Karlsson’s Zapruder Film Moment Comes At The Perfect Time

The video was strange, almost as if it was taken clandestinely by a reporter crawling along behind the boards at the Sensplex, squeezing by metal barriers and catching a shaky image of Erik Karlsson with skates on, just moments before security guards got a hold of him by the collar, fed him a few rabbit punches to the spleen and tossed him outside into the Zamboni ice-shavings.

That reporter was Dan Séguin of the CBC, shooting vérité style with his phone on Monday morning, capturing the images that warmed the blood of every Senators fan around the city. Even though it looked like found footage from The Blair Witch Project, it’s already stoked the “what if” scenarios around town as the playoffs approach with Ottawa still in the running for a first-round appearance.

What if Karlsson had the same mystical, almost unspeakable healing powers of Daniel Alfredsson?

What if Jared Cowen, who’s been skating confidently for a while now, comes back around the same time. What if Jason Spezza’s back rebounds back into shape like a slinky all of a sudden? What if Milan Michalek just needed that one last surgery to fix his Bobby Orr knees forever?

What if the whole damn puzzle fell into place at the exact right time about two weeks from now?

If you think about it long enough you can almost convince yourself it’s about to happen and suddenly you’re high-fiving people in your office who you haven’t talked to in three weeks. Spring madness reigns for a moment and you almost forget this Senators team is on a four game losing streak and just four points up on the 9th place New Jersey Devils. And there’s still half of this hellish road-trip to endure, not to mention a return date in Boston Garden waiting at the end like a bully named Chongo standing by your locker in high-school with a shit-eating grin on his face.

This thing isn’t going to be easy to pull off.

The odds are still in the Senators favour to make the playoffs but having all of these guys ready to play is another thing altogether. I’m an eternal optimist, much to the eternal annoyance of my wife, but even I’m wondering if this is going to end up creating expectations that can’t be met.

All of this wishful thinking can’t help but remind you why everyone is so wishful in the first place. And that’s because this Ottawa team stinks lately.

That’s not to say they stink generally. Just lately.

And that’s fine. They almost deserve the right to stink after the amazing, determined season they’ve treated us to so far. Most fans would have been happy with a lottery pick and few memorable games from the rookies after half the team got rolled out of the rink in stretchers. Now they have a chance to see a few playoff games, or at the minimum, a battle to the end of the regular season that should be fun to watch regardless of the outcome.

But still, right now they stink.

Kyle Turris can’t score and can’t eat enough hamburgers to keep from wasting away. The power-play is tough to watch. Most games it feels like you’re watching the 1996 Florida Panthers play the 1995 New Jersey Devils. There’s a fight here and there but nothing that seems heated enough to be exciting. The Toronto Maple Leafs are doing well, thanks in part to many shellacking’s of the Senators along the way.

Kaspars Daugavins plays for another team now and the only barking you hear is coach Paul Maclean ordering players off the ice so they can’t have fun with their “stupid pet tricks” anymore. It’s business time.

The Senators have hit a dry spell both inspirationally and physically. They just seem tired out there and it’s tiring to watch.

But there’s always that “what if” floating out there, skating cautiously at an Ottawa practice rink while CBC reporters crawl along ceiling girders trying to capture a glimpse.

And there’s always tonight against the Tampa Bay Lightning. Until there isn’t another game to play, there’s always another game to play.

Murray-Yzerman Friendship May Have Paved The Way For Bishop-Conacher Deal

Interesting move by the Senators today, trading big Ben Bishop to Tampa Bay for small rookie-of-the-year candidate Cory Conacher and a 4th round pick.

You might remember that Conacher was the subject of pre-game segment on Hockey Night In Canada a few weeks back detailing his battle with Type 1 diabetes and going undrafted before catching on with the Lightning’s AHL affiliate in Norfolk last season and winning the Calder Cup. It’s a surprise that Lightning GM Steve Yzerman would trade a Calder Trophy candidate but clearly he’s desperate for any kind of goaltending. He’s got a good one now in Bishop.

So what does Ottawa have in Conacher?

He had 39 goals and 80 points in the AHL last season and 9 goals so far this year in the NHL. Clearly, Bryan Murray thinks he might have a goal-scorer in Conacher, and a young guy who the Senators coaching staff can mould for the next couple of seasons. At only 23, Conacher fits right in with guys like Zibanejad, Silfverberg, Karlsson and Cowen. He also has one more year left on his entry level contract and will be a restricted free-agent after that.

In essence, instead of grabbing a first or a second rounder for Bishop (as rumoured), Murray got a player who can step in right away and possibly score some goals, Ottawa’s biggest weakness right now. Even if Conacher doesn’t light it up the rest of this season, the potential exists for him to develop into a 20 or 30 goal scorer next season or soon after.

