A Closer Look At The "Moulson To Sens" Rumours

Jason Spezza needs a winger. This is not breaking news.

If you’ve been watching the Ottawa Senators for the past 3 months, you know it as well as anybody. Coach Paul MacLean has put Spezza on an island, and that’s no place for your team captain and arguably most skilled player to be.

There’s no denying Spezza is having a tough year. Not a terrible year, but he’s not the same guy we’ve seen in the past. The reasons for that are numerous, and a lot of the blame rests with his own play, but he hasn’t exactly been put in the best position to maximize his particular talents. That’s on both MacLean and GM Bryan Murray, although Murray gets an "A" for effort by bringing in Bobby Ryan to play with Spezza, only to have MacLean keep them apart out of what seems like stubbornness at times.

Spezza is a glaring -17, second worst on the team, but that’s not necessarily an indication of a big drop-off in his defensive play. Spezza has always been a risk-taker and a bit iffy on the defensive side, but the difference this year is that his line is not scoring 5-on-5 like it has in the past. If anything, Spezza has improved his commitment to backchecking and playing down low in his own end (as a team captain has to do), but he’s been struck with the double plague of skating in front of bad goaltending early in the season and having a rotisserie of wingers on either side, none of whom are a natural fit.

And you can see it out there almost every night. When Spezza makes something happen, it’s usually because he’s forced the issue on his own, making a brilliant solo play while his wingers just try to go to the net and pull some defenseman along with them. Last night in Washington was a good example. You could tell Spezza was “on”, but he couldn’t really get any offense going 5-on-5. It took a power-play and an awkward looking game of tag with defenseman Patrick Wiercioch (who refused to shoot) for Spezza to just say, “screw this” and power one from the sideboards through Caps goalie Braden Holtby for the insurance goal in the third period.

There’s no doubt in my mind that Spezza is still a 90-point player in this league, but he’s not going to get there playing with 30-point wingers. He needs to play with a sniper to utilize his biggest strength – which is playmaking – but unless MacLean decides to loan either Ryan or Clarke MacArthur to Spezza’s line, this team seems to be wasting the franchise centre’s second-last contract year.

Cue the Matt Moulson rumours.

It makes sense at first glance. Moulson’s a natural goal scorer, a left-handed shooter like Dany Heatley was with a very manageable pro-rated $3.9 million salary (3.1 cap hit) the rest of this season until he becomes a UFA. Basically, it’s a rental player scenario that’s easy on the payroll and doesn’t carry a burden past this season, unless both sides want it to.

The other reason this makes sense is that Bryan Murray will be dealing with his nephew and ex-employee Tim Murray in Buffalo if this deal were to go down, and that’s surely what’s given this rumour some legs. TSN mentioned it, as did the Ottawa Sun, so this isn’t just one of those HF Boards doozies that occasionally seeps into the mainstream, causing seasoned reporters to panic thinking they missed a major lead. It all sounds fairly reasonable, even inevitable.

But so did Mike Sillinger, Peter Bondra, Martin Lapointe, and Mike Comrie. These things don’t always work out like they should.

If you’re wondering about Moulson’s credentials as a goal-scorer, Tim Wharnsby had a piece back in late-December  pointing out that Moulson has scored the 12th most goals in the NHL since the 2009-10 season, putting him just behind the likes of Patrick Kane, John Tavares, Sidney Crosby, Jeff Carter and Bobby Ryan.

Some say that Moulson put up inflated numbers playing shotgun with Tavares, but why is that a criticism? Behind almost every goal-scoring winger is a number one centre. It just shows that Moulson can work with good players and be effective. If he’s coming to Ottawa, he’s coming to play with Spezza. The concerns seem overstated.

But this isn’t a slam-dunk, even though it looked like I was trying to lead you there.

Firstly, Tim Murray is a cagey bastard and knows the Senators prospect pool better than anyone in the league. He’s got a few chips he can play at the deadline, Moulson being one of them along with Ryan Miller and Steve Ott. Murray has to make an impact with his first moves as GM in Buffalo. If he’s going to make a deal with Ottawa, he’s going to go after his previous pet prospects in the Senators system and it’s going to be an attempted raid we haven’t seen the likes of since Lee Marvin in The Dirty Dozen.

Of course, we don’t know exactly what Buffalo would want out of Ottawa, but you can probably take a pretty good guess. We know Tim Murray loves Mark Stone, because we’ve heard him gush about Stone on local radio for a few years. Moulson would be an upgrade on Stone this year and probably next, but in the long run, that could be a move that backfires badly on Ottawa.

Moulson also isn’t exactly a “physical” player. Both Bryan and Tim Murray like big, strong teams and in that respect, Moulson may not be a fit for either GM. For the chance at a goal-scorer, sometimes you overlook their size or aggressiveness, as in the case of Kyle Turris (who’s proven to be tougher and feistier than his look suggests), but how many of those players can you take on board before it changes the style of your team?

Moulson isn’t small at six feet, but he doesn’t strike me as a Bryan Murray type player. Maybe I’m wrong, but I’m not sure Bryan would give up a potential power-forward for a rental like Moulson.

Another way you can look at it is Moulson being a salary replacement for Milan Michalek next season.

Ottawa doesn’t want to add a ton of salary but they can’t go backwards either. The cap and floor are going to go up next season (allegedly) and it doesn’t look to me like Michalek will be re-signed, at least not at his current $6 million salary (4.3 cap hit). I like Michalek as a player, but he’s not scoring anymore. It’s hard to justify that money for his reduced role on the third line this season.

Yet the Senators can’t just have rookies fill that spot. Rookies don’t make enough money. To hit the floor, you have to have certain guys making over $3 million, even if they don’t seem completely worth it. That’s just the reality. That’s why Colin Greening got such a sweet deal and that’s why Jared Cowen did as well.

Moulson will definitely be getting a raise on his $3.9 million salary. Someone will give him $4-4.5 in the NHL. Why not the Senators? Maybe they can float above the cap floor and get a real scoring winger with a trade-and-sign deal for Moulson.

Maybe they go in another direction entirely.

You have to remember the Free Agent pool seems to get slimmer every summer. Spezza still has one more year on his contract. The Senators don’t want him trying out new wingers every week for the duration of that. Someone has to be brought in. Do they want to bring Heatley back this summer? That’s outright laughable considering the bad blood between him and Eugene Melnyk. Do you ante up for Thomas Vanek or Mike Cammalleri? Ales Hemsky?

Suddenly Matt Moulson looks a little more reasonable if they can get it done.

Then again, it all depends on Tim Murray being reasonable.

We know he won’t be cheery and charitable. So don’t go ordering that Moulson nameplate to paste over your #26 Ryan Shannon jersey.

All 3 of you.

Sens Will Survive The Latest Defection … This Time Tim Murray

As of this writing, the departure of Assistant General Manager Tim Murray from Ottawa to become the new Buffalo Sabres GM hasn’t been officially confirmed, but when Bob McKenzie says it’s going to happen, you can probably go ahead and turn out the lights.

The first thing I saw stirring in fans was anxiety at the pending announcement, and that’s understandable. Tim Murray has recently been acclaimed as the “genius behind the curtain”, the ideal successor to his Uncle Bryan, and the man who invented hockey scouting.

Yet here’s why Tim Murray’s departure will initially hurt, but ultimately prove to be a survivable change for the Senators organization.

Firstly, it was never a sure thing that Tim was the heir apparent to Bryan Murray in Ottawa. That decision would have ultimately come down to Eugene Melnyk, although I’m sure Bryan would have highly recommended his nephew. Tim’s hockey acumen would make him appear to be the candidate, but that’s not always the only qualification to be a manager in this league.

It is for a scout, maybe a director of hockey operations, but not for a job that requires you to step in front of a microphone and calmly explain why your group of players just tanked for a month straight but fans should still rush out to buy tickets for a Sunday afternoon game against the Florida Panthers.

Tim Murray, although noticeably improved in recent years, is not exactly a crowd pleaser. Luckily, the Buffalo Sabres don’t need their GM to be one right now. They’re just understandably desperate for a hockey guy to come in there and fix their system, not be the public face of their franchise. The svelte Pat Lafontaine is doing a good enough job of that right now. Instead, the Sabres are going back to the meat and potatoes. They resurrected Ted Nolan and now look like they’re trading in the suave dinner-and-a-handshake style of Darcy Regier for the melt-your-face-off stare of Tim Murray.

Tim is gruff to the point of satire. When he announces picks at the NHL Entry Draft, it’s like he’s in the midst of an audit from Revenue Canada. A public smile is rare. He smoked well into his time with the Ottawa Senators, although that may be a habit he’s already quit. This guy can’t spell “polished”. This is not to disparage Tim Murray as a person. I quite like his no-nonsense style and I’m sure he’s a little gentler away from the hockey rink, but his public persona doesn’t seem to be a put-on.

