Proposal: Fire DJ Smith

[Mark Stones Spleen]

We've played 71 games, I went through the list of opponents goalies and I'm estimating 37 games where we've played starting goalies, 34 games where we haven't.

I refuse to believe our team simply cannot score goals as they have no problem doing this on the PP, their luck doesn't magically run out when it's 5on5. There's no reason why we have one of the worst team shooting percentages with the team we have while playing backup goalies nearly half of the time.

From a defensive perspective:
- We are 3rd worse for defensive zone giveaways, despite having a solid set of defense (nobody can convince me our individual dmen are bottom 5).
- we're 10th last in shots against
- We're 5th last in high danger shots against
- We're 16th in team save percentage
- we have 495 takeaways but 686 giveaways, 61% of which are in our d zone.

So, our shot suppression isn't great, we're awful at dzone giveaways, and we leak high danger chances. This meets the eye test with how many odd man rushes we allow. Our goalies, despite a not so great save percentage, are still middle of the pack, which is a lot better than it should be given how many high danger shots we have against.

We see our forwards cheating all the time on the breakout, it's literally everyone, so it's not just floaters. This leads to more d zone giveaways and more high danger chances against.

When every single one of our forwards are cheating and we give away the puck with such regularity, no wonder our 5v5 GD is as bad as it is. If you correct the dzone structure, stop cheating, stop giving away the puck as much as we are, we're in the playoffs. That's a system issue.

 

[Ice-Tray]

We've played 71 games, I went through the list of opponents goalies and I'm estimating 37 games where we've played starting goalies, 34 games where we haven't.

I refuse to believe our team simply cannot score goals as they have no problem doing this on the PP, their luck doesn't magically run out when it's 5on5. There's no reason why we have one of the worst team shooting percentages with the team we have while playing backup goalies nearly half of the time.

From a defensive perspective:
- We are 3rd worse for defensive zone giveaways, despite having a solid set of defense (nobody can convince me our individual dmen are bottom 5).
- we're 10th last in shots against
- We're 5th last in high danger shots against
- We're 16th in team save percentage
- we have 495 takeaways but 686 giveaways, 61% of which are in our d zone.

So, our shot suppression isn't great, we're awful at dzone giveaways, and we leak high danger chances. This meets the eye test with how many odd man rushes we allow. Our goalies, despite a not so great save percentage, are still middle of the pack, which is a lot better than it should be given how many high danger shots we have against.

We see our forwards cheating all the time on the breakout, it's literally everyone, so it's not just floaters. This leads to more d zone giveaways and more high danger chances against.

When every single one of our forwards are cheating and we give away the puck with such regularity, no wonder our 5v5 GD is as bad as it is. If you correct the dzone structure, stop cheating, stop giving away the puck as much as we are, we're in the playoffs. That's a system issue.

Wonder what all of this looks like for Detroit and Buffalo. We’re all pretty much in the same place of a rebuild, with similar spots in the standings. Wonder what their great failings are.

Always nice to have comparatives when drawing such hardline conclusions.

 

[Butchy Dakkar]

We've played 71 games, I went through the list of opponents goalies and I'm estimating 37 games where we've played starting goalies, 34 games where we haven't.

I refuse to believe our team simply cannot score goals as they have no problem doing this on the PP, their luck doesn't magically run out when it's 5on5. There's no reason why we have one of the worst team shooting percentages with the team we have while playing backup goalies nearly half of the time.

From a defensive perspective:
- We are 3rd worse for defensive zone giveaways, despite having a solid set of defense (nobody can convince me our individual dmen are bottom 5).
- we're 10th last in shots against
- We're 5th last in high danger shots against
- We're 16th in team save percentage
- we have 495 takeaways but 686 giveaways, 61% of which are in our d zone.

So, our shot suppression isn't great, we're awful at dzone giveaways, and we leak high danger chances. This meets the eye test with how many odd man rushes we allow. Our goalies, despite a not so great save percentage, are still middle of the pack, which is a lot better than it should be given how many high danger shots we have against.

We see our forwards cheating all the time on the breakout, it's literally everyone, so it's not just floaters. This leads to more d zone giveaways and more high danger chances against.

