Speculation: To be fair, Ottawa is not a good team.

[Benjamin]

im OK with Monahan.

 

[Sens Rule]

im OK with Monahan.

Be super fly if he is still available at #30

 

[Sensgirl65]

Be super fly if he is still available at #30

I see what you did there

 

[Benjamin]

Be super fly if he is still available at #30

Ya really. Would be awesome using a 2nd to get Monahan. New Jersey has to forfeit there first so 30 overall is a 2nd rounder

 

[Stylizer1]

Michalek is nothing without Spezza. Latendresse looks completely lost. Alfie looks old.

When teams play us tight it throws off half of our team due to inexperience.

We have an average team with a Norris Dman, A top Centre, and a goalie having a career year so far.

 

[BK201]

Cowen is also a huge factor. Alfie said his back flaired up durring the lock out probably playing through some back trouble too.

 

[Scrub*]

Cowen is also a huge factor. Alfie said his back flaired up durring the lock out probably playing through some back trouble too.

Any chance Cowen comes back at all this year?

 

[BonkTastic]

This team sure could use a "Sean McEachern"-type trade right now. Turn a 3rd rounder and a plug into a young forward who can step in and immediately make an impact.

There's no better pick-me-up than fleecing some other team in a trade...

 

[MainDotC]

Sens are the team to beat imho and they've just had a few bad breaks.

 

[MainDotC]

This team sure could use a "Sean McEachern"-type trade right now. Turn a 3rd rounder and a plug into a young forward who can step in and immediately make an impact.

There's no better pick-me-up than fleecing some other team in a trade...

McEachern for McLeary lol

 

[inthewings]

Sens are the team to beat imho and they've just had a few bad breaks.

 

[John Holmes*]

We're missing our best forward / offensive catalyst.

We're missing Cowen who was expected to be a defensive rock this season.

Our older core guys are...old. Philly and Alfie are well past their best before dates.

Our D is sad on its' best day. Small, slow and soft for the most part.

The AHL'ers and reclamation projects have struggled.

We're not going to replace the gap left in the lineup by Spezza. Face it, without Anderson keeping us in most games, or Karlsson doing his thing, we're a bottom of the barrell lineup.

Maybe Da Costa allows the 'stache to put the lines back together as much as possible, and hopefully that will get the majority of the guys back in sync.

Injuries happen. That's life.

 

[BankStreetParade]

We're missing our best forward / offensive catalyst.

We're missing Cowen who was expected to be a defensive rock this season.

Our older core guys are...old. Philly and Alfie are well past their best before dates.

Our D is sad on its' best day. Small, slow and soft for the most part.

The AHL'ers and reclamation projects have struggled.

We're not going to replace the gap left in the lineup by Spezza. Face it, without Anderson keeping us in most games, or Karlsson doing his thing, we're a bottom of the barrell lineup.

Maybe Da Costa allows the 'stache to put the lines back together as much as possible, and hopefully that will get the majority of the guys back in sync.

Injuries happen. That's life.

Doesn't help when referees blatantly affect the outcome of the game either. Could have been at least 1 if not 2 points and people would be talking about how hard this team is battling without Spezza and Gonchar in the lineup as opposed to how tough things are without Spezza and Gonchar. 6-2-1 or 5-2-2 looks a lot better to me than 5-3-1. What a shame. I guess in the NHL, bad refereeing happens.

 

[playasRus]

Isn't it unfair that calls go against the already disadvantaged "not good team"?

 

[Caje]

We're missing our best forward / offensive catalyst.

We're missing Cowen who was expected to be a defensive rock this season.

Our older core guys are...old. Philly and Alfie are well past their best before dates.

Our D is sad on its' best day. Small, slow and soft for the most part.

The AHL'ers and reclamation projects have struggled.

We're not going to replace the gap left in the lineup by Spezza. Face it, without Anderson keeping us in most games, or Karlsson doing his thing, we're a bottom of the barrell lineup.

Maybe Da Costa allows the 'stache to put the lines back together as much as possible, and hopefully that will get the majority of the guys back in sync.

Injuries happen. That's life.

My only concern is that MacLean won't put Da Costa on the top line and instead try to jumble everything. He has consistently shown that he doesn't give rookies big minutes, so I'm not sure if he'd be willing to do it this time. I hope he does.

 

[DylanSensFan]

Michalek is nothing without Spezza. Latendresse looks completely lost. Alfie looks old.

When teams play us tight it throws off half of our team due to inexperience.

We have an average team with a Norris Dman, A top Centre, and a goalie having a career year so far.

We have a team that plays tight defensively, is fast on the counter attack and does not shy away from physical contact. We have had two games with low scores and this one today was a lot about being screwed by the refs on a goal that should have counted.