Of course, being the grandfatherly, friendly face of the franchise was a job that fell to his Uncle Bryan, so Tim had no need to plaster on a fake grin and reassure fluttering hearts across the city. He just had to get hockey decisions right. And with the help of a great hockey operations department around him, especially with Pierre Dorion as Director of Player Personnel, Tim Murray helped build this Senators team to the point where they can trade a first-round pick and say with a straight face that they don’t mind because it’s a poor draft year in 2014. That’s a luxury most teams don’t have.

In short, he’s a great fit in Buffalo, because of their different needs, but not necessarily a smooth successor in Ottawa where some finesse is needed on the public relations front.

Pierre Dorion, almost ten years younger than Tim, also comes from a scouting background, had a huge hand in the building of this team, and has a public style much more similar to Bryan Murray. For one, he’s actually smiling in his media guide photo. Tim’s photo comes across like a mugshot from the Apalachin Conference in 1957. Secondly, Dorion regularly makes appearances on local sports radio and comes across as both smart and a guy you’d like to have a beer with.

You might be sitting there thinking I’m making too big of a deal over appearances, and you’re probably right. But there’s no disputing Dorion’s track record in this organization, and the fact that he’s media friendly (and young) is an extra layer to a guy now likely destined to be second in-command in Ottawa.

The Vancouver Canucks have a GM, Mike Gillis, who’s very similar to Tim Murray in style, and probably less personable if that’s possible. It’s worked out well so far, but the two-headed negativity they now have with John Tortorella joining him may prove to be a little sickening after a while.

Compare Gillis to Bryan Murray for a moment. When Gillis talks, you feel strangely depressed, like he’s being forced to impart the minimum of information just to keep from being fined. When Bryan talks you always know exactly where his head his, where the team is going, what the positives and negatives are. You walk away feeling that this is still just a game, and not everything is life and death. There’s perspective there. Bryan doesn’t BS anybody, but he also knows when to say the right thing to keep this already nervous city away from the bridges and cliffs. There’s an art to it all, something that has nothing to do with knowing the 100 best under-18 players in US College hockey.

The eventual switchover to Tim from Bryan in Ottawa may not have been as clear a path as some imagined. Say what you want about the intelligence of local hockey fans, but they also need their news sugar coated from time to time, and I’m not sure Tim is capable of such a thing. At least he’s shown no signs of being that kind of communicator.

Yet I can definitely see Dorion stepping into that role and maintaining the same narrative that Murray has preached since he took over in the summer of 2007. Bryan Murray has survived in his job because he was able to communicate a hopeful message, both to the fans and his owner, during a stretch where he fired 3 coaches in what felt like two months. A lot of general managers would have been cut loose for presiding over such chaos, but Bryan made it through and has never been stronger in his role.

Dorion seems to be more like Bryan than Tim is, despite not being related. I think that’s a positive.

The Senators are going to lose a hell of a hockey mind in Tim Murray, but the organization has enough smart people behind him to survive and prosper. From Dorion, to Randy Lee to Vaclav Burda over in Europe.

And what makes you think Bryan is going anywhere soon?

What would he do with himself anyways if he wasn’t sitting in his box swearing under his breath and trying not to twitch uncontrollably every time a goal goes in against his team?

If Keith Richards can get up onstage in 2014 and play Jumping Jack Flash as good as he could in 1969, there’s no reason Murray can’t stick around to see the guys he drafted with Tim bring this team on a long playoff run.

You can’t get these kinds of guys to quit anyways. I’m sure Tim was aware of that too and maybe opened his eyes to leaving.

Good luck to Tim in Buffalo. He deserves the opportunity.

Season Opener: Karlsson Delivers Win In Final Minutes

It was exhausting watching all those saves.

Numbing almost, save for the beer. But if it wasn't for Ryan Miller and Craig Anderson making ridiculous stop after stop, we might have had a real yawner on opening night in Buffalo.

The Senators came out in the first period like a team convinced Miller was going to be shaky, and pounded 23 shots on net. You have to wonder if the early message from the coaching staff was “shoot the f***ing puck”, knowing that the first twenty minutes were going to be sloppy with nerves and lots of offside calls (which there were). But whenever Ottawa managed to break into the zone cleanly, they raided Miller, starting with Patrick Wiercioch who rang a high one off the post behind the chronically unhappy Sabres goalie. Both Jason Spezza and J.G. Pageau chose to shoot the puck during a couple of 2-on-1’s as well. Probably a smart strategy when the hands are a little tight in the first game of the season. Miller was game.

Then the second period hit and both teams were skating in molasses, a dreary spell that didn't lift until the last half of the third.

It used to be Daniel Alfredsson who would step up in those moments, especially against Buffalo, but on Friday it was Erik Karlsson, taking a cross-ice feed from new guy Clarke MacArthur and finally getting a puck past Miller.

You had to love Karlsson's celebration of the goal. He just pointed at MacArthur as he drifted away from the net with an expression that was all business. It almost looked like he knew he'd have the chance to end the game like that, while MacArthur seemed a little dazed by it all as he skated to the bench. They didn't have defensemen like that in Toronto and Buffalo when MacArthur was playing his first 400 pension-guaranteeing games.

Bobby Ryan's debut in the red and black was uneven, taking a couple of penalties when he lost his man. He seemed a little behind the game at times, too far head at other moments, but he did manage 5 shots and seemed like a strong presence down low. Everyone's favourite TSN 1200 radio host has been butchering Ryan on-air for a month now and this game won't change his tirade much, but Ryan looked dangerous with the puck on his stick. You can't please 'em all, Bobby.

If you're a Senators fan, and you're probably a mouth-frother if you're reading this on a Friday night or Saturday morning, there's a lot to take positives from, even if the nightmare of a low-scoring team is eating away at your sub-conscious. Ryan Miller was incredible on Friday, and Spezza would have had two goals and four points if it were any other night or any other goalie.

The Senators go into Toronto on Saturday for Hockey Night In Canada, a stage they never seem to shine on, so an unglamorous road win in Buffalo is something most Ottawa fans can be happy with.

BLACK ACES SENATORS 3 STARS

1. Craig Anderson
2. Erik Karlsson
3. Jason Spezza

NOTES

Play-by-play man Dean Brown’s line of the night after both teams traded chances late in the 2nd period: “Ooohh. Magic at one end and witchy spells at the other.” You don’t hear the term “witchy spells” too often in hockey broadcasts. You hear it a lot in Black Metal I guess....Lots of new looks on the Senators Sportsnet broadcast. Dean Brown is going with the goatee in the early going and host Ian Mendes has been replaced by the young Shawn McKenzie, who did a good job as the rookie. However, Denis Potvin is still Denis Potvin, everyone’s favourite uncle ..... Not surprising that it was good ol' Cory Conacher who delivered the first bump on Ryan Miller in the crease. He got about six hockey gloves in the face for his efforts........ Eric Gryba’s early season playoff beard is a fierce look. All he needs is a few missing teeth in the front so he can give guys like Lars Eller an Ottawa Valley smile that will haunt their dreams.... You can tell Gryba didn’t play much in the pre-season. A little shaky with the puck in his own end, but he’ll get better once he settles in after a few games. Wouldn’t be surprised to see Joe Corvo step in against Toronto on Saturday in Gryba’s place....Those white Senators road jerseys have to go – soon. Whatever that design is, it’s not a hockey design. They’re pajamas....

... Still hard to fathom that Stephane Da Costa is playing in Ottawa instead of Mika Zibanejad. Hey, Zbad only has himself to blame, but you look at Da Costa out there and he still doesn’t look like an NHL player. I can’t believe this little “lesson” will last long. The Sens need Zibanejad’s size and skill in the middle.... Very happy to have been asked to join the Ottawa Citizen’s Prediction Panel again this season, but it has only reminded me why I don’t play Pro Line anymore. Try it yourself for a year and be happy if you hit .500.

Best Bets and Homerun Chances For Sens On Deadline Day

The trade deadline approaches. You know Ottawa is going to do something, even if it’s just a 7th defenseman going back and forth. Here’s a few guesses (and one or two Hail Mary's) at who might land in town:

Ryan O’Byrne (D) – Colorado: Bryan Murray must have had a huge scare when both Marc Methot and Sergei Gonchar got temporarily banged up. This team is a near-lock for the post-season and Murray can’t rely on Erik Karlsson or Jared Cowen magically getting healthier for April. He has to make a move for a rental just to have some bodies for when the games get really painful. He won’t lock himself into a defenseman with multiple years unless he’s young. Big and somewhat mobile O’Byrne (6’5”, 234 pounds) is a UFA this summer and has 19 games of NHL playoff experience with Montreal, and was part of the Hamilton Bulldogs AHL championship team in 2007 where he played 22 games during their Calder run. He’s had a tough year in Colorado, even being made a healthy scratch recently, but he’s a perfect fit for Ottawa. He still plays about 20 minutes a game for the drowning Avs.