You can’t underestimate how important that is to Ottawa considering that Milan Michalek might be slowing down with recurring knee injuries and Daniel Alfredsson retiring in the next year or two.

In the short term, Conacher is likely to take away minutes from a forward already in the top 6. Identifying who currently plays in the top 6 is not exactly clear due to Paul Maclean switching his lines so often, but Latendresse might see less time. It is strange that Ottawa would choose to go for such a small player after not matching up very well against the big Boston Bruins, but goal scoring is so important that you can look beyond size, especially when Conacher has already proven he can battle and defy the odds. Everything I've seen and read about Conacher is that he goes hard to the net, takes hits to move the puck and doesn’t ever seem intimidated on the ice.

One image that keeps popping back into my head is Steve Yzerman and Bryan Murray talking in the stands on March 23 during the game day skate of the Ottawa-Tampa game. That’s the same day HNIC showed the Conacher piece and the day before Yzerman fired coach Guy Boucher. Yzerman used to play for Murray in Detroit and you can speculate that the Lightning GM may have been asking for advice on what to do with his struggling coach. Murray might have related his experience with having to fire Cory Clouston once the team gave up on him, which seemed to be happening to Boucher in Tampa Bay. Yzerman has been known to seek advice from more experienced people he respects, such as Wayne Gretzky when putting together the Canadian Olympic team a few years ago.

It might have been that Yzerman’s prior relationship with Bryan Murray led the way to this deal we saw today. You have to remember that both Ottawa and Tampa will be playing in the same division next season so this deal could end up haunting one GM or the other. Inter-divisional deals are much more common than they used to be, but I’ll speculate that a mutual trust and respect between the two GM’s made this deal a lot easier than it would have been for other teams.

One thing we do know is Ottawa is going forward with both Craig Anderson and Robin Lehner, and it hardly seems like they've weakened themselves at that position despite parting ways with Bishop.

Sens fans will keep their fingers crossed that we'll finally see some more goals to help the two goalies they have left. Conacher is going to help and could end up being a big part of this Senators team in the years ahead.

Bishop Steady In Big Win Over Bolts ... Leafs Misery Hitting 7 Years ... Greening Gets The Gordie ... And Plenty O' Game Notes

Ottawa 7 Tampa Bay 3

If you had given Ben Bishop a choice of when he'd have liked to make his Senators debut, his first answer would have certainly been “immediately”, but in the back of his head he must have been wondering if fate could have been kinder and spared him an initial matchup against Steve Stamkos, the purest goal scorer in the NHL today.

No pressure, kid. Do you mind stopping the ones going wide as well? Thanks.

Not surprisingly, the big goaltender got torched by Stamkos (his 48th of the season) on a perfectly lethal shot that Bishop could only feel burning past his ear, but he lived to tell the tale and helped the Senators gain two crucial points during a mini-slump that threatened to stretch into a prolonged one if the offense remained terminal.

But that wasn’t a problem for the Senators on Tuesday night. Some of their big names got on the scoresheet for the first time in a while, like Kyle Turris, Colin Greening and Sergei Gonchar. With two empty netters included, Milan Michalek got his 30th , 31st and 32nd of the season while Erik Karlsson continued to dominate with another power-play goal and a flashy, entertaining game as is the norm for the best defenseman in the league (yep).

Bishop, while not making the kind of initial splash that Robin Lehner made last week, had some tough saves to make in the third period and came away from this game looking like an NHL goaltender. Realistically, that’s all that was required of Bishop in this game and he delivered. With Craig Anderson gone for weeks and Alex Auld being unreliable as a steady backup, the Senators desperately needed both Lehner and Bishop to come in and at least give the team a chance to get points under bad circumstances.

Lehner did more than that, absolutely starring for a few nights and Bishop will probably get a longer chance to show some stuff. Meanwhile, with points gained here and there and with the number of games dwindling, the Senators are slowly closing in on that coveted playoff spot. No one is expecting them to start climbing the standings with Anderson out but at least they have a real good chance now of maintaining what they've already built.

Watching the Boston Bruins goaltending plight gives you a better appreciation of why Ottawa GM Bryan Murray went out and got Bishop despite already having Lehner in his back pocket, ready like some kind of caged animal starving for NHL games. When Tuukka Rask went down to injury the other night (for an estimated 4-6 weeks), the Bruins were forced to sign Marty Turco, who'd been living the dream in Austria, and put him through the waiver process. Even if he clears, Turco can’t suit up in the playoffs because of some arcane rule in the CBA. Not a great situation, especially if Rask is worse than feared.

