Asquaredx2
Registered User
- Mar 10, 2008
- 5,043
- 750
(I didn’t bother searching for any similar threads, so I apologize if this question has been posed before, but it’s 3 o’clock in the morning and I can’t sleep so…it is what it is.)
I started following the Sens in 2002-2003. This was in the middle of a heyday that lasted roughly until Heatley’s shoulder injury against Detroit in 2007-2008. During this period the Sens were regularly contending for the Presidents’ Trophy and finishing north of 100 points. So I’m kind of surprised in thinking back to these teams to find that the current roster seems to stack up favourably in many ways.
A) The goaltending is as good as it’s ever been. Lalime could be money in the playoffs (some of the time) and Hasek had a wonderful 40some games for us, but otherwise I have no problem putting Andy and Lehner up against an Emery/Gerber tandem.
B) The centre depth is as good as it’s ever been. Granted I didn’t really get to see Yashin in his prime so I can’t compare to that era. But otherwise our current 1-2 punch of Spezza and Turris is better on paper than White/Bonk or Spezza/Fisher. Smith has underperformed this season but he has shown he can be a very good third-line centre and then we have Zibanejad/Grant/Pageau/JOB to add to the mix. Are they as good options as Smolinski or Vermette? Perhaps not, but I don’t think they’re dramatically worse…
C) The coaching is as good as it’s been for some time. MacLean’s Jack Adams speaks for itself but he’s also proven himself adaptable turning the Sens from one of best offenses to one of the best defensive teams in the league last season. Can you chalk the disparity up to Murray or Martin being substantially better?
D) Karlsson is as good a defenceman as we’ve ever had. From what little I recall of prime Redden he might have been slightly more reliable in the defensive zone than the current incarnation of Karlsson, but nowhere near the game-breaking talent. Chara was a dominant player for us but I think came more into his own in the first few Boston seasons.
So these are four areas where the Sens seem to match up pretty well. We also could be said to have more “tough†players, which I remember was always a criticism of the 00s Sens. Obviously one glaring absence here is a comparison of the wingers, and the 00s Sens were stacked on the wing with Hossa/Heatley, Alfie, Havlat etc. But Ryan is a helluva player in his own right, and we have a few other fairly serviceable guys (or maybe only MacArthur haha). Despite all this, our playoff seedings have been 6th, 8th and 7th in the Karlsson era.
My question is, what made the Sens of the late 90s and 2000s so much better than the current squads? And if one of the answers to this is depth, what kind of depth players might we specifically be lacking that we had in the 2000s lineups? As a separate but related question, do you think these old Senator teams are worthy of emulation? Or was their success limited to a particular era in the NHL and would it fail to transfer over to 2014?
I started following the Sens in 2002-2003. This was in the middle of a heyday that lasted roughly until Heatley’s shoulder injury against Detroit in 2007-2008. During this period the Sens were regularly contending for the Presidents’ Trophy and finishing north of 100 points. So I’m kind of surprised in thinking back to these teams to find that the current roster seems to stack up favourably in many ways.
A) The goaltending is as good as it’s ever been. Lalime could be money in the playoffs (some of the time) and Hasek had a wonderful 40some games for us, but otherwise I have no problem putting Andy and Lehner up against an Emery/Gerber tandem.
B) The centre depth is as good as it’s ever been. Granted I didn’t really get to see Yashin in his prime so I can’t compare to that era. But otherwise our current 1-2 punch of Spezza and Turris is better on paper than White/Bonk or Spezza/Fisher. Smith has underperformed this season but he has shown he can be a very good third-line centre and then we have Zibanejad/Grant/Pageau/JOB to add to the mix. Are they as good options as Smolinski or Vermette? Perhaps not, but I don’t think they’re dramatically worse…
C) The coaching is as good as it’s been for some time. MacLean’s Jack Adams speaks for itself but he’s also proven himself adaptable turning the Sens from one of best offenses to one of the best defensive teams in the league last season. Can you chalk the disparity up to Murray or Martin being substantially better?
D) Karlsson is as good a defenceman as we’ve ever had. From what little I recall of prime Redden he might have been slightly more reliable in the defensive zone than the current incarnation of Karlsson, but nowhere near the game-breaking talent. Chara was a dominant player for us but I think came more into his own in the first few Boston seasons.
So these are four areas where the Sens seem to match up pretty well. We also could be said to have more “tough†players, which I remember was always a criticism of the 00s Sens. Obviously one glaring absence here is a comparison of the wingers, and the 00s Sens were stacked on the wing with Hossa/Heatley, Alfie, Havlat etc. But Ryan is a helluva player in his own right, and we have a few other fairly serviceable guys (or maybe only MacArthur haha). Despite all this, our playoff seedings have been 6th, 8th and 7th in the Karlsson era.
My question is, what made the Sens of the late 90s and 2000s so much better than the current squads? And if one of the answers to this is depth, what kind of depth players might we specifically be lacking that we had in the 2000s lineups? As a separate but related question, do you think these old Senator teams are worthy of emulation? Or was their success limited to a particular era in the NHL and would it fail to transfer over to 2014?