Jordan Leopold (D) – Buffalo: It’s pretty easy to just stroll down a list of UFA’s this summer and pick obvious candidates for Ottawa, but Leopold would provide a smooth skating d-man in one of their pairings, probably replacing the need to play both Mike Lundin or Andre Benoit. Leopold has 59 playoff games on his resume. He’d help Ottawa and would be a nice fit on the second power-play unit. Too bad he’s a left shot though. Buffalo won’t be eager to give Ottawa anything helpful.

Robyn Regehr (D) – Buffalo: More of a longshot because, like Leopold, Buffalo will want something decent in return and won’t take less from Ottawa, a divisional rival. He’s the kind of established player you’d want in a playoff run but I don’t see Ottawa swinging hard for him. He’s got a no-trade but you’d think he’d jump at an opportunity to play a few extra weeks somewhere. Complications aside, he’d look at home in a Sens uniform as a rental.

David Rundblad (D) – Phoenix: Don’t laugh. It could happen. My pal came out with this the other day and the idea stunned me for a moment. The Coyotes don’t have a goalie for next season with Mike Smith a pending UFA. Ottawa has 3 good/great ones in stock. I don’t have to tell you the talent Rundblad has. This would be a mind-blower but it almost makes a bit of sense because the Coyotes already have both Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Keith Yandle locked up long term. That being said, I have my doubts Ottawa will move a goalie before July.

Ales Hemsky (RW) – Edmonton: This would be Bryan Murray’s homerun shot provided he doesn’t steal someone like Martin St. Louis from good buddy Steve Yzerman. Hemsky has one year left at a modest $5 million and would be that guy who replaces Guillaume Latendresse in the top 6. It’s a big longshot but Edmonton would be chasing a goalie if they were sane. A healthy line of Spezza, Michalek and Hemsky is a tempting thought. You could say the emergence of Jakob Silfverberg shores up that right wing spot nicely but how many years does Alfie have left? Hemsky would be a needed injection of pure skill into your top line. And you just might be able to get him for less than you think.

Jaromir Jagr (RW) – Dallas: Could you imagine Jagr in the red and black? I can’t, but Murray brought in Alex Kovalev so there’s a precedent here. One of the best hockey players of all-time as a deadline rental? You could do worse.

The Backhander – Bald Heads...Bad Luck... Big Risks

A Senator who’s definitely growing on me – Patrick Wiercioch. I thought his last two games against the Devils and Islanders were the best I’ve seen him play all season. The guy wanted the puck and made plays out of his own end with some confidence. I don’t know exactly what it is, but I’ve sort of flip-flopped on him since his early start where I thought he was weaker than Andre Benoit and Mark Borowiecki. Maybe it’s his size that gives him a little more presence but I like him the most out of those three to have an impact the rest of the way. But then you have to look at Eric Gryba who played almost four more minutes than Wiercioch on Tuesday against the Islanders and had five blocked shots. It’s good news/bad news for the organization because if Erik Karlsson and Jared Cowen weren’t hurt, we might not have even seen these guys play a single game so far, but next season this blueline is going to be both skilled and tough – and hopefully healthy....

.... You have to think that GM Bryan Murray wishes he had played the safe hand and made a move for a veteran defenseman at the start of the season when Jared Cowen went down. There were questions about inexperience even then but Murray gambled a little bit without insurance and is now dealing from a position of weakness. If, God forbid, another Senator d-man went down in the next week or two, what the hell is he going to do at that point? Mike Lundin doesn’t look any better than Wiercioch or Benoit and there’s a long grind of games ahead of this banged up team. A minor deal to bring in a guy with over 200 games experience could help this blueline survive the next two months and just possibly hold onto a playoff spot (don’t laugh – it could happen). Nobody’s going to replace Karlsson but if they’re going with a “grind it out” philosophy the rest of the way, they’ll need more bodies back there. Sergei Gonchar is getting hammered every night along the boards (he's a definite target with Karlsson out) and if you lose him, say goodbye to whatever shred of hope this team has left. You can’t do anything about bad luck but enough is enough. Make a deal....

... Whatever happened to Guillaume Latendresse? Nobody even mentions him anymore. People will talk about Ottawa’s injuries and don’t say his name. He’s a ghost right now..... How is it that Colin Greening has 0 penalty minutes so far this season? For a guy his size to have 0 PIM’s makes you understand why the Senators coaching staff need him to get more involved. If you’re doing things right, you’re going to take a few unavoidable penalty minutes along the way. Not surprisingly, after being a healthy scratch a few games ago, Greening looks motivated of late and against the Islanders had 5 hits and a goal. The last time he had as many hits in a game was also the last time he scored a goal – January 27th vs Pittsburgh where he collected 6 hits. In 10 of his 16 games, Greening has been credited with 2 hits or less. This guy didn’t become known as one of the most fanatical workout machines on the team just to be a perimeter player trying not to make mistakes. He needs to string together some good games real soon.... Dave Dziurzynski, who got his first career goal against the Islanders on Tuesday, is wearing #59, not the most glamorous number. The only other Senator to use it was Erich Goldmann, who played in a single NHL game in the 99-00 season and was drafted out of Germany by Ottawa in 1996.... Speaking of German born ex-Senators, good ol’ Christoph Schubert is in the German league playing for the Hamburg Freezers. Schubert was +30 for Ottawa in 06-07. The guy could hit like a train too....

.... The skinhead look has been somewhat rare in the Senators short history, but Andre Benoit and Craig Anderson are doing their part. Hey, Mark Messier, the most famous cueball in NHL history, is my favourite player of all-time so I’m not looking for a cheap joke here. But off the top of my head I can only come up with a handful from Ottawa’s past. Bryan Smolinski and Alex Auld come to mind right away. Actually, that’s all I can remember. I want to say Denny Lambert but I think he might have had hair when he was in Ottawa. Can you think of anyone else?.... On the other side, Daniel Alfredsson is doing a pretty good lion impression lately and Zack Smith and Karlsson can grow it too. But it’s tough to top the early 90’s Senators when they had Mike Peluso, Darcy Loewen and Dave Archibald among others following the dignified lead of Dougie Gilmour, Brett Hull and Jaromir Jagr.... Tough day for Lindy Ruff. Everyone knows this guy is a hell of a coach and the crap he had to endure in Buffalo with players leaving, ownership changing and bad signings would have destroyed a lesser man. Only a coach like Barry Trotz has a comparable record of keeping afloat bad teams over a similar period. Ruff’s greatest moment in Buffalo might have been the summer of 1999 at a team rally after the tough loss to Hull and the Dallas Stars when he concluded his speech with the two words “No Goal”. He was a hero after that. Now he’s the scapegoat. I’m usually not one to cry over coaches getting fired. In fact, I get annoyed when most pundits go immediately to the “it’s the player’s fault, not the coach” line. Sometimes it’s true, sometimes it’s not. I think Bryan Murray was right to fire all three of John Paddock, Craig Hartsburg and Cory Clouston. But in Ruff’s case it does feel weak. If Jarmo Kekäläinen is looking to start fresh with a new coach next year in Columbus, he’d be crazy not to go after Ruff.

Alfie's Lady Byng Curse... Habs Drop Sens ... Guy Lafleur Disco... Yer Game Notes

Did Mocking Sundin With Fake Stick-Toss Forever Curse Alfredsson's Lady Byng Quest?

There’s no doubt Ottawa Senators captain Daniel Alfredsson has had a comeback year worthy of any in recent memory. After shutting down his 2010-11 season in early February due to a bad back which eventually required surgery, not many predicted he would be as productive as he’s been this year, let alone actually play. From interviews he’s done, it sounds like Alfredsson was sceptical himself.

Now with the Senators likely headed to the playoffs and Alfredsson with 49 points in 64 games, the long time franchise player may be in the running for a couple of NHL awards. He’s a longshot for both, but he should get some consideration for both the Lady Byng and the Masterton trophies.

The Professional Hockey Writer’s Association votes for both trophies. In the case of the Masterton, awarded to the player who “best exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship, and dedication to hockey”, each team nominates one player, and usually it’s someone who has overcome some kind of injury to play at a high level. That sums up Alfredsson’s year pretty well and he’s a lock to be the Senators candidate. Ian Laperriere of the Philadelphia Flyers won it last season with ex-Senator goalie Ray Emery a runner-up.

