Every team has brain farts from its players. Good teams overcome them and win. Average and poor teams don't and lose.
GDT: GAME 75 | Lightning @ Senators | Get Back on Track Edition | Thu Apr 3 2025, 7PM | RDS2, TSN5
- Thread starter L'Aveuglette
- Start date
I'll take the ugly win. Ullmark was lights out, Greig and Pinto were beasts on the dot and its nice to see that we can grind out a win against a team with killer instinct like TBL
Big Muddy
Registered User
- Dec 15, 2019
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- 4,693
Good game defensively from the Senators. Ullmark was lights out. Pinto & Grieg played great, and of course, so did Sanderson. Pretty tense at the end though.
He is a smart player who anticipates and reads the play well and can control the puck along the boards. He is not as offensively skilled as Stone but he is paid a lot less than Stone as a consequence. I like him much better than the start of the season. He is a good 3rd line winger and near the top of the 4th liners in the league. His weak area is that he has average speed.
Tampa had quite a few excellent scoring opportunities including break-aways caused by poor D changes and sloppy forward back checking. Tampa's fast forwards were difficult to contain and keep up with by our Fs. Our D were also extremely soft on them, going fishing instead of hitting.
Tampa had 32 sots; we had 19. Our Fs could not keep up with Tampa's fast forwards and our D played soft as always. Tampa was the better team except that Ullmark made great saves to give us the win.
The 4th definitely needs improvement. Cousins return will help a lot. A big tough physical player who likes to hit and can fight who is not a defensive liability would help immensely.
Zub is very good defensively but not physical enough for me. He also is reluctant to join the offensive attack, probably because of his defense-first approach and limited offensive skillset.
I would like to upgrade on him too to add some of the following skills:
- body checking
- hip checking
- puck carrying
- net front presence
Perhaps we should send him to the same adviser that Sanderson recently consulted to help him improve his play. Heck, we should send all of our D to that guy!
Hotsam Batcho
Registered User
- Mar 23, 2025
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YES, It took some time for me to come around; about the same amount that it took Amadiuo to start playing better offensively.
Sting
Registered User
- Feb 8, 2004
- 7,983
- 3,596
I thought Sanderson was outstanding. Far and away our best player as is usually the case.
Could have been but very few teams are good for 60 minutes. Overall I liked our defensive game
Micklebot
Moderator
- Apr 27, 2010
- 53,772
- 39,091
The important part is we made the necessary adjustments, and Ullmark held the fort until we were able to. .
swiftwin
SENS PLAYOFFS
- Jul 26, 2005
- 23,919
- 14,980
Sure, Tampa was the better team, but not by much. It shouldn't be surprising, considering they are a better team on paper, and they're in a desperate fight for 1st in the division. But we did exactly what we needed to do to win against a better team. Got the lead, and shut things down defensively. Then, the few times they broke through, we got timely saves. A team that good will get their chances, there's no stopping that.
Blotto71
Let's go!!
I didn't realize that Ullmark had a blow out with Peters during the morning skate. Maybe he's come to the realization that Peters is not the guy to be coaching him (or anyone).
Hotsam Batcho
Registered User
- Mar 23, 2025
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Am I the only one here who has had a hard time seeing how the Sens played well defensively? I thought we looked lost and the dangerous chances against confirms that. If it wasn't for Ullmark yesterday would have been an L.
25-5 slot chances
11-1 rush chances
Happy for the W though
25-5 slot chances
11-1 rush chances
Happy for the W though
We tightened up fairly well in the 3rd but the Sens were absolutely outchanced and outclassed by a much better team.
Ullmark stole that one, but to be fair he's been very disappointing overall since the Four Nations and a performance like that was due.
I think they played as well as one can hope for against a highly skilled team. The skill level and depth in TBL and Ottawa is night and day. They have better depth than us on every line and are the second-highest-scoring team in the league. We were great on the dot, killed all our penalties, stayed physical and blocked loads of shots.
SpezDispenser
Registered User
- Aug 15, 2007
- 26,868
- 7,838
It's not all because of "brain farts".
There are major differences between the players and their talent levels on the teams. Good teams tend to have superior players who have higher skill sets and more compete (desire to win). Coaching can make a good team better but likely not enough to improve the probability of winning over a superior talented team.
Good teams generally make less mistakes than bad teams but they still make mistakes. In addition good teams have a greater percentage of talented players that can mitigate the mistakes of others. So a bad pass or a bad penalty is "covered up" much more often.
I totally disagree good teams have "more compete" in them. A guy like Cale Maker is far better than Travis Hamonic due to superior talent and better hockey sense not because he tries harder or wants it more.