When every single one of our forwards are cheating and we give away the puck with such regularity, no wonder our 5v5 GD is as bad as it is. If you correct the dzone structure, stop cheating, stop giving away the puck as much as we are, we're in the playoffs. That's a system issue.

I don’t know if it’s true, I’m sure there will be rebuttals, but I like your analysis as presented. It does meet the eye test.

 

[Union2017]

We've played 71 games, I went through the list of opponents goalies and I'm estimating 37 games where we've played starting goalies, 34 games where we haven't.

I refuse to believe our team simply cannot score goals as they have no problem doing this on the PP, their luck doesn't magically run out when it's 5on5. There's no reason why we have one of the worst team shooting percentages with the team we have while playing backup goalies nearly half of the time.

From a defensive perspective:
- We are 3rd worse for defensive zone giveaways, despite having a solid set of defense (nobody can convince me our individual dmen are bottom 5).
- we're 10th last in shots against
- We're 5th last in high danger shots against
- We're 16th in team save percentage
- we have 495 takeaways but 686 giveaways, 61% of which are in our d zone.

So, our shot suppression isn't great, we're awful at dzone giveaways, and we leak high danger chances. This meets the eye test with how many odd man rushes we allow. Our goalies, despite a not so great save percentage, are still middle of the pack, which is a lot better than it should be given how many high danger shots we have against.

We see our forwards cheating all the time on the breakout, it's literally everyone, so it's not just floaters. This leads to more d zone giveaways and more high danger chances against.

When every single one of our forwards are cheating and we give away the puck with such regularity, no wonder our 5v5 GD is as bad as it is. If you correct the dzone structure, stop cheating, stop giving away the puck as much as we are, we're in the playoffs. That's a system issue.

And now you will likely hear how DJ did not lose the room, he can't score for his forwards, he can't play for his defense and it's not the system (or the lack of it) - it's the players who are not experienced.

 

[Union2017]

Wonder what all of this looks like for Detroit and Buffalo. We’re all pretty much in the same place of a rebuild, with similar spots in the standings. Wonder what their great failings are.

Always nice to have comparatives when drawing such hardline conclusions.

Detroit literally destroyed their team right after those two bad games vs us. So, there is some accountability there. AND they are a cup winning organization. We are OK with the same old for 5-6 years.

Not to mention that - who cares about them, we are the Sens fans, we want our team to look better. Let's try and compare us to Jersey maybe.

 

[bert]

Can we interest you in one lightly used Sheldon Keefe?

Would love to have him replace DJ.

 

[DueDiligence]

Would love to have him replace DJ.

Noooooooo!

 

[bert]

And now you will likely hear how DJ did not lose the room, he can't score for his forwards, he can't play for his defense and it's not the system (or the lack of it) - it's the players who are not experienced.

Some of it is DJ's fault for sure. That was a terrific post that broke down the things that a coach can help/fix/implement. But to say he has lost the room is not true on any level they clearly care and play for him. One of the most insane narratives is the concept that it's his fault when players don't finish. No he in fact can't score for them.

If you are unable to differentiate between individual execution and systematic play/game plan/accountability then you probably aren't qualified to criticize the coach in general.

Noooooooo!

He's an unreal coach. If you actually are able to identity systematic play, neutal zone forchecks, and accountability you'd see he's very good. The leafs have a massively flawed top heavy roster.

 

[Golden_Jet]

And now you will likely hear how DJ did not lose the room, he can't score for his forwards, he can't play for his defense and it's not the system (or the lack of it) - it's the players who are not experienced.

He hasn’t lost the room.
He can’t score for the forwards, nor play for his defence.

That is an odd post to say the least.

 

[Mark Stones Spleen]

Wonder what all of this looks like for Detroit and Buffalo. We’re all pretty much in the same place of a rebuild, with similar spots in the standings. Wonder what their great failings are.

Always nice to have comparatives when drawing such hardline conclusions.

I'm not going to go through both of their schedules to see their backup goalies, but:
Buffalo: team SV% 27th, high danger shots against 8th worst, giveaways 7th BEST, DZone giveaways - 263
Detroit team sv% 22nd, high danger shots against 5th BEST, giveaways 12th BEST, DZone giveaways - 302
Ottawa: team SV% 17th, high danger shots against 5th worst, giveaways 8th worst, DZone giveaways - 407.

