Post-Game Talk: Sens @ Cats, game 3

[Lenny the Lynx]

You may be right. But as we've seen things do happen. Right now there's one methot level dman that may be traded, that's methot. You're asking to get lucky but trades actually going down is usually not without some situational luck. If Turria never came avilable we may have rundblad.

Methots holding out for the money because he's probably worth it...and every game that goes by in Ottawa it may appear he's worth more an more to us.

If there isn't a trade out there id tell Eugene this is what smart spending is.

I think the plural of Turris is Turrises, not Turria.

I think the thing with the trade market is you never know who is available. Hopefully we re-sign Methot but he would have a lot of value if we needed to move him.

 

[Parliament]

I'll have a better idea of what to expect for the remainder of the season around the 15 - 25 game mark. Just too many unknowns as of now with such a small sample size. What's going to happen with Methot? will a D be traded? do the forwards start clicking (specifically Ryan, Zibanejad and Chiasson)? how are the goalies are playing?...etc.

The one thing concerning factor in my mind is that I think we are one serious injury away from a top 5 pick. If god forbid Turris or Karlsson went down it would be a really long and ugly season IMO. Especially if we loose Methot. Granted Zibanejad could step up, or someone else (lazar ?), but I can't see anyone filling their void anytime soon.

 

[Senacus Maximus]

I think the plural of Turris is Turrises, not Turria.

I think the thing with the trade market is you never know who is available. Hopefully we re-sign Methot but he would have a lot of value if we needed to move him.

I thought it was Turri("eye").

 

[arglebargle]

The whole team is better defensively this year IMO, at least at coming back and defending. Big example is Bobby Ryan possibly saving a goal on that 2 on 1, and Wiercioch deflecting what would have been a certain goal into the netting in the 3rd(?) period.

I think the Sens were a bit lucky to win this 1-0 instead of losing 2-1 or going to OT, but in a similar game last year they'd have given up 3 or 4 goals.

 

[EK]

No way there was 7000 there. I never saw the upper bowl but there could not be more than a few hundred in the lower

Exactly, I felt like it was a generous 7k attendance rate...
Before the snow birds flock down there it's painful... It pains me as a hockey fan to see that.

 

[tony d]

Good win last night for the team. To start the year on the road and be 2-1 is a good thing and hopefully bodes well for the team this year.

 

[Do Make Say Think]

Not only are we 2-1 but that loss was a very winneable game that we managed to let slip away

Those games happen and it happening on the first game of the year against a very good team is not worrying to me

 

[Xspyrit]

2 articles about shots quality

http://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/introducing-the-shot-quality-project/

http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=722735

The whole team is better defensively this year IMO, at least at coming back and defending. Big example is Bobby Ryan possibly saving a goal on that 2 on 1, and Wiercioch deflecting what would have been a certain goal into the net in the 3rd(?) period.

I think the Sens were a bit lucky to win this 1-0 instead of losing 2-1 or going to OT, but in a similar game last year they'd have given up 3 or 4 goals.

Good post, last year it would have been a sure loss. It wasn't super pretty but at least they're winning games while not playing very well. I hope they don't make a tendency of that, it reminds me about survival Habs hockey and I really dislike it.

I'm not as hung up on the number of shots as the quality scoring chances against.

Yup, I'm not really worried about saves I could make myself and we had plenty of that against, except in certain portions of the games where they were giving up good scoring chances. But I see the progression

Number of shots against is not that important if you box out guys to the perimeter...

If you check the game cast, not a lot of in-close shots :

http://scores.espn.go.com/nhl/gamecast?gameId=400564024

Good defensive game on the road overall and Andy was rock solid like several NHL starters are most of the time (Price, Rask, Rinne, Lundqvist, etc.)

Best Panthers scoring chances didn't always end up as a shot, they missed the net (which has been our speciality in the last few years) or the guys made great defensive plays. You need those to cut goals against.

 

[Philoops]

Condra is uselful, looks better than Hoffman out there. Stone makes things happen, Ryan had a good game defensively, Mac A was due for a goal. Karlsson, Phillips, Anderson, had good games. Didnt notice some guys like Greening and Neil. Gryba is beyond rancid, Boro is prett terrible at handling the puck.

 

[Micklebot]

Not only are we 2-1 but that loss was a very winneable game that we managed to let slip away

Those games happen and it happening on the first game of the year against a very good team is not worrying to me

The teams shown flashes of solid play, and they've also got caught running around. They still seem to get rattled, but no where near as bad as last season imo.

 

[God Says No]

We also could have been 0-3 very easily. We are still not good enough defensively. I'm hoping some kind of light switch comes on and we actually become decent. Our goalies won't be playing this well forever.

 

[arglebargle]

We also could have been 0-3 very easily. We are still not good enough defensively. I'm hoping some kind of light switch comes on and we actually become decent. Our goalies won't be playing this well forever.

