We are BIG!

[aragorn]

Also 5th youngest.

But the question is, are we big enough for Aragorn

I was really hoping they would have sent back Lazar & kept Robinson.

Big means little if you don't play big.

This is true, we need them to play big & fast.

We have a big team and we have a number of guys who are willing to play big. We should be one of the most physical teams to deal with regularly if we're allowed to play that way, if you catch my drift.

This has always been an issue with this team that they have too many nice guys on the team. Boro I think is a guy who can change that mentality hopefully.

We are also really slow.

I have heard this argument many times on the Team1200 & the ex-NHLers (Todd White & Jason York to mention two) simply don't agree with you. They think Ottawa will be a very quick & fast team. No team in the NHL has 18 skaters who are all fast skaters. Ottawa has speed on every line & really it's only their bottom defence pairing that can be considered slow but Boro is a decent skater, he's not slow. Size & speed is a very good combination in the NHL.

Ironically, the guy who probably plays the biggest on our team is the smallest(Pageau).

IMO Pageau will be a very good AHL player but I don't see a career for him here in Ottawa. I think management would prefer guys like Robinson & Lazar on the roster ahead of him.

I think the average size of the team doubled when we traded Conacher, sent down Pageau and let Da Costa go.

This is something I wanted most of last yr was to get bigger not smaller.

Watching that 2nd Montreal game that penalty to Boro on Galenchuck was a terrible call. This could again be a problem for the Sens when the refs are going to make phantom calls against them. While we all want them to reduce the number of penalties against, I don't know what we can do if the refs constantly call Ottawa for penalties that are not penalties, especially if we want to be an aggressive team. It could be a problem for Ottawa again this yr. We'll see.

 

[SNES]

Made me wonder if there is the stat somewhere that shows how many penalties team take in a year vs how many of them were legit or phantom call when reviewed in retrospect. Would be curious to see what teams get bent over from the refs. Would imagine we would be near the top in phantom calls for the past decade.

 

[Sensinitis]

There cant be a stat for something so subjective.

 

[SNES]

There cant be a stat for something so subjective.

Maybe not a hard stat but a fun analysis. Agreed some calls would be subjective, move them over to legit if they are not definitive. But stuff that's easily reviewed after the fact as phantom would go into the bend over stat line. My guess is we would easily be in the upper range of bent over Obviously this wouldn't be feasible but would be fun to see.

 

[Back in Black]

I'm looking forward to seeing us use our size to take an incomprehensible number of penalties again this year

That pretty well sums up the season, until some trades are made!

If so, I believe we will make the Playoffs!!!

 

[StefanW]

All other things being equal big has advantages. If you have big guys who are not all that fast or are not highly skilled then size either means nothing or is counterproductive.

 

[Xspyrit]

All the guys you listed are not fast by any means except the bolded. Greening and Michalek may be fast in a straight race but I don't see that separation in games like we saw Hoffman in the preseason. Overall I think we are average in terms of team speed. While our D is below average. I like that the team is big, but I'd like us to get faster. That means getting rid of some average skaters, for some fast ones. This will help us defensively.

Karlsson and Hoffman might be in the top-10 of the league in terms of speed. Do you expect a single team to have all the fastest skaters out there? The Sens are like the other teams, a couple ultra fast skaters, a few fast skaters, a few average skaters and a few slow skaters. After that, there's the speed at where you execute different kind of plays (passing, shooting, etc.). There's also skating agility, there's also balance, etc. However, IMO, this board is not qualified in general to really talk about that issue but whatever I guess, let's continue spreading inaccurate information. I have heard many people more "in the know" saying that the Sens are a fast team. Even on RDS and Montreal radio (who are not really Sens fans) seem to think that. And yes, another time, we looked very fast vs them, Sens were skating those nights. Problem with this team is not speed but that they are young and disjointed. In the NHL, you don't have the luxury to hesitate one second but the young Sens players do it frequently, which cause them to not move their feet at times. There's not much you can do about it, they need experience. Most of the time, it's really long and hard to feel comfortable in the NHL, according to ex-NHLers that I heard talk about it.

Another thing you have to understand is speed doesn't automatically equal hockey supremacy. Look at Conacher and Gilroy for example... Did we keep them? It's possible that Hoffman doesn't last long with the Sens, despite his beautiful skating. Speed really isn't everything. Our only defs that have below average skating for D are Gryba and Wiercioch, but even for Wier, I'm not even sure.

Made me wonder if there is the stat somewhere that shows how many penalties team take in a year vs how many of them were legit or phantom call when reviewed in retrospect. Would be curious to see what teams get bent over from the refs. Would imagine we would be near the top in phantom calls for the past decade.

Small markets...

All other things being equal big has advantages. If you have big guys who are not all that fast or are not highly skilled then size either means nothing or is counterproductive.

A hockey team is a recipe. It's ok to have a good variety of ingredients

The GM makes the recipe (Chef & director of restauration, ex chef that works more in his desk now) and the coach execute the recipe (sous chef). The communication and cohesion has to be good, but all the other workers (players) have to do their job correctly if you want the evening (random game) to be successful.