So, our team SV% is the best of the 3 and we get butt f***ed in the other categories. We stink 5on5, our dzone systems is absolute shit.

 

[Norris4Norris]

We've played 71 games, I went through the list of opponents goalies and I'm estimating 37 games where we've played starting goalies, 34 games where we haven't.

I refuse to believe our team simply cannot score goals as they have no problem doing this on the PP, their luck doesn't magically run out when it's 5on5. There's no reason why we have one of the worst team shooting percentages with the team we have while playing backup goalies nearly half of the time.

From a defensive perspective:
- We are 3rd worse for defensive zone giveaways, despite having a solid set of defense (nobody can convince me our individual dmen are bottom 5).
- we're 10th last in shots against
- We're 5th last in high danger shots against
- We're 16th in team save percentage
- we have 495 takeaways but 686 giveaways, 61% of which are in our d zone.

So, our shot suppression isn't great, we're awful at dzone giveaways, and we leak high danger chances. This meets the eye test with how many odd man rushes we allow. Our goalies, despite a not so great save percentage, are still middle of the pack, which is a lot better than it should be given how many high danger shots we have against.

We see our forwards cheating all the time on the breakout, it's literally everyone, so it's not just floaters. This leads to more d zone giveaways and more high danger chances against.

When every single one of our forwards are cheating and we give away the puck with such regularity, no wonder our 5v5 GD is as bad as it is. If you correct the dzone structure, stop cheating, stop giving away the puck as much as we are, we're in the playoffs. That's a system issue.

This is a really good breakdown.

Analysts always say that a good defense will fuel the offense. Or that defense wins championships. I believe both of these statements.

We have talented players from Stutzle to Sanderson. What we need is a coach who can address the defensive play that you have outlined.

 

[Micklebot]

We've played 71 games, I went through the list of opponents goalies and I'm estimating 37 games where we've played starting goalies, 34 games where we haven't.

To put this in context, an average starting goalie will start 50 games, we're pacing at facing 43 starting goalies, so we're only facing about 7 more backups than expected.

I refuse to believe our team simply cannot score goals as they have no problem doing this on the PP, their luck doesn't magically run out when it's 5on5. There's no reason why we have one of the worst team shooting percentages with the team we have while playing backup goalies nearly half of the time.

Team 5v5 sh% is at 7.3, league average is 8.5, with 126 5v5 GF on 1727 shots, had we shot at league average, we'd have 22 more goals.

Batherson and DeBrincat are currently shooting well below career norms, DeBrincat is shooting at 6.29% and Batherson at 4.20. Both have 143 shots 5v5. Both were shooting at over 12 in the previous two seasons. If both shit at 12% this year, it would add about 19 goals.

Batherson has been recovering from that high ankle sprain, DeBrincat seems snakebitten, but is still getting looks.

Point is, two key players representing the majority of the issue to me suggests this isn't likely a system related issue,

From a defensive perspective:
- We are 3rd worse for defensive zone giveaways, despite having a solid set of defense (nobody can convince me our individual dmen are bottom 5).
- we're 10th last in shots against
- We're 5th last in high danger shots against
- We're 16th in team save percentage
- we have 495 takeaways but 686 giveaways, 61% of which are in our d zone.

For much of the season we didn't have Chychrun, Zub was out 29 games, Chabot 6.

When Zaitsev, JBD, Thomson, Larson, Heatherington combine for 53 games it doesn't help. I'm also of the opinion that Holden is better suited as a 7th D at this point, so 55 games of him hurts too.

The other big factor is Norris, centers are a huge part of DZone play and help out the D a lot, losing him all year left us extremely green up center ice,

I do think our system is part of it, but the roster plays a significant role imo. Doesn't help matters that we don't really have any prominent defensive minded wingers, or centers for that matter.

So, our shot suppression isn't great, we're awful at dzone giveaways, and we leak high danger chances. This meets the eye test with how many odd man rushes we allow. Our goalies, despite a not so great save percentage, are still middle of the pack, which is a lot better than it should be given how many high danger shots we have against.