The Lady Byng, officially, is awarded to the "player adjudged to have exhibited the best type of sportsmanship and gentlemanly conduct combined with a high standard of playing ability". Unofficially, they just give it to either Pavel Datsyuk or Martin St. Louis depending on who had the better year. That duo has locked up the award since the lockout, and deservedly so. Yes, a lot of it has to do with how low your penalty minutes are and how high your point total is, but there’s also the likability factor involved, and both Datsyuk and St. Louis are darlings of the press.

So where does Alfredsson come into this story? Firstly, he’s never convinced the PHWA that he deserves the trophy, probably because in his best years points-wise, he was always in between 30 and 50 penalty minutes, a number that probably disqualified him from the running. For instance, in 2006, Alfredsson had 103 points and 50 PIMs. That year, Datsyuk won the award with 87 points and 22 PIMs. In 2008, Alfredsson had 89 points and only 34 PIMs but Datsyuk took it with 97 points and 20 PIMs. Alfredsson’s best chance at the Byng was probably in 2004 when he had 80 points and 24 PIMs. Alas, Brad Richards took it with just 79 points and 12 PIMs. You can’t win when you look like a goon compared to these angels.

But forget the stats for a moment. Let’s go back in time to that night in 2004 when Alfredsson mocked his good pal but bitter foe Mats Sundin by pretending to toss a broken stick into the stands in imitation of the act that got Sundin suspended for a game that same January.

Coincidentally enough, that was the year Alfredsson had his best chance of winning the Byng, statistically at least. The Leaf fans howled in outrage and Alfredsson still gets booed to this day, partly because of that incident (and partly because he ran over Darcy Tucker in the 2002 playoffs before scoring the winning goal.) But did he ultimately disqualify himself for the Lady Byng by doing the cheeky stick-toss act in a city that’s home to a lot of voting members of the PWHA? Or was it the crushing Tucker hit that many thought should have negated the goal?

This is not some kid of conspiracy theory I’m advancing, but let’s just say this is my own version of the Alfie stick-toss - just a little harmless fun at the expense of Hog Town. So did Toronto area writers like Steve Simmons, Damien Cox, Mike Zeisberger, Bob Mackenzie, James Mirtle and others get an indelible impression of Alfredsson’s “sportsmanship” that night (or in seeing the endless replays over the years), an impression that was not altogether favourable?

Hey, it’s possible. That’s life. Alfredsson can play the game a number of different ways and he’s not always a gentleman about it. It also goes to show that some people’s sense of humour is like flashing a red cape to a half-crazed bull.

But, realistically, what are Alfredsson’s chances this season of getting his paws on the Byng? Let’s take a quick look at the some of the contenders and the appropriate stats as a start:

Claude Giroux: 80 Pts 27 PIMs
Phil Kessel: 72 Pts 20 PIMs
Marian Hossa: 69 Pts 16 PIMs
Patrik Elias: 67 Pts 16 PIMs
St. Louis: 63 Pts 16 PIMs
Datsyuk: 59 Pts 14 PIMs

Those are probably the top guys right there. You can make a good argument for others but let’s go with this list for argument’s sake. You can go ahead and eliminate Kessel because not only are the Leafs collapsing, the writers have never taken to the kid. Alfredsson, with his 49 points (64th overall in the league going into Wednesday’s games) and 12 PIMs doesn’t seem to be in the running, but there’s always the nostalgia effect. Seems like every other night this season, Alfredsson is being feted in one ceremony or another and the All-Star game in Ottawa gave him his highest profile in the NHL yet. They gave Wayne Gretzky the Lady Byng in his last season as a sort of going away gift and Ron Francis one when he was starting to wind down his Hall of Fame career in 2002.

If it was a popularity contest, Alfie might have a solid chance this season, unless a few Toronto area writers have a longer memory than their bar tabs (ok, one last harmless shot of the Alexei Kovalev variety).

***

Montreal 3 Ottawa 2 (SO)

The Senators did Montreal in style by taking the train into town with old-school getups but dropped their second straight game in a shootout with Ben Bishop in net for both.

Bishop wasn't particularly good in the Sabres shootout, looking a little stiff and immobile but he looked fine against Montreal, making two good saves against Max Pacioretty and the resurrected Andrei Markov. Unfortunately for the Senators, Carey Price was perfect at the other end and that was all she wrote after another grinding, playoff style game, similar to the Sabres tilt last Saturday.

If those two games were a test to see if Ottawa could play that tight style, I'd say they passed. There's no shootouts in the playoffs and the Senators were dominating the overtime period and still got a point after going down by a goal early in the third period. It's those little signs that tell you this team is ready.

They also inched a point closer to the suddenly miserable Bruins. All those baby steps are starting to add up.

Black Aces Senators 3 Stars

1. Erik Karlsson
2. Ben Bishop
3. Colin Greening

Honourable Mentions: Jim O'Brien, Filip Kuba, Daniel Alfredsson and Kyle Turris.

NOTES

Strangely enough, the acronym for the Professional Hockey Writers Association is shared by the "Professional Hypnotists of Western Australia". Don't believe me? Check it out here…  Just trying to find out who is a voting member of the PHWA (the hockey version) is a major task. Their website is a website in name only. It basically doesn't function anymore.... Did anyone catch ex-NHL player agent, ex-Tampa GM Brian Lawton on Sportsnet late Tuesday night saying that if he was Sidney Crosby’s agent, he would advise his client to sit the rest of the year because of possible contract extension talks this coming summer? Essentially, Lawton is saying that even though Crosby is healthy enough to play (and lord knows they’ve been more careful with Sid than any athlete in history), he should still shut it down for both contractual and health reasons. Completely ludicrous. Why would someone not play the games when he’s healthy enough to do so? To avoid being hurt so they don’t endanger their next contract? Sid’s deal doesn’t even run out until after next season. Maybe all UFA’s should shut it down just in case. A whole industry of self-congratulating punditry has sprung up on the back of Sid’s injury woes and when he starts playing games, they’ve lost their big stick to repeatedly bash the NHL with. We get it guys. The NHL is a “garbage league”. Some journalists have been feasting on Sid’s brain for so long that they seem uncomfortable with the idea of him actually playing hockey games. What a novel concept.....

.... A nice lad by the name of Paul Swaney emailed me a few links from his site Stadium Journey, which basically reviews most major stadiums across North America and they've now reviewed both Scotiabank Place in Kanata and the B-Sens classic rink, the Broome County Veterans Memoria Arena. A pretty good read, especially when you get into the NFL stadium reviews. These boys like their concession stand foods..…. Have to say it’s nice to see the GM’s are acting as the NHL’s version of the Canadian Senate – the “sober second thought” – at least at the Boca Raton meetings. There was a lot of hype about the red-line being instituted on the recommendation of the GM’s but they soundly shot it down, and rightfully so. In fact, they are only recommending a few minor tweaks and hoping to see how some other changes, such as the “ringette line” or “Bowman line” works in the AHL before instituting it in the big leagues. That’s how it should be. Let the fans and press scream for drastic changes as they do year after year, but let the hockey people take it as slowly and carefully as it needs to be done. Nobody will ever be happy with what they do, so they might as well do what’s best for the game. Slowing it down and potentially bringing hockey back to where it was in the 90’s shouldn’t be an option, and it looks like it won’t be..... It's official. The Sens have another college kid, this time a high-scoring left-winger named Cole Schneider (good hockey name) out of the University of Connecticut. He's headed to Bingo for his pro debut but if he ever makes the Senators, he'll be the second Schneider to play for the Senators. The first? Andy Schneider, also a high-scoring left-winger, but from the Swift Current Broncos of the WHL. Schneider didn't make much of an impression with the Sens, only playing 10 games for them in the 93-94 season but he went on to a very successful career in Germany with teams like the Schwenninger Wild Wings and the Hamburg Freezers....

.....Tweet of the night has to go to Senators play-by-play man Dean Brown @PxPOttawa with "Habs honoured Harry Weiner tonight....longtime season ticket holder since 1968. not kidding." .... Alfredsson’s first ever regular season game in Montreal was on November 18, 1995 at the old Montreal Forum, but it wasn’t much of a performance. The future captain went -1 with 2 shots on Patrick Roy. The Habs won the game 5-1and somehow Lyle Odelein, the tough but low-scoring defenseman, who Matthew Barnaby famously nicknamed “Cornelius” after a character in Planet Of The Apes, managed to get a goal and an assist. Defenseman Sean Hill got the lone marker for Ottawa. Alfredsson eventually learned to play against Montreal, and going into tonight he had 102 points in 82 career games against the Habs, the most damage he’s done to any team in the NHL and the only club he’s racked up over 100 points against. His next most preferable opponent is the Sabres with 82 points in 85 games....

.... Here's the vintage moment I try to squeeze into every post. Yes, sports fans, it's Guy Lafleur's disco instructional album. Eat your heart out Barry Gibb.





