GDT: Ottawa Senators at Colorado Snowslides| 9PM EST | TSN5, RDS1, ESPN+ | Must win situation™ - Late Night Edition

[DrEasy]

I guess so. It seems like most of the guys that actually get near the sens roster are smaller.

Like, I don't see the sens as a big team.

Maybe being tall isn't enough to make it to the NHL?

 

[Gil Gunderson]

So, this doesn't include the game against Colorado, but I like to be objective when talking about how much injuries might play into the results.

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That has us as the 2nd most impacted based on their WAR model so far. Important to note, it doesn't account for Perron who isn't injured, however, it's probably valuing Ullmark pretty heavily in that, so it will likely have us more neutral for the game against StL.


Zub, Pinto and Perron, that's some pretty important players (well Perron is more depth, but he's not nothing), if people want to say injuries are part of the game and we got to deal with them, it works both ways.

I agree, but I think St. Louis missing their 1C and a top 4 d-man tomorrow is pretty big and we have no excuse to not take advantage of that. Montreal just dusted them a couple days ago.

 

[Dionysus]

Let's see how they react to losing 2 in a row. Last year they usually panicked and started playing worse. Leading to 4, 5, 6 game losing streaks.

 

[Micklebot]

I agree, but I think St. Louis missing their 1C and a top 4 d-man tomorrow is pretty big and we have no excuse to not take advantage of that. Montreal just dusted them a couple days ago.

I just find it frustrating that people will talk about how we need to take advantage of a team that's dealing with injuries, then later say injuries are part of the game, everyone deals with them so you can't bring up that context to explain the way the team is playing.

 

[RickyLafleur]

There’s five teams with 9 points and one more point than our 8 points in our division. But, they have played one more game than us (9 versus 8).

Its not that bad, but we do need to get those Ws against weaker opponents and divisional rivals in order to make the playoffs.

Its a close race right now, but the problem is the Sens are also one of the weaker opponents in the league. They are so easy to play against, it's not even funny.

 

[SpezDispenser]

Yes, the team as a whole needs to play better, but again, as soon as Ullmark hits his stride, this team will come together. We NEED a real goaltender in there as we grow and adapt to Green's system etc.

 

[Gil Gunderson]

I just find it frustrating that people will talk about how we need to take advantage of a team that's dealing with injuries, then later say injuries are part of the game, everyone deals with them so you can't bring up that context to explain the way the team is playing.

It's more of a response to our injuries. Are injuries a part of the reason why we lost some games? Sure. Well now we have a break and another team is dealing with the same issues. We can't really blame injuries for losing tomorrow when we're playing a team missing their 1C and top-4 dman.

 

[mianjo]

I turned off with about 11 mins to go in the 3rd at 2-0. So was very surprised to see the final score.

 

[Agent Zuuuub]

I turned off with about 11 mins to go in the 3rd at 2-0. So was very surprised to see the final score.

Don't worry, you did the right thing.

 

[Burrowsaurus]

I wonder if we didnt send Yakemchuk down how different we would be looking.

No way in hell he'd look worse than Hamonic AND he would be contributor offensively.

He likely would look just as bad defensively if given the top pairing

Let's see how they react to losing 2 in a row. Last year they usually panicked and started playing worse. Leading to 4, 5, 6 game losing streaks.

Not worried about them playing worse. Green seems to have a handle on that.

Will they win? I dono. But I think they will play fine

 

[Norris4Norris]

He likely would look just as bad defensively if given the top pairing


Not worried about them playing worse. Green seems to have a handle on that.

Will they win? I dono. But I think they will play fine

Not worried about them playing worse?

I doubt we will keep scoring 4 or 5 goals a game. That means we need to be way better defensively.

Our goalies are not playing well. Forsberg sits at .895 save percentage and Ullmark sits at .885.

They stand 35th and 42nd respectively in save percentage relative to the rest of the league.

This just looks, to me, like another losing season.

 

[bicboi64]

At least they showed a bit of heart in the third. I missed the first two periods and the third was at least eventful

 

[SensFanInMTL]

The only way to emergency recall him is if we play him in net.

We must protect him at all costs. He doesn't deserve to be in this gong show.

 

[JD1]

"We're in better shape now than we've been in in years" he says about a team that once again continues to find ways to lose games, can't keep the puck out of their net, are barely producing offense 5v5, have a distinct lack of depth scoring and can't win on the road with any consistency.

10% of the season is in the books. We're at the same spot we were the last 2 years and you're doing mental gymnastics to declare these oblique moral victories.

It's a nice sunny day outside and if you do manage to peek out, you may notice that the sky is not falling.

We're 8 games in. 4-4. 0 goal differential. Tough schedule. Like I said earlier, our first 20 is our hardest 20 game stretch. Close that out at 500 and then I think we can push.

 

[Sens of Anarchy]

1st goal should have been blown down on change of possession
2nd goal was a weak one by Forsberg. He had no reason to open up on that. Shot themselves
3rd goal was basic puck watching , not covering O'Conner .. while in position to do so. Shot themselves
4th goal was a weird deflection or flip pass from Batherson, Sanderson lost the puck, Colton had 2 free cracks at it... Shot themselves

As one sided as the game seemed.. Sens just have to be more aware and execute better in the Dzone... this is not systems ... this is basic attention to detail and not executing on fundamentals
This was winnable ... as was the Vegas game

 

[Burrowsaurus]

Not worried about them playing worse?