Using xGA vs GA at 5v5 (natural statrick), we can get a feel for how the goalies performed with the context of shot quality included, our goalies performed the 5th worst per 60 mins in the league.

We see our forwards cheating all the time on the breakout, it's literally everyone, so it's not just floaters. This leads to more d zone giveaways and more high danger chances against.

Agreed, though I don't think that's entirely unique to Ottawa,

When every single one of our forwards are cheating and we give away the puck with such regularity, no wonder our 5v5 GD is as bad as it is. If you correct the dzone structure, stop cheating, stop giving away the puck as much as we are, we're in the playoffs. That's a system issue.

I don't think all our forwards are cheating, Tkachuk and Batherson have tended to, but the centers don't tend to as much.

Tbh, I find our issues have fluctuated, DZone giveaways were a huge issue early on, we seemed to correct it for a while, and it seems to have crept back into our game. Midseason, I found our issues stemmed more from an overly agressive forcheck that wasn't reloading well, resulting in us finding ourselves with 3 forcheckers all on the wrong side of the puck.

Systems wise, I feel like the coaching staff is constantly trying to put out fires, when we fix one issue another one pops up. Part of that is inexperience I suspect.

 

[DueDiligence]

He's an unreal coach. If you actually are able to identity systematic play, neutal zone forchecks, and accountability you'd see he's very good. The leafs have a massively flawed top heavy roster.

You are giving him too much credit. He inherited Matthews Marner and Nylander and then Tavares signed on. He has benefitted by working for an organization with deep pockets that has adopted an win now approach and traded man of their draft picks to do so. Leafs have far better depth than the Senators especially on the blueline. Throw in a guy like Giordano who agreed to a minimum contract even though he is worth 4 times that. Where are Ottawa's Bunting or Jarnkrok; two low paid gems that Leafs management has found?
Yes the team plays pretty good defense overall but let's see if he can win one playoff round with all that talent before calling him "unreal".

 

[swiftwin]

I saw a stat where Ottawa had 20 shots from beyond the circles and the Leafs had 2. Shots closer in were 32 to 27 ( approx) High quality chances were not much different.

Shot quality was heavily in our favor

 

[HF Reader]

Like a number of people on here, I am on the fence on DJ Smith. I get the sense that he is not a tactical coach but can relate to the players and that the players like him and do play hard for him. I never get the sense that the players have quit on him but I do think that he is simply out of his element a lot of games.

With a new ownership group, I think that DJ and Dorion get replaced but I would not be totally upset if they were still here because it almost seems like they both have earned the right to hoist the Cup in '24!

Anyway that you slice it, DJ has put himself into second place in all time Wins for Sens coaches:

View attachment 673565

We've played 71 games, I went through the list of opponents goalies and I'm estimating 37 games where we've played starting goalies, 34 games where we haven't.

I refuse to believe our team simply cannot score goals as they have no problem doing this on the PP, their luck doesn't magically run out when it's 5on5. There's no reason why we have one of the worst team shooting percentages with the team we have while playing backup goalies nearly half of the time.

From a defensive perspective:
- We are 3rd worse for defensive zone giveaways, despite having a solid set of defense (nobody can convince me our individual dmen are bottom 5).
- we're 10th last in shots against
- We're 5th last in high danger shots against
- We're 16th in team save percentage
- we have 495 takeaways but 686 giveaways, 61% of which are in our d zone.

So, our shot suppression isn't great, we're awful at dzone giveaways, and we leak high danger chances. This meets the eye test with how many odd man rushes we allow. Our goalies, despite a not so great save percentage, are still middle of the pack, which is a lot better than it should be given how many high danger shots we have against.

We see our forwards cheating all the time on the breakout, it's literally everyone, so it's not just floaters. This leads to more d zone giveaways and more high danger chances against.

When every single one of our forwards are cheating and we give away the puck with such regularity, no wonder our 5v5 GD is as bad as it is. If you correct the dzone structure, stop cheating, stop giving away the puck as much as we are, we're in the playoffs. That's a system issue.

Interesting. Thank you for the information. It does meet the eye test.

 

[Gil Gunderson]

Noooooooo!

Keefe has done better with that Leafs defence than they have any right to be doing.