The Senators have no worries when it comes to goaltending depth and Murray looks smart for not waiting until disaster forced his hand into some kind of Hail Mary deal like the Bruins were forced to try. And who knows? Maybe Bishop ends up being the goalie of the future here in Ottawa. At the very least, he’s pushing Lehner to be better.

Murray can't lose right now.

Black Aces Senators 3 Stars

1. Colin Greening
2. Erik Karlsson
3. Milan Michalek

Honourable Mentions: Jared Cowen, Zack Smith and Kyle Turris.

NOTES

If/when the Leafs miss the playoffs, it will mark their 7th straight finish out of the post-season. Before this horrific streak, the longest Leafs drought was 3 years from 25-26 to 27-28, and the first year of that they weren't even the Maple Leafs yet. They were the Toronto St. Patricks. Of the current Canadian NHL teams, here's the longest streak of years missing the post-season:

Calgary - 7 (96-97 to 02-03)
Toronto - 6 (05-06 to 10-11 and counting)
*Winnipeg - 6 (all in Atlanta; 99-00 to 05-06)
Edmonton - 5 (06-07 to 10-11 and counting)
Vancouver - 4 (twice; most recently 96-97 to 99-00)
Ottawa - 4 (92-93 to 95-96)
Montreal - 3 (twice; most recently 98-99 to 00-01)

.... According to the Team 1200 pre-game show, a sneak peek of the upcoming Hockey News annual Future Watch issue shows Ottawa ranked 2nd in the entire NHL for their crop of prospects, behind only the Edmonton Oilers. They also have 5 of the top 75 ranked youngsters outside of the big league. As Dave "The Voice" Schreiber said, it's just nice to see The Hockey News say anything nice about Ottawa in the first place. Kind of reminds me of the Keith Richards motto of "It's great to be here. Hell, it's great to be anywhere.".... Amidst the heroic and dramatic music that Sportsnet used to intro the game at 7:30 were clips of guys like Erik Karlsson and Jason Spezza scoring big goals and other great action clips. Also in the montage were people eating nachos and drinking beer at a bar. For real. I don't know about you guys, but watching non-descript twenty-somethings plowing greasy nachos to emotional music really gets me pumped about the hockey game ahead. Clearly, Sportsnet is chasing a Gemini award with groundbreaking segments like that....

..... The good news for Ben Bishop is that people in Ottawa will one day get over how tall he is and talk about something else. The reason I know this? People in town have finally stopped asking Paul MacLean about his moustache. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, despite us Valley folk being so fascinated by human freakshows….. Don’t think you’re getting off any easier Rob Klinkhammer. That’s a real funny name you got (cue the banjo music)….. As mentioned on Team 1200, the Lightning and Steve Yzerman were very interested in Ben Bishop before Murray managed to grab him from St. Louis. Before that happened, many were touting Dwayne Roloson as an option for Ottawa after Craig Anderson went down. Can you imagine that horrifying parallel universe? Murray 1 Yzerman 0.... If you remember, both Alex Auld and Mathieu Garon were unrestricted free agents this past summer. Auld signed with Ottawa and Garon with Tampa Bay. Murray 1 Yzerman 1…..

… Brian Lee is wearing number 15 for the Bolts, a strange digit for a defenseman but it’s obvious he’s attached to #5 so it makes sense….. Bolts defenseman Victor Hedman has a real nasty streak in him. The former Swedish defense partner of Erik Karlsson famously contributed to Sidney Crosby’s concussion woe’s last season and he took a healthy shot at Spezza’s head early in the first period down in the Tampa corner. Hedman was so intent on harassing Spezza that he allowed Sergei Gonchar to sneak in from the point and score Ottawa’s first goal from point blank in front of a helpless Roloson. Imagine Hedman and Karlsson playing as a pairing in the NHL? You wouldn’t even need a third pairing. Just have two ringers to go on the ice when the dynamic duo needs a drink of water…. Matt Gilroy’s flowing locks fooled me into thinking I was watching Karlsson a few times. Long hair has been a rarity in Ottawa over the years. Just trying to remember any of them is giving me a hard time. I have Alfie, Phil Bourque and Mike Peluso. I know I’m missing a few. Help me out…. That being said, the Senators have had a lot of guys who were follicly challenged: Shawn MacEachern, Bryan Smolinski, Rob Zamuner, Ray Emery, Martin Gerber, Craig Anderson and Alex Auld to name just a few....