Lots of new and young players on the team this year. We may not see a switch overnight, but there's a good chance we'll see steady improvement as the season progresses. The rate at which they improve is kind of up in the air but if it happens fairly quickly they could sneak into the playoffs.

 

[Flamingo]

Xspyrit, you sound like a leaf fan advanced stats denier. The Sens are 29th in score-adjusted Fenwick % so far this season. Granted, forcing shots to be from the perimeter makes those shots much less likely to count, but it's an indication that the Sens aren't driving possession.

 

[Alex1234]

Remember when we had all the injuries 2 years ago.

We had no choice but to play all out defense wich gave us the second best GAA after boston if im not mistaken

We were pesky and we made it to the second round of the playoff

Everybody loved it

I for one prefer a defensive team that is winning than a show team that loose often

 

[bornNraised Sens]

Xspyrit, you sound like a leaf fan advanced stats denier. The Sens are 29th in score-adjusted Fenwick % so far this season. Granted, forcing shots to be from the perimeter makes those shots much less likely to count, but it's an indication that the Sens aren't driving possession.

Personally i love advanced stats and think they are really useful for hockey.

Saying that for Ottawa i think context plays a big part. Last year Ottawa Goalies and defence had terrible rebound control, so what will people for first few game plans be? throw shots and like for the bounce. Thing is right now Ottawa is keeping most of those to shots that are from the outsides or are generally not great scoring chances. This means that stats that are dependent on shots for are against us here. As well Ottawa seems to be going for the better scoring chance instead of just shooting everything at the net.

This was seen in the last game where the corsi for Ryan Zib and Chia was under 27% (Scott Cullen), which says our possession was bad but watching the game they were cycling the puck and created quality chances instead of just firing everything.

there are times to just shoot everything and maybe sens should do that a bit but with a team that are trying to find chemistry together early in the season, i prefer to see the cycle and heading up plays to create good chances instead of just shots from everywhere.

idunno just my thoughts so far for why Ottawa might be seen for some stats to be doing so bad

 

[ReginKarlssonLehner]

Remember when we had all the injuries 2 years ago.

We had no choice but to play all out defense wich gave us the second best GAA after boston if im not mistaken

We were pesky and we made it to the second round of the playoff

Everybody loved it

I for one prefer a defensive team that is winning than a show team that loose often

Good post. But remember we did it with literally zero offensive power. Our best threat offensively was a 2 year younger and weaker Turris. Plus Alfredsson. Our entire 2nd line was rookies and our bottom 6 was rotating every week.

The reason we were effective was cause we let best players play. This year we have better players and more offensive weapons. We should still be effective defensively if we adapt the old system but better offensively cause of more proven offensive weapons. So far so good.

Our defense is biggest worry. That year we had Karlsson, Methot and Gonchar who were terrific on breakout. Brilliant.

Even when Karlsson went down, Wiercioch was very effective.

This year we have Karlsson, Ceci and that's it. We need Methot back.

 

[PeterSidorkiewicz]

Is driving possession a new buzzword now? I figure time of possession is a nice stat to figure out......who has possession more.

 

[Vesa Awesaka]

Surprised its hard for some people to see that despite the record the sens have played poorly. Still have to figure out a lot of stuff

 

[Quo]

I don't expect a finished product this early. Of course we have a lot of work to do.

Overall and over a very small sample, we seem to be going in the right direction in terms of in-game work ethic and decision making, showing an ability to grind out wins that we'd find a way to piss away previously. Reasons for cautious optimism so far but they have to keep working and keep raising their game.

 

[Mr Invidious]

Just want to check in with everyone and see if you guys realize that we've played 3 of 82 games.

Oh, you know? Carry on.

 

[Indrew]

I'm driving a Pontiac

 

[DrunkUncleDenis]

We also could have been 0-3 very easily. We are still not good enough defensively. I'm hoping some kind of light switch comes on and we actually become decent. Our goalies won't be playing this well forever.

This is why all us Sens fans know we won't be bottom 5 even though the rest of the league thinks we will. We were plucky enough to eek out 2 wins when we just as easily could have lost all 3. Plucky enough to make the playoffs, though? Remains to be seen.

Buffalo is on a whole other level of bad.

 

[NyQuil]

Enjoy the wins people.

There will be plenty of losses to gripe about.

 

[PeterSidorkiewicz]

Surprised its hard for some people to see that despite the record the sens have played poorly. Still have to figure out a lot of stuff

For a road trip to start the season I don't think it was that bad at all. With 8 of 11 at home now we could really get out to a fantastic start.

 

[Cosmix]

Surprised its hard for some people to see that despite the record the sens have played poorly. Still have to figure out a lot of stuff

I'm with you on this. The Senators did not play well, were outshot, and were lucky to get 4 points out of the 7 awarded for those 3 games. The good was excellent goaltending with .950 and .955 save percentages for the goalies. I looked at the shot locations and the Panthers had more in close opportunities than the Senators did. The Senators are a bubble team for making the playoffs. Lots of work to be done by the coaching staff to firm up the defensive play of this group, including cutting down on penalties.