 

[Mark Stones Spleen]

To put this in context, an average starting goalie will start 50 games, we're pacing at facing 43 starting goalies, so we're only facing about 7 more backups than expected.

Team 5v5 sh% is at 7.3, league average is 8.5, with 126 5v5 GF on 1727 shots, had we shot at league average, we'd have 22 more goals.

Batherson and DeBrincat are currently shooting well below career norms, DeBrincat is shooting at 6.29% and Batherson at 4.20. Both have 143 shots 5v5. Both were shooting at over 12 in the previous two seasons. If both shit at 12% this year, it would add about 19 goals.

Batherson has been recovering from that high ankle sprain, DeBrincat seems snakebitten, but is still getting looks.

Point is, two key players representing the majority of the issue to me suggests this isn't likely a system related issue,

For much of the season we didn't have Chychrun, Zub was out 29 games, Chabot 6.

When Zaitsev, JBD, Thomson, Larson, Heatherington combine for 53 games it doesn't help. I'm also of the opinion that Holden is better suited as a 7th D at this point, so 55 games of him hurts too.

The other big factor is Norris, centers are a huge part of DZone play and help out the D a lot, losing him all year left us extremely green up center ice,

I do think our system is part of it, but the roster plays a significant role imo. Doesn't help matters that we don't really have any prominent defensive minded wingers, or centers for that matter.


Using xGA vs GA at 5v5 (natural statrick), we can get a feel for how the goalies performed with the context of shot quality included, our goalies performed the 5th worst per 60 mins in the league.

Agreed, though I don't think that's entirely unique to Ottawa,

I don't think all our forwards are cheating, Tkachuk and Batherson have tended to, but the centers don't tend to as much.

Tbh, I find our issues have fluctuated, DZone giveaways were a huge issue early on, we seemed to correct it for a while, and it seems to have crept back into our game. Midseason, I found our issues stemmed more from an overly agressive forcheck that wasn't reloading well, resulting in us finding ourselves with 3 forcheckers all on the wrong side of the puck.

Systems wise, I feel like the coaching staff is constantly trying to put out fires, when we fix one issue another one pops up. Part of that is inexperience I suspect.

Then fix the system. Can you explain how a team like Arizona has less giveaways, 130 less defensive giveaways, fewer high danger chances against? They spend 7 million dollars on their entire defense. They sat our their #1 dman. Zach Kassian is their 4th highest paid forward. They have no home arena.

That game against Chicago, we gave up so many 2 on 1s, it looked like we were practicing it. Coaches need to adapt, if the goals aren't coming, then just start trapping your way to 2-1 wins.

Bath is a decent two way forward. Giroux is a good defensive forward, Stu is getting better, Pinto is young but decent in his own zone. The bottom is isn't great but they aren't bad.

I can't explain the poor shooting percentages. Puck luck figures itself 70 games though. Maybe line chemistry is off, I'm not sure, but despite our injuries, we absolutely cannot be bottom 5 in all of these defensive categories.

 

[DueDiligence]

Keefe has done better with that Leafs defence than they have any right to be doing.

As I mentioned in another post , one big factor for the Leafs D was getting Giordano signed to a minimum contract. He is still a strong defensive Dman and probably better in his own end than any Senator D man.

 

[Micklebot]

Then fix the system. Can you explain how a team like Arizona has less giveaways, 130 less defensive giveaways, fewer high danger chances against? They spend 7 million dollars on their entire defense. They sat our their #1 dman. Zach Kassian is their 4th highest paid forward. They have no home arena.

Giveaways are not a good stat, far too much rink bias as there is no standard for what is or isn't a giveaway and it's handed out subjectively (and in a biased manner in some rinks), look at the away only stat if you want to mitigate rink bias (Arz has more giveaways than us on the road where you aren't skewed by 41 home rink bias). Beyond that, teams that possess the puck more will naturally have more giveaways, we are a fairly strong possession team (look at CF% as a proxy for possession time), Arizona is one of the worst, you can't give away the puck when you never have it.

Where are you getting high danger chances from, are you looking at 5v5, all situations? Natural statrick has Arz with 128 more HDCA all situations and 90 more 5v5.

