting it done !!! END OF RANT !!!

 

[TonySoprano11]

I agree. I don't think this team will ever be able to move forward with Spezza as our #1C or Captain. I have said for a long time that Spezza does not elevate the players he plays with, they elevate him. There is no doubt Spezza is talented, but he is not the kind of player that can carry a team across the finish line. This organization, in the long run, is better of without him.

 

[PaGEEsBack]

I agree. I don't think this team will ever be able to move forward with Spezza as our #1C or Captain. I have said for a long time that Spezza does not elevate the players he plays with, they elevate him. There is no doubt Spezza is talented, but he is not the kind of player that can carry a team across the finish line. This organization, in the long run, is better of without him.

Did we come to this same conclusion 20 games into Alfie's tenure as captain?

 

[YNWA14]

I agree. I don't think this team will ever be able to move forward with Spezza as our #1C or Captain. I have said for a long time that Spezza does not elevate the players he plays with, they elevate him. There is no doubt Spezza is talented, but he is not the kind of player that can carry a team across the finish line. This organization, in the long run, is better of without him.

Could you explain to me then why Spezza's numbers have stayed relatively consistent (minus the Pizza line days in which scoring was inflated anyway) while most linemates that have left his side have seen their numbers drop?