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Sens Collapsing Down The Stretch.. Hungry Raccoons... Plus Painfully Etched Game Notes

St. Louis 3 Ottawa 1

Right about now seems as good a time as any to outright panic.

And why not? As an Ottawa Senators fan, you have every reason to start breathing heavily and climbing the walls.

As we’ve seen over the past few years, when things start to go south for the Ottawa Senators, it doesn’t seem to stop until they reach the outer gates of hell.

They can’t just have bad goaltending. They have to have goaltending so puerile that even Don Rickles would feel bad making fun of it.

They can’t just lose to their biggest rival across the province. No. They have to go out and get bulldozed on Hockey Night In Canada as they’ve done countless times against the Leafs, usually when just the opposite kind of game is vitally needed.

They can’t just lose two, maybe three games in a row. They must go on some kind of self-annihilating quest of nothing less than five games in the tank which wipes out whatever gains they made when they were playing like one of the best teams in the league.

There’s no middle ground, which is where most NHL teams call home, a comfortable place where you can drop a few games in a row without spinning into some kind of confidence destroying bender that blows the minds of even the most reasonable hockey analysts on the planet.

Coming this late into a season where Ottawa had only suffered one such abysmal plunge (back in October), a seven game losing streak would be a massive surprise if these weren’t the Ottawa Senators we all know and love.

Yet it’s not a funeral procession just yet. Shockingly, the Senators are still a playoff team after tonight’s loss with a two point lead on the Florida Panthers, who fell out of their third place spot as Southeast Division leaders, overtaken by the Washington Capitals.

Despite Craig Anderson’s weak goaltending tonight against the Blues, the Senators showed way more emotion and drive than they did against the Leafs on Saturday night. Usually, that’s the first sign a turnaround is on the way.

When teams get into these death spirals, they always seem to lose one or two games at the end that they deserved to win. It’s a bit like turning around a canoe with a turd for a paddle. You’ll get where you want to go but it’ll take three times the rowing.

Or something like that.

Let’s see how this group responds against the Nashville Predators on what should be a proud night for the franchise as they celebrate Chris Phillips being the second ever player to suit up in the red and black for 1000 games. If there’s a game the Senators have to win, even if half the team has to spend the night on IV’s because they gave too much blood, then it’s against the Predators on Thursday night.

If they don’t pull that one off, there’s no telling how bad this could get.

Black Aces Senators 3 Stars

1. Daniel Alfredsson
2. Sergei Gonchar
3. Colin Greening

NOTES

Despite having a tough year down in Bingo, you have to wonder if GM Bryan Murray has at least pondered the idea of giving Robin Lehner a game or two if Anderson and Alex Auld’s troubles continue. Do you risk pissing off Anderson and possibly sending him further into a funk or do you gamble that a Lehner promotion will give Anderson some focus that may not be there with Auld as his nonthreatening backup? It’s a bit of a psychological game with the goaltending right now. A Lehner callup might signal to the players that management is panicking which could make things worse for everybody. Or, as these things sometimes do, it could work out that Lehner gives them a small charge and they ride him until the adrenalin wears off.... According to Jeremy Rutherford at STLtoday.com, David Perron of the Blues walked into a Hockey Life store in Ottawa on Monday night in an anonymous fashion and started ripping pucks at the net set up by the hockey stick racks, blowing the mind of the store clerk who apparently had no idea who he was.....

..... My wife, the wildlife lover, made me take a bowl of old cantaloupe slices out to the backyard during the game to throw into the bush “for the racoons”. The second my foot hit the icy back step I was flat on my back with exploded melon as far as the eye could see. My wife heard it, came to see what happened and proceeded to laugh her ass off. As I lay in the snow and water, I hear Dean Brown call the St. Louis Blues second goal from the living room. Meanwhile my neck and elbow are basically done for good. I hope those raccoons enjoy their f***ing cantaloupe tonight..... The Sportsnet cameras caught Craig Anderson applying some lip balm as he sat in the locker room before the game. The question is whether Andy is a cherry, strawberry or vanilla guy.….. Some old-school hockey in New York tonight as there were two separate fights right off the opening faceoff between the Rangers and Devils. Makes you wonder – if Glen Sather and Lou Lamoriello went toe-to-toe in the hallway, no blocking, just one of those hammer jobs, who do you think would win? I’ll take Sather in a close one. That cigar chomping bit gives him the edge over college man Lou….

..... Scary scene today on the Ottawa transitway when two buses collided. Anyone who takes the bus down the transitway probably at one point or another wondered when this would happen. For the most part, buses fly through there at up to 100 km hour with no barrier between lanes in case a driver made a mistake. I don't know all the details of how the accident happened but when you hear the roar of another bus hurtling just inches away past your window, you end up imagining a few really bad scenarios, much worse than the usual stuff like the guy sitting next to you falling asleep on your shoulder and breathing in your face, which happens to my brother almost every night after work..... The Islanders made a smart move by re-signing Frans Nielsen for four years at $11 million. I always thought Nielsen should have been a Red Wing with the style he plays. He might have even ended up there if he went to UFA this summer. Would have looked good in Ottawa too for the second or third line.....

.... Hearing about longtime Buffalo coach Lindy Ruff having three ribs broken during an accident in practice and Oilers boss Tom Renney getting beaned by a puck in the head may remind Senators fans of when assistant coach Ron Low collided with rookie Nick Foligno during a drill in 2007 and hit his head on the ice which caused a pretty serious injury. Most coaches just wear a track suit, a whistle and hockey gloves on the ice during practice which means at least one goes down hard every year or two. But don't expect them to start putting the gear on. Can you imagine a coach being taken seriously by players when he's wearing a helmet and visor out there? It's just not gonna happen..... It's funny, but even just ten years ago you could conceivably go on the internet and read most of the major papers and come away feeling like you had digested all the hockey news out there. Now, you could spend six hours on the web and only catch a quarter of the hockey commentary out there. It's mindblowing how many people are writing about the NHL today.....Down in Bingo, Francis Lessard has 132 PIM's in just 34 games. You don't meet too many guys named Francis anymore.....

..... All this losing must be nudging coach Paul MacLean out of Jack Adams Trophy territory. There's still time but the voters won't like this big scar in the middle of the schedule..... Leave it to Matt Carkner to come up with the best line of the day when he told TSN that he hoped he would get switched up front so he could try to run former teammate Brian Elliott..... Speaking of running St. Louis goaltenders, I can't help but think of the 1996 playoffs when Leaf Nick Kypreos ran Blues goalie Grant Fuhr and tore up the Hall of Famer's knee, putting him out for the rest of the season. There doesn't seem to be video of it anymore on You Tube but rest assured it was a vicious act on the part of Kypreos. Still, it didn't exactly work out for the Leafs. Jon Casey came in and finished off Toronto before falling to the Red Wings in the second round off the famous Steve Yzerman goal in double-overtime of Game 7. Simply, one of the best shots ever taken in an NHL game. Perfection. This goal also ended Wayne Gretzky's short stay in Missouri.

Sens Have A Night To Forget.... Diva Goalies.... The Boss.... Chomsky-esque Game Notes

Winnipeg 2 Ottawa 0

Sometimes teams get sick of winning.

Okay, that's completely untrue, but for fans it sometimes looks that way. Against the Winnipeg Jets on Monday night, the Senators barely had anything in the tank coming home from a mini-road trip and with a much bigger one probably looming on their minds.

They'll never use it as an excuse, but the Senators may have been looking ahead to Toronto on Tuesday and the scheduled full week away from home. And if they were going to offer up a clunker, Monday night was about the safest time they could do it.

Even after the loss, the Senators sit safely in 5th place in the East and the loss to the conference rival Jets doesn't immediately seem to pose a danger. There is still a 9 point gap there and the Jets were due for a win against Ottawa after dropping the first two of the season to the Senators.

All those games Ottawa won recently gave them a cushion exactly for nights like this in the dog-days of January when the bounces don't go their way, the legs seem like they're full of gravy and hands are dipped in cement.

It happens.

The only real emotion the Senators showed was when Erik Karlsson was elbowed by Evander Kane and Chris Neil had to jump in a few plays later to address the situation. Neil levelled Kane with a Flesherton handshake and all hell broke loose for a few minutes with Karlsson and all his teammates on the bench appreciating Neil's efforts. It was the absolute right thing to do for Neil - it was the only thing to do. If he doesn't let Kane know that elbowing Ottawa's best player is a punishable offense, then Neil isn't doing his job. Matt Carkner also got into the act by backing up Neil when the Jets fought back and the Senators gladly killed off the extra two-minutes. Those are the kinds of penalties any team will gladly take.

Yet the emotion from that scene didn't give either team momentum one way or the other. It was one of those nights where Bruce Springsteen and the whole E-Street Band could have personally ripped into Born To Run in the dressing room and the Sens would have been just as flat.

