By Ken Hawkins (a.k.a. khawk)
The Senators had a strong start in their Saturday night HNIC match-up vs. the Jets, but were unable to sustain that effort for the full 60 minutes. That said, OTT did manage to get an early lead on the strength of a great 4-way passing play on the PP finished off by Tim Stutzle, and got another PP goal in the 2nd period to give them a promising 2-0 lead. But the Jets proved they have the best record in the NHL for a reason, and methodically put goals on the board by capitalizing on moments of poor defensive coverage by the Senators. Despite carrying a 35-23 shot advantage, OTT couldn’t get enough goals past Vezina-favorite Connor Hellebuyck. Full credit to WPG in this game, as they are going to be a very hard team to match-up against in the postseason.
WPG 4 - OTT 2 (NHL Highlights)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cjfH5qcECQ/
It was a rare loss for OTT when they opened the scoring, as even with this loss they still lead the NHL with a 15-3-0 record when scoring first. Now in fairness, the Winnipeg Jets are the best team in the NHL right now with a 13-3-1 home record, while the Senators are just now at the mid-point of a 9-game road trip where they’ve had to resort to using AHL-level goaltenders for the past 3GP. Realistically, this was not a game the Senators were expected to win, and for the most part they put up a very solid effort. The game was effectively decided by one bad goal allowed by Mads Sogaard, and 3 plays where the Senators lost track of their defensive coverage at critical moments. But they kept fighting right to the last whistle, and continued to show that they’ve taken a major step in their development.
The Good - Tim Stutzle played a strong game as part of the reunited GST top line, and had 1G and 4 shots overall. Brady Tkachuk led the team with both 7 shots and 4 hits, and added 1A. Thomas Chabot led all players with 26:57 of ice time, and had 1A as well as 4 shots and 1 block. Jake Sanderson also continued to look much better, with 24:51 of ice time that yielded 1 shot and 2 blocks. However, this elevated ice time for the top-4D has become a double-edged sword due to significant limitations on the 3D pairing. This is an area we’ll almost certainly see GM Steve Staios address before the trade deadline.
The Bad - Winning 8 of 9 games will gloss over a lot of problems, but they sure become evident when games start being lost. One that was widely under-reported was the Senators’ over-reliance on 3rd/4th line scoring during their major win streak. In the 6-game stretch between the CAR/EDM games, the 3rd/4th lines actually outscored the 1st/2nd lines by a 10-8 margin, led by Shane Pinto’s 5G-1A breakout. In many ways that level of bottom-6 forward production is every bit as unsustainable as Linus Ullmark’s >0.950 sv%. Their PP has now dropped to 10th in the league, their overall scoring has dropped to 16th, and they’re now 27th in ES scoring. It’s not clear that overloading the top-line with Tkachuk-Stuzle-Giroux is such a good idea on the road, when they can’t get the line matches they want, and have to resort to AHL-level talent on their 2nd line.
The Ugly - The Senators’ goaltending situation continues to provide as much drama as it does solutions. The play of Linus Ullmark was sublime during the team’s recent winning streak, but their limited depth in goal quickly reared its head when he sustained an upper body injury. With backup Anton Forsberg also out of the lineup, it's meant that Leevi Merilainen had to play in both the VAN/EDM games while Mads Sogaard got the start in WPG. Neither Ullmark or Forsberg are expected to be back in the lineup for at least a couple of weeks, so it leaves the team vulnerable in goal as they aim to get back into the win column. Look for a possible trade in the near future to address the situation, as the team is now in a position to be thinking about a playoff run.
This loss drops the Senators’ record to 18-15-2 on the season, but they remain in the 8th playoff spot in the Eastern Conference with games in hand on all of their closest rivals. There’s now a significant distance between their record after 35GP vs. their 14-21-0 record from last season, and they have already made up 10pts in the standings. Up next, they have the 2nd half of a back-to-back on the road vs. Minnesota, who are currently in 2nd place in the Central Division behind only Winnipeg. The silver lining is that the Wild have both an unusually good road record (13-3-3) and an unusually bad home record (9-7-1), and have a very similar record to the Senators when scoring first. We’ll almost certainly see Leevi Merilainen get the start, and see if he can build off his OT win in VAN.
What do you think of the Senators’ loss vs. the Jets, or about their current roster issues? Please comment below, and as always thanks very much for reading!
Ottawa Senators Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»