That game against Chicago, we gave up so many 2 on 1s, it looked like we were practicing it. Coaches need to adapt, if the goals aren't coming, then just start trapping your way to 2-1 wins.

Or 1 nothing loses. Truth is this team isn't built to trap its way to wins, maybe when we had Paul, Brown, Formenton and goaltending that didn't let in a soft goal or two a game that was an option but I don't see us winning games by playing in direct contradiction to the strengths that our players do have.

Bath is a decent two way forward. Giroux is a good defensive forward, Stu is getting better, Pinto is young but decent in his own zone. The bottom is isn't great but they aren't bad.

Bath is not and never has been a good two way forward, he's very much an offensive oriented guy, and there's nothing wrong with that. This year, he's been making attrocious defensive decisions, not system related, just play poor play. Giroux has lost a step in his skating and isn't a great defensive forward either, he's not hurting you but he isn't shutting guys down these days. Pinto has not been good defensively, he'll learn and get there but his in over his head as a 2nd line center as a rookie.

I can't explain the poor shooting percentages. Puck luck figures itself 70 games though. Maybe line chemistry is off, I'm not sure, but despite our injuries, we absolutely cannot be bottom 5 in all of these defensive categories.

Like I showed, the shooting percentage is strongly tied to two players, not the team at large. That doesn't scream system to me, it's also odd that Batherson would be fine in DJs system the prior 3 seasons but suddenly the system is affecting his sh%. Perhaps coming off a high ankle sprain explains it, idk.

 

[Mark Stones Spleen]

Giveaways are not a good stat, far too much rink bias as there is no standard for what is or isn't a giveaway and it's handed out subjectively (and in a biased manner in some rinks), look at the away only stat if you want to mitigate rink bias (Arz has more giveaways than us on the road where you aren't skewed by 41 home rink bias). Beyond that, teams that possess the puck more will naturally have more giveaways, we are a fairly strong possession team (look at CF% as a proxy for possession time), Arizona is one of the worst, you can't give away the puck when you never have it.

Where are you getting high danger chances from, are you looking at 5v5, all situations? Natural statrick has Arz with 128 more HDCA all situations and 90 more 5v5.


Or 1 nothing loses. Truth is this team isn't built to trap its way to wins, maybe when we had Paul, Brown, Formenton and goaltending that didn't let in a soft goal or two a game that was an option but I don't see us winning games by playing in direct contradiction to the strengths that our players do have.

Bath is not and never has been a good two way forward, he's very much an offensive oriented guy, and there's nothing wrong with that. This year, he's been making attrocious defensive decisions, not system related, just play poor play. Giroux has lost a step in his skating and isn't a great defensive forward either, he's not hurting you but he isn't shutting guys down these days. Pinto has not been good defensively, he'll learn and get there but his in over his head as a 2nd line center as a rookie.


Like I showed, the shooting percentage is strongly tied to two players, not the team at large. That doesn't scream system to me, it's also odd that Batherson would be fine in DJs system the prior 3 seasons but suddenly the system is affecting his sh%. Perhaps coming off a high ankle sprain explains it, idk.

I think we can agree to disagree. We have an abundance of odd man rushes against us, which matches up with our giveaways. I understand that giveaway are rink dependant, but net giveaways is still bottom 5. In our arena, we are -167 on the takeaway-giveaway stat.

Just FYI, Giroux is plus 4 on a team that has a negative 5/5 GD of ~-30 and he's 54th in takeaways, just a couple short of Mark Stone, Debrincat is around there as well. G might have lost a step, but guys like that are very effective despite their speed.

I'm okay to say not everyone cheats but at the very least you have to admit that we regularly look clueless in our zone, nobody knows where anyone is. We often lose coverage. I don't think we all of a sudden have a bunch of dumbasses with no hockey sense, but something isn't working and it isn't because 18 players decided to start playing like crap on their own.

I agree you give away the puck more if you are a possession team, but why always in the d zone. Boston has 608 giveaways, we have 563, but 50 % of theirs is in the dzone, ours is 64%.

 

[BankStreetParade]

I think we can agree to disagree. We have an abundance of odd man rushes against us, which matches up with our giveaways. I understand that giveaway are rink dependant, but net giveaways is still bottom 5. In our arena, we are -167 on the takeaway-giveaway stat.