But the Leafs might have an angry Sens team on their hands on Tuesday night. Word is Eugene is personally flying in Bruce from Jersey for this one.

Black Aces Senators 3 Stars

Not much to pick from here but let's give it a shot....

1. Chris Neil (Stuck up for Karlsson, led team in hits with 5)
2. Sergei Gonchar (Led team in shots and blocked shots)
3. Craig Anderson (Solid outing with no goal support)

Goalies Still Have It Good....Too Good

It's a topic you don't hear much about anymore with the concussion issue taking precedence over everything. Yet, goalie equipment is still huge, scoring is trending downwards and nobody seems to know what to do about it, at least no one with any say on the matter. The guy responsible for enforcing the standards on goalie equipment size, Kay Whitmore, recently told the Hockey News that "Nothing is imminent...It’s always been a goal to find a way to get rid of the big catch glove without having sprained thumbs, torn ligaments and wrist injuries."  Please. The only thing those mitts protect is the net and everybody knows it.This doesn't inspire much confidence that change is on the way. The same article points out that "the league reduced goalie pads from 12 to 11 inches '05-06" but that goalie save percentages have risen during that time. Again, larger nets are being brought up as a possible solution. Pass the Gravol. Maybe the league should stop treating goalies like divas and just get the equipment shrunk drastically once and for all, just like they did so well with obstruction. We're talking about 60 guys in the NHLPA that will be upset and the rest will be high-fiving each other because more goals equals bigger contracts. The NHL has to make it so players can come over the blue line, take an unscreened shot and score a goal more than once a year. Half the goals in the NHL today are what we used to consider garbage goals, all within five feet of the net and off rebounds. Yes, the goalies are bigger, but the equipment is beyond being a joke. It was a joke in the 90's. Now everyone is just tired of talking about it and have accepted the one-inch change in '06 as the final say in the matter. Too bad. When it finally gets done, people will be wondering why it took them so long, just like obstruction.

NOTES

Now that we've already broached my least favourite subject - goalies - the Senators would have been smart to look at the Ducks Dan Ellis before he tore up his groin and went on the IR as an option to shore up their back-up slot. The guy is a UFA next season and actually has a pretty good save percentage on a brutal team. Clearly, Alex Auld is not getting the job done and that's not giving the Senators many options if they want to rest Craig Anderson.  Now that Ellis is likely off the table, there's no real obvious candidate for Ottawa to trade for. Maybe if the Jets plummet in the standings the Sens could try to get Chris Mason in a bargain. He's also UFA but the Jets may have ideas of re-signing him or extracting a good pick in return for his services....The Winnipeg Jets must have felt right at home going to the rink for today's game-day skate. It sure felt like Winnipeg out there after a fairly mild winter so far in Bytown.....I'm a long-john's kind of guy but I recently had a pal tell me I was crazy and that no one wears long-johns anymore. What? Is this true? I wouldn't be able to survive an Ottawa winter without those red-striped woolen socks and the johns. Or maybe he's the freak. That would explain a few things....It seems like every team in the East plays 90 percent of the game in the neutral zone this year with variations on the classic trap. And Ottawa has just played three of them in a row. The Sens might be happy for a trip to Toronto and out West if only for a chance to be able to skate again. Maybe the NHL should just put the nets at the bluelines and put expensive seats in the old offensive zones. That's a million dollar idea right there......I think Dave "The Voice" Schreiber is the only person left on earth who likes to exclaim "Kowabunga" after big goals, like he did on Alfredsson's shootout winning goal against Montreal on Saturday. The reason is that he's the only guy who still sounds good doing it. Seriously, Schreiber is the best in the business and it's a shame more people don't know about him......

.....Brendan Shanahan made the right call on the Vincent Lecavalier punch to Evgeni Malkin's grill. It was dirty, sure, but basically harmless. The guy most in trouble should be the linesman who supposedly had Lecavalier tied up. One of the linesman's main responsibilities in fights or major scrums is to make sure that no one gets in a free shot while the other guy is immobilized by the other linesman. That didn't happen here and Geno had to take one on the chin. I liked Malkin's response though. He took it, shrugged it off and left the game with 5 points, including a hat-trick. He's got no place fighting anyways, unlike Lecavalier who's been known to throw them once in a while. That's for Arron "The Sandman" Asham to take care of the next game.....Not many inspiring shifts by an Senators line but the fourth unit of Chris Neil, Zenon Konopka and Bobby Butler hit the post twice with about three minutes to go. Interesting that Paul MacLean would put those guys out at that time but he seems to have a good feel for the bench. It almost worked....

....A strange trend I've noticed across the league in the past couple of seasons is guys showing their frustration by raising their sticks in a chopping motion (usually with one hand) and starting to bring it down on the ice or the boards before pulling up and skating off the ice. Of course, that's always been around but I've really noticed it this year as a sort of standard show of emotion by younger players. I think it's a bit like the chewing of mouthguards or the hockey pant strings dangling you see a lot of. Weird, meaningless trends that catch on amongst young players and proliferate. It's nothing to get up in arms about, but it's a bad habit. You know the old maxim: "Never let them see you sweat." In the old days, the only time you'd see a player raise his stick in a chopping motion was when he was really going to bring it down on someones head or ankle. I guess this is better when you think of it in that way.....Ryan Miller is officially killing me in my hockey pool. This is a guy playing like he wants to be in Anaheim. Maybe he'll get his wish very soon.....

.....Hitting the mid-point of the season, every self-respecting blog has to hand out their own set of team awards, so in order to do the minimum expected of me, here's two random ones:

Most improved player: Obviously a lot of candidates for this one but I've got my eye on Nick Foligno. Sure, Filip Kuba and Sergei Gonchar have bounced back from tough years, but we all knew the level they could play at when at their best. Foligno is starting to show that he can make plays, score goals as well as be a bit of a shift disturber out there, as Sidney Crosby can now attest. In years past, Foligno looked like he was missing a cylinder. He could make the nice plays in his head, as shown by his numerous failed attempts to stickhandle into the offensive zone, but this year he's getting past the blueline with the puck still on his stick and he's starting to show some hands nobody knew were there. I wrote a piece on Foligno early in the year saying he had to accept his fate as a grinder and just go to the net instead of trying to stickhandle like Spezza. Looks like I was wrong. He's like a hybrid now. One minute he'll have three guys trying to punch him in the head for going hard to the net and the next he's deking those same players out of their jockstraps.

Best goal celebration: This is a tough one. It's hard not to like Jason Spezza's understated fist pump or Erik Karlsson's near Ovechkin-like joy when a teammate scores (ie. Alfie's 400th goal when Karlsson was jumping up and down like my sister at the New Kids On The Block concert in 1990). But I have to give the best goal celebration to Daniel Alfredsson who lately has taken to simply putting both hands straight in the air after a near two-second pause and staring down his teammates as if to say "Yup. That's how it's done, boys". This will surely go down as the classic Alfie pose, as he most famously did it in the 2007 Eastern final against the Sabres to send the Senators to the Stanley Cup final for the first time. It also helps that every time he seems to do it is because he just won the Senators the game. As the players pile on around him in celebration, the only thing you can see of Alfie is those two arms still in the air.

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Sens Fans Live The Near Perfect Day .... And Other Strange Rumblings From Capital City

Ottawa 4 Tampa Bay 1

Just as I was going to write something about the Senators win over the Bolts tonight, I catch sight of Sens prospect Mika Zibanejad scoring the overtime goal for Sweden to win the World Juniors and doing an incredible "Foligno leap" as his teenage teammates swarm him in a shambolic blur of yellow jerseys.

 It was an unbelievable goal by a can't-miss kid who has power forward written all over him.

Could Ottawa Senators fans possibly have a better day in January?

Their top prospect stars in the World Juniors and scores the clutch overtime goal to become a hero in his homeland.

Four Ottawa Senators - Daniel Alfredsson, Erik Karlsson, Jason Spezza and Milan Michalek - get voted into the starting lineup of the All-Star game right here in Kanata while the Leaf's golden boy Phil Kessel gets buried before the finish line as Sens fans stack the ballots at the last minute (Oh the indignity! Kessel gets picked last in the "fun" draft last year and now the millions of Leaf fans hang him out to dry).

And just to make sure everybody gets a gift bag, the Senators roll over the Lightning for their 4th straight win that temporarily puts them ahead of Pittsburgh for 5th in the East.

Not sure I should write much more because most Ottawa fans are probably in some kind of happiness coma or else blind drunk in an effort to deal with the mind shattering events of today.

Allright, one more for the deranged.

Alfie had a 3-point night.

Grown men are weeping across the city.

Black Aces Senators 3 Stars

1. Craig Anderson
2. Daniel Alfredsson
3. Kyle Turris

Honorable Mentions: Zack Smith, Colin Greening, Jason Spezza and Erik Condra.