.... Colin Greening and Keith Aulie absolutely went at each other tooth and nail in the second period and ex-Leaf Aulie landed some pretty frightening bombs on Greening’s chin. I was surprised that Greening didn’t go down and take a knee but he ended up on top of Aulie when it was finished. One of the toughest scraps I’ve seen all year for sure. It also gave Greening his first Gordie Howe hat-trick but he had to go to the dressing room to get looked at. Karlsson scored on the ensuing power-play. A fairly entertaining few minutes, don’t you think?..... If all it took was one game watching as a healthy scratch to get Zack Smith’s legs moving again, then clearly coach Paul MacLean made the right decision. After sitting out the Florida game on Sunday, Smith was all hussle and grit Tuesday night against Tampa. His body language was transformed from a guy who actually looked disinterested some games to a guy who remembered what it was that got him to the league in the first place. If Smith could get that Chris Neil mindset going which means playing every shift like it’s his last, he’ll be hard to stop, especially in the playoffs when guys like Smith become more important. He’s got a lot more tools than Neil and I don’t think anybody knows how good he can actually be. Except for maybe MacLean who seems to be pushing Smith like all good coaches do…..

.... Hit of the year, right here, on Tuesday night by the best hitter in the league, Niklas Kronwall on Jakub Voracek of the Flyers. Kronwall has elevated these hits to an art form the likes we haven't seen since Scott Stevens. Nothing dirty about this one:



.....  Don Cherry’s Ontario/Brian Burke rant on Saturday night was one of the funniest in the history of Coach’s Corner. It didn’t make much sense, but that’s when Cherry seems to be at his best. Especially when everyone gets outraged and starts throwing out stats to refute him, like that makes any difference to Cherry. He finds a "small truth" and wraps some barbed wire and chains around it and starts swinging on national television. You have to admit it's great entertainment whether you take his side or not. The Burke – Cherry feud has the potential for greatness because both are extremely hot-headed and rarely admit to being wrong. The difference is that Cherry doesn’t take himself as seriously as Burke and thus will always have the upper hand. If it is true that Burke tried to get Cherry fired, it’s hard to blame Don for fighting back. I just finished Al Strachan’s book “I Am Not Making This Up” and in it Al relates a similar story of Burke going to the CBC and trying to put Strachan on the unemployment line for various reasons. Seems like there’s a pattern to these stories…..

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Murray Swaps Lee For Gilroy – Reminiscent of Anderson Trade

Hardcore fans will be making a big deal out of it, and understandably so, but the trade of former 1st rounder Brian Lee for former Hobey Baker winner Matt Gilroy is a fairly minor move by GM Bryan Murray, but one that helps both the Senators and Lightning move forward from past mistakes.

In ridding themselves of Brian Lee, the Senators put to rest one of their biggest first-round blunders from the John Muckler-era and avoid having to figure out what to do with Lee when he becomes a restricted free agent this summer. Clearly, Brian Lee wasn’t a favourite of GM Bryan Murray or coach Paul MacLean, although MacLean had recently been playing the baby-faced defenseman over the more grizzled Matt Carkner and it was paying off with Lee having some solid games as a bottom pairing puck mover.

In the meantime, the Bolts have gotten something for Gilroy, who is going to be a UFA this summer and may not have wished to continue playing for ultra-conservative coach Guy Boucher whose system doesn’t really showcase more offensive oriented d-men like the speedy Gilroy.

Some are probably scratching their heads (or taking to Twitter with pitchforks and torches) about why Murray would move a pending RFA defenseman who can give you quality minutes for a pending UFA defenseman who, although the better player in the deal, can walk right out of town this summer for nothing.

I think the answer is that Lee just isn't and was never going to be "Murray's guy". Clearly, he didn’t see a future for Lee in Ottawa. This is a deal he has likely been trying to make for some time but Lee was playing so little that nobody wanted to touch him. On the same day that Bolts GM Steve Yzerman traded for soon-to-be UFA Mike Commodore just to have somebody to dress the rest of the season, I’m sure the Bolts are happy to get a defenseman they can keep in the system. They don’t have the baggage of having picked Lee too early and then living with him as he struggled to even make the lineup on a consistent basis. Instead, Lee goes into Tampa and if he plays well, it’s just considered a bonus. There’s very little pressure on Yzerman or Lee in this deal.

Murray’s move will be under the microscope a little more, especially if Gilroy doesn’t contribute down the stretch and into the playoffs, only to leave in the summer for greener pastures. But even if that happens, this deal will only be a bust if Lee blossoms into something more than a peripheral, marginal NHL player. Clearly, Murray and his staff don’t believe that’s going to happen.

Both Gilroy and Lee need a fresh start and they’re going to get it. Both are slick, skating defenseman but Gilroy has more high-end potential than Lee, despite the risks with his contract. If Filip Kuba leaves this summer, Gilroy might end up getting his money and Murray doesn’t have to go out fishing in the open-market. If Gilroy impresses, we might see a repeat of the Craig Anderson situation. Murray didn’t wait long to sign Anderson to a contract extension once it was clear he was going to be a good fit on and off the ice. No doubt Murray will be watching for the same kind of characteristics with Gilroy.