I doubt we will keep scoring 4 or 5 goals a game. That means we need to be way better defensively.

Our goalies are not playing well. Forsberg sits at .895 save percentage and Ullmark sits at .885.

They stand 35th and 42nd respectively in save percentage relative to the rest of the league.

This just looks, to me, like another losing season.

Last night was an outlier in terms of defensive play this season. We’ve been pretty tight. I suspect we will get back to that and Ullmark will play like Ullmark. Will we continue to score 5 every game? No. Will the other team continue to score 6? Also no

 

[SpezDispenser]

Last night was an outlier in terms of defensive play this season. We’ve been pretty tight. I suspect we will get back to that and Ullmark will play like Ullmark. Will we continue to score 5 every game? No. Will the other team continue to score 6? Also no

Exactly.

 

[Micklebot]

Last night was an outlier in terms of defensive play this season. We’ve been pretty tight. I suspect we will get back to that and Ullmark will play like Ullmark. Will we continue to score 5 every game? No. Will the other team continue to score 6? Also no

Here's our 5v5 xGA for every game this year.

1.99
1.39
1.53
1.94
1.15
3.52
1.79
3.41

There are two clear outliers, Colorado and Utah are those outliers.

 

[DylanSensFan]

Are they better? Are underlying numbers have us one of the worst teams in the league 5 on 5. I don’t really see in what area we’re better in besides the powerplay.

They are looking better defensively. But as I've said, the details are killing them.

 

[DrEasy]

1st goal should have been blown down on change of possession
2nd goal was a weak one by Forsberg. He had no reason to open up on that. Shot themselves
3rd goal was basic puck watching , not covering O'Conner .. while in position to do so. Shot themselves
4th goal was a weird deflection or flip pass from Batherson, Sanderson lost the puck, Colton had 2 free cracks at it... Shot themselves

As one sided as the game seemed.. Sens just have to be more aware and execute better in the Dzone... this is not systems ... this is basic attention to detail and not executing on fundamentals
This was winnable ... as was the Vegas game

Defensive errors will happen if you spend most of the time in the D zone.

 

[DylanSensFan]

Defensive errors will happen if you spend most of the time in the D zone.

Definitely we need to skate harder and more. There needs to be more aggression in the D zone too.

 

[Pierre from Orleans]

Here's our 5v5 xGA for every game this year.

1.99
1.39
1.53
1.94
1.15
3.52
1.79
3.41

There are two clear outliers, Colorado and Utah are those outliers.

Matches the eye test. We are and have been a one chance and done type of team. Too many perfect plays and not enough 2nd, 3rd chance and crash creasing garbage rebound goals.

 

[HoweHullOrr]

Yes, the team as a whole needs to play better, but again, as soon as Ullmark hits his stride, this team will come together. We NEED a real goaltender in there as we grow and adapt to Green's system etc.

Forsberg has been decent “lately”. I know people will blame that goal (2nd one I think) on Forsberg, but you could see he was screened (based on how he reacted) with 2 players right in front of him. I think there’s still some improvements that would help in their d-zone coverage. There’s been goals in the last 2 games where there’s three or four Senator players near (quite close) to the player that scored but no one is really covering or tying up the player who scored. When I looked at the schedule before the road trip, I kind of thought we might have a couple of losses in this road trip and would be sitting at .500 about now. Let’s see how we do against the Blues. We do need to capitalize against the weaker teams.

 

[Beech]

so we lost 2 games in exceptionally close fashion. Against 2 of the 3 most recent Stanly Cup champs. And these were games 2 and 3 of that 3 game western road trip!!

this is actually a good result. Not as good as wining those games, I grant you. But all told, excellent results.

In the past, it would have been 2-4 goal loses, with the game being over at the end of the first period.

None of the 3 games were us playing monkey in the middle.

Once these same 3 Western teams come to Ottawa, it may be 3 wins for the Sens.

 

[BankStreetParade]

It's a nice sunny day outside and if you do manage to peek out, you may notice that the sky is not falling.

We're 8 games in. 4-4. 0 goal differential. Tough schedule. Like I said earlier, our first 20 is our hardest 20 game stretch. Close that out at 500 and then I think we can push.

I never said the sky was falling...so I'm not sure why you make it sound like such a gotcha. I'm taking issue with the statement "We're in better shape now than we've been in in years", which is an absurd take to have at this point. There's not much about this 4-4 record that says we're in better shape than we've been in a long time. 0 goal differential? Last year we were +6 at this same point. We didn't have Pinto in the lineup and Norris missed the first 4 games. This season, our PP is due for a statistical regression, which means we can expect even less offensive production. We have bottom of the barrel 5v5 offense and we continue to give up an alarming rate of goals despite upgrades on D and in nets. There's really no parts of our game that you can definitively point to and say "this projects well for the rest of the season".

I'm not saying the season is over, either. However, unless something significantly changes in the way they are playing it's not looking like we have the formula for success.