***

Expansion Twins Starting To Grow Up

The Tampa Bay Lightning and the Ottawa Senators both entered the league in 1992 when the rather dapper NHL President John Ziegler was the king of Palm Springs and nobody but basketball fans had heard of Gary Bettman (nor had they heard of an NHL "Commissioner"). Here’s a few random comparisons between the two relatively young franchises:

1. After their first two NHL seasons, the Bolts had 53 wins while the Sens had 24.

2. To date, the Senators have had 9 head coaches (including Roger Neilson for two games) while the Lightning have had 8. Basically a wash.

3. The Lightning have had 8 different captains. The Senators 7.

4. The highest sweater number worn by a Senator was 94 by Stan Neckar. For the Bolts it’s 97 worn this season by Matt Gilroy.

5. A few notable players that fans may or may not remember that have played for both Ottawa and Tampa are Alexandre Daigle, Filip Kuba, Vaclav Prospal, Bruce Gardiner, Andrej Meszaros, Mike Sillinger, Zenon Konopka, Cory Stillman, Janne Laukkanen, Andreas Johannson, Brandon Bochenski, Grant Ledyard, Ryan Shannon, Stan Neckar, Luke Richardson, Colin Forbes, Jody Hull, Andre Roy, David Hale, Darren Rumble and Juha Ylonen.

6. The Lightning have had the first overall pick in the Entry Draft 3 times, taking Roman Hamrlik, Vincent Lecavalier and Steven Stamkos. The Senators also picked first 3 times taking Alexandre Daigle, Bryan Berard and Chris Phillips.

7. The Bolts best late round pick has to be Pavel Kubina, taken 179th overall in the 7th round in 1996. Obviously Ottawa’s is Daniel Alfredsson taken 133rd overall in 1994’s 6th round. Maybe Ryan Dzingel will change all that in a few years.

8. Ottawa has used 27 goalies in its existence. Tampa has used 37. Remember Dieter Kochan? Who’s calling who a goalie graveyard now?

9. The Bolts have made the playoffs 6 times in their 18 completed seasons, with the most in a row being 4 from 2003 to 2007. The Sens made it 12 times in the same span, doing it 11 years in a row between 1997 and 2008.

10. The one comparison that really matters? The Bolts have a Stanley Cup.

NOTES

Some more good news for Senators fans: the players voted into the All-Star game will be spending the month of January trying to prove to everybody they truly deserve to be there. Daniel Alfredsson already mentioned something like that around Christmas, saying he wished it was his play qualifying him for the game and not just his popularity (to paraphrase). Is it a coincidence he’s been on fire lately? The player this should give the biggest boost to is Milan Michalek who’s been pretty cold since he returned from a concussion. I don’t think it matters to Erik Karlsson. He’s too green and otherworldly to even know what pressure is. He’d still have 20 assists if he was playing with a broomball stick and wearing a pair of old Kodiak’s.....It's always funny when you hear a player very forcefully yell "f**k off!" during the play on live TV and guys like Dean Brown and Denis Potvin have to pretend we all didn't hear it......Played Pro-Line again on Wednesday night for the first time in a while and picked Winnipeg to beat Montreal and took the Under. Habs win 7-3. I took Boston and New Jersey to tie. Bruins win 6-1. And yet I seemed so sure of my own genius when I forked over the two dollars to the strangely smirking clerk who said "Good luck" like he knew something I didn't.....

.....Kyle Turris. Pretty good hockey player. Not the greatest interview. I felt for Ian Mendes as he tried to get a few moderately entertaining answers out of the young man after his first goal as a Sen. Mendes would have had better luck mining for diamonds in Major's Hill Park.....You might be surprised but a lot of NHL coaches don't go around patting backs on the bench. Hell, some coaches barely even talk to their players outside of the dressing room. But there was Paul MacLean going right up to Kyle Turris to congratulate him on his first goal as a Senator. And we've seen that type of thing all season from MacLean. It's somewhat normal for assistant coaches to do the rah-rah thing but the stereotype of the head coach is a guy who eats ice chips and sneers like Mike Keenan (who really did eat ice chips from a Gatorade cup every single game). It's no surprise the players love playing for a guy like MacLean. If he can get them into the playoffs, they'll go through the wall for him......Kerry Fraser recently penned a really good column over at TSN about some of the more vicious and controversial trash talking that goes on in the NHL between players. As Kerry points out, it can often go over the line into territory that gets everybody in trouble. But for every taunt that goes over the line, there's probably 50 that are pretty funny. I've been reading Fraser's new book about his career called "The Final Call" (which I will probably do a review of in the near future here on the blog) and in it he recalls a time when New York Islander (and now TSN personality) Ray Ferraro made then-New York Ranger Tie Domi go completely berserk with rage. Seeing that it was right around Halloween, Ferraro waited until the linesmen had Domi tied up in an after-whistle scrum and then yelled at the young tough guy "Domi, with a fuckin' head like that, you should be sitting on someone's porch!" As Fraser tried not to laugh, Domi had to be held back from "ripping Ferraro's head off to hang on the rear-view mirror of his car." Halloween-themed trash talking clearly has potential for greatness.....

.....Now that Stevie Yzerman's running the Bolts, can we start calling Steven Stamkos "Stevie" too? I think the only one who still calls Yzerman "Stevie" is Don Cherry, but that's a tradition that should be carried on. It's not too hard to remember Stevie Y as the kid who Detroit pinned all their hopes on to drag them out of their ghetto early 80's era.......One last thing about the Lightning - their new uniforms this year are a huge improvement (remember these old 3rd's?). Simple, clean but still bright and those lightning bolts on the pants are a nod to their early years. Yzerman said the organization wanted a classic look and in a way the Tampa uni's are close to a blue version of the Wings look. Pretty sharp....

......John Vogl of the Buffalo News gives us a great quote from Ville Leino on the quiet and lifeless atmosphere in Buffalo’s home rink this year: “Married couples fighting upstairs, you can hear that on the ice."…..Geez, I’m guessing the Sabres would love to get their hands on Ryan Getzlaf if all the scuttlebutt about him being available in a possible yard sale in Anaheim. Getzlaf is exactly the kind of big, proven, playmaking centre they’ve needed for a long time. Could even be worth sacrificing Ryan Miller for….

Turris Has Solid Debut In Red....While Anderson Quietly Gets Back On Track

Ottawa 4 Buffalo 1

Kyle Turris didn't exactly get feted at the airport by a raucous crowd of supporters thrilled he was the newest Senator after a surprising and somewhat controversial trade with Phoenix, but he likely soothed a few concerns with a solid effort in his first game in front of the home fans.

It was a predictably slow start for the young Turris in the first two periods as he was probably just trying not to throw up, but he made his mark in the third by initiating the play that delivered Erik Condra's game winning goal over a struggling Sabres team missing seven regulars. After the goal, the crowd was losing it, Turris almost picked Condra up and hoisted him over his head like the Stanley Cup, and fans watching at home inundated Twitter with endless exclamation points!!!!

Hey, it was only an assist but there's something to be said about the buzz a big trade creates and the energy it gives to the players and fans, especially when you can see some results right away. I bet there's been a few orders for a #7 Turris jersey just on that assist alone.

Playing on a line with Condra and Nick Foligno, Turris finally showed some spark when he aggressively stole the puck on the back-check and snapped off one of those rumoured trademark shots that handcuffed Ryan Miller and allowed the rebound to go to Condra who knocked it in.

That shot was what everyone in Ottawa was waiting to see. The hyperbole was cranked a little high on TSN with Chris Cuthbert comparing Turris' shot to Joe Sakic's in the sense that he can get it off his stick a split-second before anyone expects it. That was the only time that Turris found the net in his first game but it was enough for everyone breath a little easier and Turris seemed more involved in the play after that goal.

It was a big win for Ottawa as they jumped back into a playoff spot, but more importantly, Craig Anderson had a quiet game behind all the Turris hype and that's exactly what he and the team needed at this point. The month of December has been pretty rough all around and Anderson badly needed to get settled down and stop the whispers for at least a few days.

Anderson did that, even when all eyes were following the new guy.

Black Aces Senators 3 Stars

1. Jason Spezza
2. Craig Anderson
3. Erik Condra

Honourable Mentions: Kyle Turris, Daniel Alfredsson, Erik Karlsson, Chris Neil (10 hits!) and Zack Smith.