If you’ve read this blog for any length of time, you could have predicted that I’d like any deal that involved moving Lee out. And you’d be right. I don’t think Lee ever fit this team and in his defence, he might have gotten a tougher ride than he really deserved after being a high-pick and expected to deliver a performance he was never really capable of.

Now Ottawa has another college grad, one that was the subject of a bidding war when he was finally eligible to play in the NHL. If Murray and the team weren’t sold on Lee as a part of the future, or even the short-term playoff push, then you can’t blame them for a swap that brings in a player they obviously want.

The risks are low, even in the worst-case scenario. So why not throw the dice?

***

Since I wasn’t in town for the Ben Bishop deal, here’s my take on it:

Brilliant.

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….

Senators Welcome Tampa To New Conference With Comeback Win... Plus Notes on the New-Look NHL

Ottawa 4 Tampa Bay 2

After spending a majority of November on the road, the Ottawa Senators finally came home for the first of 9 games at Scotiabank Place in December and put up two much needed points onto the board right away against a Tampa team that looks like they're trying to win the 1996 Stanley Cup at the height of the Dead Puck-era (more on that in the Notes).

At one point in the third period, Ottawa was down 2-1 and a lot of people were singing "Good Night Irene", seeing that Tampa (per the encyclopedic Dean Brown) leads the NHL in one-goal wins. But then Daniel Alfredsson stepped into a muffin-soft Jason Spezza pass just across the Tampa blueline and decided to hammer home the tying goal past a helpless Dwayne Roloson. The puck actually had a comet-tail on it like those 96-era Fox glowing pucks. Or maybe I was just stoned (Note to cops, friends, family members, wife, suspicious neighbours - I haven't smoked weed since my 20's. I just pretend to in blog posts to deliver lame punchlines. I meant it more in the Van Morrison tradition).

But the real news of the night took place across the continent in Pebble Beach, California where a complete league re-alignment was tentatively approved, pending co-operation with the NHLPA and a few hundred reams of papers still to be signed.

The four new conferences are the same as Elliotte Friedman happened to scoop on Hockey Night In Canada's Hot Stove segment, meaning Winnipeg moves West... and no one moves East. Strangely, the West will have two eight team conferences and the East will have two seven team sets which may change with either Phoenix moving east next season or the future announcement of two expansion teams to bring the league up to 32 teams and balance the numbers.

For an Ottawa perspective, consider this. The initial plan, as TSN reports, is to have teams in the East play their conference opponents six times - three home, three away, and then a home and home against the rest of the league.

Let that sink in for a moment. For Ottawa fans, that means you only get to see Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin once a year as opposed to twice. If you look at it from the perspective of the current configuration, the Philadelphia Flyers, the New York Rangers and the Pittsburgh Penguins are going to be treated like Western Conference teams are now.

I find this to be quite a surprising change. Note that the four "divisions" are being referred to as "conferences", and that's a huge, huge difference as far as the schedule goes. The positive is that Ottawa fans will see every team in the NHL at least once, but that's also a negative when you apply that to popular eastern draws like the Penguins, Flyers and Rangers to name a few. Ottawa's "conference" will keep all the teams from their current division but will see both Tampa and Florida added while Carolina and Washington join the New York area teams to fill out the East.

The playoff format will also be divisional so expect more post-season matchups with Toronto and Buffalo and hopefully for the first time with Boston and Montreal. No one seems to know exactly how it will fly after the first two rounds. Some suggestions making the rounds will see the final four re-seeded regardless of East/West which means you could potentially see two eastern teams playing in the final and vice versa.

Black Aces Senators 3 Stars

1. Zack Smith
2. Daniel Alfredsson
3. Craig Anderson

Honourable Mentions: Chris Phillips, Jason Spezza, Jesse Winchester and Nick Foligno.

Okay, it's been a while so here's where the season 3 stars scorecard stands (even if there isn't a post after every game, we still keep track of the stars, except when no stars are warranted)

Black Aces 3 Star Season Scorecard

1. Spezza – 20
2. Anderson – 20
3. Michalek – 19
4. Karlsson – 19
5. Smith – 10
6. Alfredsson – 9
7. Neil – 7
8. Greening – 7
9. Foligno – 6
10. Da Costa – 4
11. Gonchar – 4
12. Cowen – 3
13. Butler - 2
14. Phillips – 1

