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Sunday Musings

January 20, 2019, 4:51 AM ET [10 Comments]
Trevor Shackles
Ottawa Senators Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
You can follow me on Twitter @ShackTS

This will feel like a Thursday Think Tank type post, but I haven’t been able to talk about the past two games and there are a lot of points I wanted to get through. So here are some musings for your Sunday morning:

---A win in Carolina? It’s been almost unheard of for the Senators. The 4-1 win on Friday was almost too easy, and I expected the Hurricanes to surge a comeback in the third period. In the previous 18 games, Ottawa was 2-13-3 in Carolina, with the last win there being the thrilling overtime winner during the Hamburglar run where Mark Stone scored after a beautiful Kyle Turris dangle:



---Christian Wolanin is finally climbing his way up the ladder in the depth chart. He scored again on Friday night, and before the Saturday night game, Guy Boucher made it clear that at this moment it would be hard to scratch him:




I still wouldn’t even be surprised to see him in the pressbox in the near future if he has a few mental lapses in a game, but at least Boucher is noticing that Wolanin has been playing fantastic. He’s one of the more exciting players on the roster and should be given every opportunity in the top-four.

---I feel very invested in Nick Paul’s success now that I’ve stuck my neck out for him on here and on Twitter, so it was nice to see him finally score his first goal of the season last night. Obviously 2 points in 18 games isn’t very good, but as I’ve said before, his ability to limit shots against has been incredibly good (especially for a 4th liner), so he needs to be getting into games more often.

---Craig Anderson’s first game back was indicative of his entire season so far: a bit of a mixed bag. He saw 38 shots on goal, which is obviously way too many. Letting in three goals is actually good for a .921 SV%, so it’s hard to be upset with his performance. He had a perfect view on the first two goals, but they were also fantastically placed shots. The third goal was a massive scramble in the Senators zone, and I would blame the skaters as well as Anderson on that one. It’s nice to have him back though, especially because Anders Nilsson has been playing well so hopefully he can give Anderson more rest than usual.

---Somehow Magnus Paajarvi has scored in back-to-back games, giving him five on the season. Both of them had some humour involved too, as the goal against Carolina included an embarrassing celebration:




His shorthanded marker against the Blues was incredibly lucky as it went off of his skate, but considering he’s fighting for a job and playing time, he’ll take anything he can get.

---Rudolfs Balcers played a team-low of just 8:46 last night, which makes me wonder what the point is for having him up in Ottawa. The previous four games he had played over 10 minutes, and somewhere around 12 minutes (which he has reached once in eight games) is reasonable. I just don’t love giving good offensive players such as Balcers such low minutes because fans will expect him to produce, and when he predictably doesn’t due to the small amount of ice-time, he will get criticized for the lack of production.

---Something that amazed me about the game against Carolina is that although the final shot attempts ended up being 61-44 for the Hurricanes, Ottawa actually had one more attempt at the time they made it 4-1. After that, Carolina predictably turned it on and had 25 attempts to Ottawa’s 10 in the 3rd period. However, to do that against the second best possession team while on the road is incredibly impressive.

---Bobby Ryan had another great game on Friday as he scored the second goal but also led the team with eight individual shot attempts, with five of them being classified as scoring chances. Against the Blues he was still not bad either with four attempts, which was behind only Brady Tkachuk and Christian Wolanin. With 29 points in 46 games, he needs just 4 more points to tie his total from last year, which he reached in 62 games. It’s easy to complain about his contract because it’s still an eyesore on the roster, but at least Ryan has been able to contribute unlike someone like Milan Lucic on the Oilers who has just 12 points in 48 games.

---Here are the bottom of the standings after Saturday night:



It’s incredibly tight, but it’s nice to see that Ottawa is “all the way” up to 4th last even when factoring in games in hand. There’s even room for them to move up a bit, although that would require them to go on a small run. The Panthers, Coyotes, Blues, and Rangers aren’t too far ahead, but they have games in hand and are certainly better than the Senators so they might be tough to catch. However, the Flyers and Devils are right within striking distance.

If Ottawa can somehow finish in the 6-10 range and not “win” the lottery, it eases the pain on giving up their first round pick. It could easily be worse right now, although a few more losses can change things pretty quickly. We know that it will be very close until the end of the season.

The Senators next game is on Tuesday at home against the Arizona Coyotes at 7:30. After that, they have a long break until the following Friday (February 1st) against the Penguins.
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