NOTES

No pressure kid. TSN's Brent Wallace interviewed Turris before the game and I think Wallace used the word "pressure" 30 times in three questions. Nothing wrong with the questions, as they were all valid, but I'm guessing Turris didn't get those kinds of prompts out in Phoenix too often....Not bad for a trio of tough guys. First goal of the game scored by Zack Smith, assisted by Chris Neil and Matt Carkner.....It would be amazing if Daniel Alfredsson decided to play another season AND kept the moustache for the duration. He's starting to get a "Lanny McDonald in 1989 looking for his first Stanley Cup" vibe happening..... It seemed strange that nobody on the Senators did anything about Paul Gaustad ramming Jesse Winchester into the boards from behind and putting him out for the game. The refs blindly didn't deem it a penalty which made you think Matt Carkner or Chris Neil would have something to say very soon after. It's tough to do that in a close hockey game because of the instigator so it's understandable that the Sens kept their cool. Neil finally challenged Gaustad late in the third period after the Sabres were whistled on a penalty but Neil was smart enough not to drop his gloves first and Gaustad took a pass on the scrap. Then Ottawa went out and scored on the power-play with Neil standing in front of the net causing havoc. .....Carkner was there doing his job well when he viciously cleared the net area of Jason Pominville's pesky presence midway through the third period. Ottawa missed that part of his game while he rehabbed his knee early in the season. Carkner has been his usual steady self since returning..... Nice to see the Senators highest scoring defenseman in franchise history, Wade Redden, watching the game from the Foligno family box. He's also the team's all time leader in plus/minus with an impressive +159. The guy still looks 25 years old.....

.....It was rather amusing to see all those knives in David Rundblad’s back as he exited for the sunnier climes of Phoenix. There were a lot of fans bemoaning the loss of such a talented defenseman but there were also quite a few fans explaining to everyone just how terrible Rundblad really was, as if his current defensive short-comings represented the peak of his development. It reminded me a little of the guy whose girlfriend moves away and he bravely tells his buddies that she wasn’t that great anyways. The reality is that the Senators traded one talented prospect for another, and you don’t have to pretend Rundblad is a bum to justify the trade in your head. The trade was a gamble for Bryan Murray (despite his denials that it’s a gamble at all) and that’s okay. It’s a GM’s job to gamble once in a while. For GM Don Maloney in Phoenix, it was a steal because Kyle Turris desperately wanted out of there and the whole league knew it. Yet Maloney still got an elite prospect and a second rounder to boot. In short, it’s okay for fans recognize that the Senators traded away a good, soon to be great hockey player. They may have gotten one back at the same time or they may have gotten damaged goods. There will be a lot of people proclaiming who won or lost the deal, probably as early as tonight, but no one will really have a handle on it until both Turris and Rundblad begin to hit their prime years. That’s still three or four seasons away. Time to put the pitchforks back in the hay for a while.

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Sens Rack Another Comeback .... Plus Pulitzer Worthy Game Notes

Ottawa 3 Buffalo 2 (OT)

Talk about a bizarre sequence of events.

The Senators battle back in the third period to tie the Sabres on a shot from forward Peter Regin who is hanging back at the point to cover for one of his defenseman. Then in overtime, Jason Spezza gets tossed from a faceoff and Regin steps in before being waved off from his own bench (likely because of his surgically repaired shoulder). So defenseman Erik Karlsson, of all people, steps into the circle and takes the draw. On the same shift, Karlsson collects the puck deep in the Sabres end and throws it to the front of the net where another defenseman, rookie Jared Cowen, slams it past Ryan Miller for the win.

It was a bit like a twist ending from a decent Twilight Zone episode, possibly spurred on by the strangeness of seeing Sabres defenseman Christian Ehrhoff instigate a fight with hulking Colin Greening after Ryan Miller got a softie bump behind the net in the final seconds of the third. It was the right thing for Ehroff to do, given the history in Buffalo with the Milan Lucic nightmare, but Greening cut him open pretty good with a shot straight to the visor before they both went down in a heap.

Not a bad way to end a divisional hockey game - a good scrap, a goalie dive, and a couple of defenseman hooking up for a down-low overtime winning goal.

Oh, and judging by that crazed pileup after the OT goal, Cowen seems to be a much loved player in that dressing room. The only guy who didn't deliver a facewash to Cowen was Paul MacLean but maybe he got Cowen with a shaving cream pie in the hallway afterwards. Or just turned the fire extinguisher on him.

With that clutch win for Ottawa in the books, they temporarily booted Washington out of 8th place (pending games yet to finish on Tuesday night) and now sit just one point behind the Sabres for 7th in the East.

A few downer moments for Ottawa were the giveaways that led directly to the two Sabres goals and if you've been watching closely, you can tell that David Rundblad is pretty close to a date in Binghamton, maybe as early as one of Sergei Gonchar or Filip Kuba getting healthy. Rundblad's stick seems like it's made of meatloaf when he's trying to get out of his own zone and he's not exactly creating many chances anymore like he was earlier in the year.

Never thought I'd say this, but right now Rundblad is making Brian Lee look like Doug Harvey back there.

Milan Michalek also left the game after colliding with Karlsson at the blueline. Maybe a shoulder?

Black Aces Senators 3 Stars

1. Erik Karlsson (team high 27 minutes)
2. Jared Cowen (26 minutes, overtime winner)
3. Jason Spezza (slick 2 assists)

Honourable Mentions: Colin Greening, Craig Anderson, Peter Regin, Chris Phillips.


NOTES

Good to see two players doing what they do best in the first three minutes. Jason Spezza making a shifty pass behind his back to a winger and Zenon Konopka winning a vicious scrap he probably had no business winning from a purely physical standpoint. Konopka took some heavy shots from Cody McCormick but somehow was the one left standing at the end of it. But from the look of Konopka in the box afterwards, he wasn't any prettier because of it (but he still looked better than assistant coach Mark Reeds who took a puck in the face during a recent practice and had the full racoon mask on behind the bench)...Did you ever want to know exactly how they make NHL ice? Wonder no more. I didn't realize the white and the lines were painted on different layers....Funny moment in the third when Daniel Alfredsson was ready to go off the ice so he slowly flipped the puck into the Sabres corner for Kaspars Daugavins to go chase down. It was just like a guy playing fetch with his dog in the park. Sure enough, Daugavins put his head down and went after it with his tongue hanging out (well....)......Hard to believe just how far Daugavins has come since last season. Somehow he played his way up the depth chart, pushing guys like Bobby Butler and Nikita Filatov down along the way. I mean, Butler was a lock going into this season. Not any more. Daugavins hadn't been as good lately but he was more like himself tonight. And by more like himself, I mean "sticky". The guy is always stuck to something. The boards, the puck, the other team's defenseman, his own teammates. He always seems to be in a crowd shuffling his feet but pucks seem to hit him, deaden, and fall to the ice in front of his stick. If some guys are slick and freewheeling, Daugavins is a bit like a piece of gum stuck under someone's shoe. And that's what makes him so effective. If he ever develops a mean streak, he could really be something....

......Both Zenon Konopka and Paul Gaustad are known as two great faceoff guys. Wouldn't that be a strange trend if tough guys across the league all of a sudden got great at draws as a way to get more ice time or even stay in the league? It's hard to imagine a guy like Bob Probert ever taking important faceoffs near the end of games..... Mika Zibanejad and Nikita Filatov both played 9 games, but Zibanejad had twice as many shots on net. Both had one point but Filatov was +1 while Zibanejad was -3. What does this say? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Or maybe just that neither was ready to play in the NHL full-time....Prior to tonight's game, Erik Karlsson was just one point behind both Norm MacIver and Karel Rachunek on the Senators all-time scoring list with 96 points (Edit: He got that point tonight). But I'm guessing Karlsson would rather break MacIver's single-season Senators record of 63 points in a season. He's still 38 37 points back....

.....Per Puck Daddy, when Nikita Filatov was asked by Sovetsky Sport about his relationship with GM Bryan Murray and coach Paul MacLean, he replied "No, there was a good relationship with both the coach and the general manager. I can't complain. I can only blame myself." It may be easy to jump to conclusions about Filatov's attitude if you go on hearsay and past problems in Columbus, but all he's done this year is say the right things and he certainly didn't burn any bridges on his way out of Ottawa. My humble opinion is that we've seen the last of Filatov, at least in Ottawa, but it's not like he won't be welcome if he wants to come back and try again.....Not so interestingly, Filatov is tied with another once highly touted Russian hockey player on the Sens all-time scoring list with one point. And that player is Alexei Kaigorodov who pulled off the single point in only six games as opposed to Filatov's nine. That must burn.....This is not a shot at Winnipeg, but Antti Miettinen thinking he was going to Tampa Bay but ending up in Winnipeg is going to really mess with what he and his family were planning to pack....Chris Phillips is on the home stretch to his 1000th game by playing in his 976th tonight in Buffalo. If all goes well and he stays healthy, he'll play the big game on Hockey Night In Canada at home against Toronto on Febuary 4th. No bigger stage than that for the "Big Rig".

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