NOTES

Again, David Rundblad provides little glimpses of the star defenseman he's about to become. In the first period, Rundblad knocked a knuckleball puck flat onto the ice at the Tampa blueline while a forechecker closed within a foot of him and then threw a shoulder-head deke and easily took the puck around him to create another play. There is just no panic to #7's game. Ottawa is going to have the best blueline in the league in two to three years. Hell, maybe sooner if Jared Cowen can show that his 28-plus minutes against the Caps on Saturday is just the first sign of being a 30-plus minute player....Brett Connolly decided to take a healthy run at Chris Neil along the boards in the first period. Not the smartest idea the 19 year old has ever had. But to be young is to be foolish....I guess we shouldn't be so surprised at just how passive the Tampa penalty-kill is. There's something to be said for consistency in approach......But how soon do we start hearing about Guy Boucher being on the firing line. Right now, the Bolts look like they're not having any fun. And they're not any fun to watch either. Considering they have players like Steve Stamkos and Martin St. Louis, there's something wrong with that. GM Steve Yzerman is a man of incredible patience (look how long it took him to win a Stanley Cup), but he also seems to be a guy not afraid to make a move. He's facing a big problem down there right now....

....Doesn't it seem fitting that both the head coach and the captain of the Ottawa Senators are both still furry well past Movember? We all know Paul MacLean is a lifer, but Alfredsson has a good thing going there now and let's hope he goes into the playoffs with it. Yes, I said playoffs.....Thought we'd see Zack Smith out there in the final minute with the Tampa net empty trying to get his first NHL hat trick.....In case you were wondering, there have been 61 players with the last name Smith to play a game in the NHL. Zack is the only Smith to start with a Z. Other Smiths? Hooley, Wyatt, Alf, Clint, Dallas, Floyd, Wayne, Nakina, Sid, Stu and Vern...... And there was one Milks to play in the NHL. Good ol' Hib Milks who played from 1925 to 1933 with the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Philadelphia Quakers, the New York Rangers and the Ottawa Senators. He also played amateur with the (get these names) Ottawa Gunners, the Ottawa Landsdownes and the Ottawa New Edinburghs. To be honest, I have no idea if I'm related, but let's just pretend I am. I need the cred.....

......Woah! Steve Simmons of the Toronto Sun pulls out his flamethrower and calls Toronto GM Brian Burke a liar, a bully and a "local embarrassment". Life has always been contentious between Toronto scribes and the team they devoutly cover but this brings the animosity to heights not seen since the days of owner Harold Ballard and GM Gerry McNamara. Ballard enjoyed calling reporters a "bunch of c**ksuckers" and once told female journalist Barbara Frum that women were only good for "lying on their backs", but Simmons implies that Burke wants to actually "run the newspapers". Surprisingly, Simmons gives coach Ron Wilson a pass, even though it was the glib Wilson's fib about starting goaltenders that caused the uproar in the first place. At least the Leafs are never boring.... A couple posts ago we talked about a guy having a hard time getting the customized heritage jersey and all the extras he paid for from the Sens Store. Got word that the Senators made amends and compensated the guy a little extra for his troubles. All's well that ends well....

......I’m sure it’s frustrating and annoying for many Rogers basic cable subscribers in Ottawa who get Sportsnet as part of their package but not the secondary Sportsnet Sens channel. I thought this Sens Sportsnet was there so Ottawa fans weren’t inconvenienced when NFL or MLB coincided with Senators games? From what I hear, there are still a lot of Ottawa fans who are forced to watch Senators games illegally streamed over the internet because their $75 packages (including HD box) still doesn’t get them all the Ottawa games broadcast into the area. It’s also a big middle finger to consumers that you can get Sportsnet in HD but have to pay a premium to get TSN in HD. Rogers, who owns Sportsnet, reap the benefits by forcing a large portion of their customers who want to watch highlights in High Definition turn to Sportsnet instead of the far superior, but standard definition, TSN. Sure you can get anything you want by paying for it, but a lot of people don’t have the budget to spend into the three zeroes just to watch a few Sens games when all they have to do is go to some shady website and watch a choppy stream for free.

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Zack Smith Gaining Cred... And Sens Second Line Emerges In Tough Win Over Jets

Ottawa 6 Winnipeg 4

Senators fans who tuned in to the Jets game Tuesday night were witness to one of the more exciting games of the season, and that's saying something because Ottawa has been in a handful of barnburners in the first quarter.

Going into Winnipeg for the first time since the 95-96 season, the Senators were challenged physically by the Jets all night long, in particular Erik Karlsson who was obviously targeted in the game plan by coach Claude Noel. Karlsson took a lot of tough, borderline hits including a hard fall against the boards that must have had the Senators coaching staff on tenterhooks while #65 crawled to his feet, thankfully just winded. Despite getting the rough treatment, Karlsson was again the Sens best defenseman, but he wasn't alone in having a standout game.

Sportsnet colour commentator Denis Potvin was right on the money when he spontaneously exclaimed that Zack Smith was "coming out of his shell" before our very eyes right after Smith scored his second goal of the night, which turned out to be the game winner.