Just FYI, Giroux is plus 4 on a team that has a negative 5/5 GD of ~-30 and he's 54th in takeaways, just a couple short of Mark Stone, Debrincat is around there as well. G might have lost a step, but guys like that are very effective despite their speed.

I'm okay to say not everyone cheats but at the very least you have to admit that we regularly look clueless in our zone, nobody knows where anyone is. We often lose coverage. I don't think we all of a sudden have a bunch of dumbasses with no hockey sense, but something isn't working and it isn't because 18 players decided to start playing like crap on their own.

I agree you give away the puck more if you are a possession team, but why always in the d zone. Boston has 608 giveaways, we have 563, but 50 % of theirs is in the dzone, ours is 64%.

Those are the only 2 top 6F with more than 400GP in their careers. Experience matters way more than most people realize and impacts on-ice results far more than one thinks. This is part of the growing pains of watching a really young team learn the ins and outs.

 

[Ice-Tray]

Detroit literally destroyed their team right after those two bad games vs us. So, there is some accountability there. AND they are a cup winning organization. We are OK with the same old for 5-6 years.

Not to mention that - who cares about them, we are the Sens fans, we want our team to look better. Let's try and compare us to Jersey maybe.

What? come on man that’s weak.

They traded away some dead weight because they didn’t think they make the playoffs after those losses. How is that accountability for the core players still there? We don’t have dead weight this year and we brought in Chych for the future.

You guys make shit up like systems and accountability and run with it all season long like you have a single clue what you’re talking about. Makes me laugh to see people operate on speculation like it’s fact.

Cup winning organization? And when was that last cup? And who in that organization is still there? They have also sucked for just as long as us though their rebuild.

You guys make me laugh. The wings and Sabres are better than us when you can use it as a hammer, but as soon as we catch up and get ahead they don’t matter and you grab a team that’s ahead of our rebuild schedule. We are on par with the other awesome young teams that are at similar points in the cycle as us. Deal with it.

Haters gonna hate.

 

[Ice-Tray]

I'm not going to go through both of their schedules to see their backup goalies, but:
Buffalo: team SV% 27th, high danger shots against 8th worst, giveaways 7th BEST, DZone giveaways - 263
Detroit team sv% 22nd, high danger shots against 5th BEST, giveaways 12th BEST, DZone giveaways - 302
Ottawa: team SV% 17th, high danger shots against 5th worst, giveaways 8th worst, DZone giveaways - 407.

So, our team SV% is the best of the 3 and we get butt f***ed in the other categories. We stink 5on5, our dzone systems is absolute shit.

Are their more categories that you haven’t mentioned?

Curious since now we’re ahead in the standings. Do you have some insight into what is going well for us?

I feel like your post shows a fraction of the whole story for some reason.

 

[Loach]

What? come on man that’s weak.

They traded away some dead weight because they didn’t think they make the playoffs after those losses. How is that accountability for the core players still there? We don’t have dead weight this year and we brought in Chych for the future.

You guys make shit up like systems and accountability and run with it all season long like you have a single clue what you’re talking about. Makes me laugh to see people operate on speculation like it’s fact.

Cup winning organization? And when was that last cup? And who in that organization is still there? They have also sucked for just as long as us though their rebuild.

You guys make me laugh. The wings and Sabres are better than us when you can use it as a hammer, but as soon as we catch up and get ahead they don’t matter and you grab a team that’s ahead of our rebuild schedule. We are on par with the other awesome young teams that are at similar points in the cycle as us. Deal with it.

Haters gonna hate.

You make up alot of shit yourself. Glass house, throw stones... Rainbows, butterflies and rose colored glasses.

 

[Ice-Tray]

You make up alot of shit yourself. Glass house, throw stones... Rainbows, butterflies and rose colored glasses.

Sure, but it’s a hockey forum and I understand that we’re talking hockey shit to each other. I don’t pretend to be an expert and I know that I don’t watch other teams to the same degree.

I also don’t complain about the blowback so you can take your rocks and glass houses and shove them. Bring the noise dude, I don’t care

As for rainbow glasses, yeah I’ll keep pushing back against the shit smeared glasses all Day.