Alright, Sens faithful. I’ve got to collect myself here for a moment. Do you know how much I dislike writing blogs about the Habs winning? I’m sick of it! Taking up jogging sounds like fun in comparison to doing this particular blog. And I hate jogging. Someday, I swear, someday I will have the privilege of writing about a regular season victory over the Habs. I may have to do a Leafs blog or something just for one day but I swear before my blogging days are up, I will have satisfaction! Last season I had to write about eight losses to the Habs in the regular season on the Bruins blog. EIGHT!! Sometimes it wasn’t as bad if the Bruins pulled out an OT point or at least won a fight during the game (that happened enough) but still…I think one more of these and I’ll be a twitching, babbling idiot like a victim of Inspector Clouseau. Maybe it’s too late.
The Habs were backstopped to a 4-0 victory last night over the Sens. See, that’s the strength of the Habs. When a superstar like Tom Kostopoulos is out of the line-up, a nobody like Carey Price is always ready to put the team on his or her shoulders. Really though, the Sens were just dominated by the Habs who were buzzing around all evening, even when short-handed.
The Sens couldn’t get any rhythm going as the Habs came out ready to play and the Sens came out ready to sit down for a nice cup of tea and watch Coronation Street. I mean there’s really not a lot more to it. I did not like the effort I saw from the Sens last night with the possible exception of the rather busy Alex Auld who likely had night terrors about red jerseys last night, Anton Volchenkov and Mike Fisher. While the Habs kept their legs moving, the Sens were unable to keep up in any meaningful way.
But it’s not just a lack of skating effort that I saw last night. I saw a lack of effort to get in front of the net, a lack of effort when it came to preventing Habs from streaking over the Sens blue-line, and a total lack of willingness to pay the price to cause havoc with the Habs’ defenders. Yeah, I know Mike Komisarek is a big, tough guy but the Sens still have to get in front of the net more often. One player who was doing a decent job of getting in Carey’s face was Ruutu. Although I thought the elbow he threw later in the game was despicable and inappropriate, I did appreciate that he kind of came to life and agitated last night, something which I don’t think he’s been doing enough of.
A factor that made the Sens look like they were skating less than they actually were (if that’s possible) was that they had no organization at all. They looked like a bunch of male gametes, fluttering around blindly, running into each other, hoping to luckily fall into an ovum. As I’ve been saying since the start of my Sens blogging, I feel the team needs to implement a very rigid system to get the players back to playing solid fundamental hockey. It doesn’t have to last forever but such a move would eliminate games like last night’s game where very obvious (obvious when watching from afar; I don’t mean to suggest these things are easy when actually playing the game) problems existed in communication between d-partners, a lack of understanding about how quickly forwards should retreat and other crucial areas too.
But I digress. I can put up with a team being terrible. I can wait patiently while a team comes together and while players develop. As long as the team is genuinely trying to get better, I feel it’s a fan’s duty to be patient. But what I saw last night was just inexcusable, especially from the forwards. Is it any wonder Carey Price had a shutout? The Senators had basically three offensive plays all night. They would either try to get a point shot on Price without too much traffic in front of him, they’d try to stuff the puck in point blank between Price and the post, or they’d skate into the zone and send a pass into the slot, which was filled with Habs. Price really only had to stop a handful of good scoring chances and the rest was child’s play for him.
Special teams were a mix-bag last night. While I actually admire the Sens’ penalty killing this year (almost like when they concentrate on defense, they do well), their power play took on the same characteristics as their offensive play when they game was 5 on 5. More shots from the point, more lack of traffic at the net and more Hab dominance. In fact, the power-play the Sens had after Lang received a penalty for delay of game had to be one of the most disgraceful, sorry excuses for a power-play I’ve ever seen. The Habs had the puck the entire freakin’ time. That was more difficult to watch than the acting in season one of Star Trek The Next Generation. Yeah, that’s right, I went there.
I’m sure people around Ottawa are verbally tearing Jason Spezza to tatters right now or they’re ragging on another target of choice. The truth is guys like Foligno, who had five minutes of ice-time but was a -3, Phillips, Vermette and Picard have to start taking care of their own zone better. The team needs structure and it needs leadership. Hartsburg can call out Jason Spezza in the press as much as he likes but it won’t solve anything (and indeed it has been tried before and it never has solved anything). The only thing that will solve this team’s problems is a coach who gets his team motivated and who forces his club into playing a very simple, structured, conservative game plan for the time being.
All of this being said, the Sens were making strides in the right direction before they came out totally flat last night and I think if they use this ugly defeat as motivation and as an educational tool, they should have no problems going back to being the club that was progressing instead of regressing.
The last thing I’ll point out, in order to leave you on a more positive note, is that I thought Anton Volchenkov was an exception for the Sens last night. He busted his butt through the whole game and while he was on the ice, the Sens actually looked like they had a chance. I hope his teammates look to him as an example of what to do.
I will be posting all of the answers I have received to the questions I posed on the blog and I will be doing the contest wrap up blog sometime this week. Stay tuned.
If you’ll excuse me, I have to go scream obscenities in the geographical direction of the City of Montreal. If you see a crazed man yelling towards Quebec on Sparks Street today, just leave him be…
Gerz
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