Smith has been getting better all season long but in the last stretch of games dating back to that long Western road trip, you can just see him quickly growing into a fierce power forward with the kind of clutch ability that you can't teach. It just seems to be part of a player's personality or it isn't. Smith is starting to look like that big game guy that Ottawa management projected very early on when he wasn't even on the radar of most fans.

Take that move Smith made against Tanner Glass, coming from behind and lifting his stick, stealing the puck and drawing a penalty. Or the scrum around the Jets net when it was clear to everyone that Ondrej Pavelec had the puck covered and the whistle should have been blown, but Smith and Erik Condra simply outbattled the Jets down low and Smith was able to toss it into the net to tie the game. Again, clutch.

It looks like Smith can play the game any way he wants to. He can drop the gloves, he goes to the net without any fear at all, he's already one of the team's best penalty killers and he's got a set of hands.

Smith wasn't the only revelation for the Senators tonight in an important road win. So was the second line now being centred by Nick Foligno. Whether it's the added responsibility of being the man down low and the main puck carrier on the attack, or whether it's just freshness of the new role, Foligno looks like a perfect fit right now on that once stagnant second line with a rejuvenated looking Daniel Alfredsson and the consistent Milan Michalek.

The one worry about the new lines may have been separating Michalek from Jason Spezza but both players haven't missed a beat being apart and now there seems to be a balance up front that wasn't there when Stephane Da Costa was regressing and Alfredsson looked like a man on an island. The captain noticeably has more jump and is getting the puck on his stick so he can make plays.

Meanwhile, the top line were still creating chances even though Spezza keeps losing wingers. Tonight it was Nikita Filatov (who just can't catch a break) getting a skate boot in the face and breaking his nose, forcing him to leave the game early (he only played 5 shifts in total). That opened the door for Bobby Butler to once again skate with Spezza, the centre that he had so much success with last season.

It will be interesting to see if Butler gets another shot with Spezza against Dallas on Thursday. Right now we don't know if Filatov is able to go (a broken nose shouldn't keep any hockey player from playing unless there's deeper damage) but if he isn't, there's a good chance Butler stays for another game. Like we've said many times on this blog, Butler is still a great prospect and he has that much in-demand value of being a natural goal scorer. Sure, he's struggling more than anyone could have imagined, but if he gets a little confidence going and Spezza keeps putting the puck on his stick like last year, Butler has the ability to bury it. He should have had at least one tonight but he whiffed on a puck going across the crease during a scrambly play.

Right now, Ottawa has three lines that can change the momentum of a game and a fourth line with Zenon Konopka in the middle that can surprise other teams once in a while.

If Foligno can keep playing this way, the only pressing question is that Filatov/Butler slot, or whomever Paul MacLean picks to win the lottery.

Black Aces Senators 3 Stars

1. Zack Smith
2. Erik Karlsson
3. Milan Michalek

Honourable Mentions: Chris Phillips, Jason Spezza, Nick Foligno, Erik Condra, Daniel Alfredsson and Colin Greening.

NOTES

Strange. Bobby Butler gently puts his stick on a Jet and gets called for a weak hooking penalty. The moment he gets out of the box after the Sens kill it off, he quickly does the exact same thing but doesn't get called for it. I don't know who's dumber - Butler or the refs......It's the curse of Andreas Dackell. Winger Chris Neil, with 179 career points, was just one behind Dackell on the Senators all-time points list when he was hobbled with a bum ankle. Or is it just unlucky #13? That's the rank of Dackell and once Neil takes it over, he might be stuck on the jinxed number for a while as #12 on the list, Magnus Arvedsson, is 30 points ahead with 210 in his Senators career.... Speaking of unlucky, when I think of Dackell and Arvedsson, I can't help but think of two brutal injuries they sustained as Senators. Dackell got absolutely crushed by the Flyers Eric Lindros against the boards in October 1998, making a gruesome mockery of what was once a "human" face. Go to this old Black Aces article for a picture of the aftermath. As you might recall, Arvedsson had his abdomen punctured when he went into an open bench door, also against the Flyers. He spent the night in the hospital and doctors thought there were no internal injuries until further testing revealed he had torn open his intestine, requiring major surgery. Geez Louise.....Great pre-game segment by Sportsnet's Ian Mendes about Paul MacLean's 82-83 O Pee Chee rookie card having a picture of teammate Larry Hopkins instead of MacLean. Mendes took a pic of the error card to current Sens players to see if they could spot the mistake but it seems only Matt Carkner picked it out, saying the "rookie" looked about 45 years old.....