 

[DylanSensFan]

We're missing our best forward / offensive catalyst.

We're missing Cowen who was expected to be a defensive rock this season.

Our older core guys are...old. Philly and Alfie are well past their best before dates.

Our D is sad on its' best day. Small, slow and soft for the most part.

The AHL'ers and reclamation projects have struggled.

We're not going to replace the gap left in the lineup by Spezza. Face it, without Anderson keeping us in most games, or Karlsson doing his thing, we're a bottom of the barrell lineup.

Maybe Da Costa allows the 'stache to put the lines back together as much as possible, and hopefully that will get the majority of the guys back in sync.

Injuries happen. That's life.

If DaCosta can manage some faceoffs I think the lines go back to the way they were, except the second line of Alfie, Turris and Zibby/Gui turns into the first line and Michalek, Silf get second line mins with DaCosta.

 

[BK201]

Any chance Cowen comes back at all this year?

Not looking like it.

Without Cowen and Spezza our team is very different tbh.

 

[Lazarrr]

I think we have over-achieved the last two seasons. On paper our team should be a lottery team. But because of how good our coach/goalie are, we can compete every night and win. I thought from the start of the year we were going to get a top 5 pick, but I'm still really happy that we win games.

 

[BK201]

We didn't overachieve we just had a top line center. We looked good a week ago. Our top line was not producing we're we need them but 9mm got 35 goals not 82.

 

[Dionysus]

My only concern is that MacLean won't put Da Costa on the top line and instead try to jumble everything. He has consistently shown that he doesn't give rookies big minutes, so I'm not sure if he'd be willing to do it this time. I hope he does.

I think McStache has been good with young players. Played Cowen and Greening plenty last year and gave them chances to succeed. This year he has done the same with Silfverberg and Zibanejad. Both have been given great opportunities to play special teams and contribute at key times. You get played when you play well under this coaching staff, that seems to be the only rule.

 

[Nac Mac Feegle]

I'd say it's more along the lines of disillusioned fans than it is the team. We're still only in year 2 of the actual rebuild, yet you rarely even hear it mentioned any more.

Last year we just squeaked in the 8th seed with our #1C finishing 4th in league scoring and our #1D winning the freaking Norris trophy. Apart from Andy turning in a Vezina worthy season, not much more could have gone better. Yet now that's expected to be the norm?

I'm quite happy with where we are as a team because I thought we'd be a lot worse than we are right now.

Exactly.

I think a lot of people need to temper their expectations. The last thing I want to see are fans expecting/demanding a contender right away and pushing Murray to sell the farm to bring in a rental to replace Spezza.

 

[YNWA14]

It was never a rebuild. The management might have sold it that was to justify getting rid of a fan favorite like Fisher, but our team already had the pieces in place to effectively avoid having to rebuild (we were "lucky" enough to have a tank season and stockpile while already having some great prospects in the pipeline). I said it last year before the season started and you all argued with me. We were in a playoff position before Spezza went down and Elliott was playing some of the worst hockey in history -- if our team is healthy it's easily a playoff team. Spezza being injured takes out our top player for a long period of time and that would hurt ANY team in the league. Some can absorb it better than others but a team like ours that is already battling for a playoff spot is going to see a much more significant impact.

 

[SlapJack]

They just lost 2 games on the road, each by one goal.

The Carolina game was the 3rd game in 4 nights coming off another 3 games in 4 nights right before that and the Canes had been sitting at home for a week having only played 1 game prior. Lots of chances were generated but there was no puck luck at all. They lost, could have gone either way.

The Habs game? Again, a bit of bad luck and a catastrophic bad call but otherwise they were in the game and it totally could have gone the other way.

There are no bad teams in the NHL anymore, stop thinking your team should win every night and dump all over them when they go on a 2 game losing "streak" on the road. Spezza being out hurts but this team is very deep in forwards and can still compete with anyone. We all knew the the back end was going to have its issues this year with Cowen out and with Gonchar recovering from the flu that's half the top 4 missing.

This team is very good but even that might not be enough to make the playoffs, this needs to be understood. I think they will but anything can happen, especially in a short season.

 

[take a peek]

What do people expect this year?

I expect exciting hockey, trying hard and younger players improving/getting experience....all while fighting for a playoff spot...hoping to build a contender in 2-3 years time.

Over the last couple their starts were pretty bad and boring but they came on in later both games and were a bounce/call here and there from a tie/win against two very good teams.

Sheesh, seems like everyday a new drastic opinion is created, has the worlds attention span seriously gone to like 24 hours.

and Pssst..... we get to watch and cheer for probably the most exciting player to watch in the NHL......