......Strange rumblings out of Anaheim that Bobby Ryan might be on the market. Seeing that this was reported by a mainstream source (Nick Kypreos), there may be something to it, but I can’t see any realistic scenario where Anaheim benefits by doing that. I still can’t understand why they traded Chris Pronger, let alone them contemplating moving another one of their foundation pieces. If your club is having an off year, it doesn’t mean you make panic moves and deal one of the best young players in the NHL. Maybe it’s a bunk rumour anyways….TSN analyst Aaron Ward absolutely tore into Anaheim bench boss Randy Carlyle on That's Hockey on Tuesday night. He said his time with the Ducks under Carlyle was the worst month and a half of his career, said that Carlyle "sucked the life out of the game", and finished by openly calling for his firing both on TSN and on Twitter. It's a bit of a flamethrower job, but that's why they have Ward on TSN. It makes for boring television when people sit on the fence and try not to piss anybody off. Thankfully, Ward doesn't have that problem.... And neither does Mike Milbury who is really coming into his own as a television personality. There's nothing more entertaining than when Milbury's face creases with disdain and rage at someone whining over a hard hit or babbling on too long. Anytime he says boo, people flame him on Twitter but to me that's a sign he's doing his job. He's got strong opinions on the game he grew up playing and he's not afraid to lift the middle finger to the new school mentality of fans and journalists who think hockey should be no more offensive than your average public service commercial telling you to "play safe".....The Lightning Strikes blog points out that Tampa coach Guy Boucher is now the longest tenured bench boss in the Southeast Division with the firings of Bruce Boudreau in Washington and Paul Maurice in Carolina. He is also the only coach in the Southeast who has yet to be photographed smiling…..How long before we see both Boudreau and Maurice on TSN or Sportsnet? And how long before Boudreau drops an F-bomb on live television? The guy is what us old timers from Almonte used to call “a classic”…. Woah. One of those speedbag scraps tonight between the Sabres Zach Kassian and the Islanders Matt Martin.

“The Senators Heritage Jersey Fiasco”

The Ottawa Senators ran a very popular jersey promotion at the start of the year where you could buy the new Heritage sweater and get two tickets to the Colorado game on October 13 as well as a barberpole toque and scarf thrown in for only $130 bucks. Pretty good deal and fans snapped it up. Except there were a few snafus when people wanted customized jerseys with players names on them. There was a thread on the HF Boards a while back with fans frustrated at not getting their jerseys in a timely manner. Then there is this guy, Andrew, a friend of Black Aces who wrote me a note about his experience trying to get what he paid for. It’s kind of unbelievable the runaround he’s been getting and I’ll let him share it with you in his own words:

“Sept 27: Pre-ordered a custom heritage jersey - Zibanejad 93. Comes with 2 tickets to Colorado game, heritage toque and heritage scarf. I am told that because it's a custom job, will not be ready on Oct 1st, but will be ready in 10-14 days. I'm given a voucher for the tickets for the Oct 13th game unveiling the new jerseys, but no toque or scarf... I assume they'll come with the jersey itself. And am under the impression I should have the jersey well in-time for the game.

Oct 13, 16 days after ordering, I call to see if it's in so I can wear it to the game - no. They say they'll call me when it's in.

After 3 weeks and no call, I call to see if it's ready - no. They say they'll call me when it's in.

After 4 weeks I call again - not ready.

After 5 weeks I call again - not ready. The guy tells me that because they accidentally shipped a box to Buffalo in the famous incident, Reebok have been working around the clock to keep the shelves stocked. So what that tells me is that since they already had my money, there was no rush at all to get me my jersey, but instead they needed to provide jerseys to the stores so that they were available for game-day sales, etc.

Finally on Nov 5th, almost 6 weeks after I ordered it, I get the call. When I go in to pick it up, the clerk is unaware that I am expecting a toque and scarf with it. He then tells me they're out of them, and that they'll phone me when they get more in and gives me a rain check.

Nov 26th, I get a call that my toque and scarf are in. I go to pick it up on Nov 28th, and when I present the clerk with the rain check, she tells me they ran out again. However, sitting on the counter in between she and I are the exact toque and scarf I am waiting for. So I ask her "isn't this the package we're talking about?". She says "yes, but we're out. I can take your name and number and call you when we get more in if you want?" I left, completely dumbfounded.”

Did anyone else have similar troubles to Andrew or is this just an isolated incident?

Senators Forgotten Man Finds His Hands

Ottawa 3 Calgary 1

Bobby Butler came into this season on a high, playing a vital role in the Binghamton Senators Calder Cup win after riding shotgun with Jason Spezza on Ottawa's top line for over 30 games. GM Bryan Murray inked the college boy to a one-way contract with visions of Butler greatly improving on his 10 goals as a rookie and almost everybody had him pencilled in next to Spezza going into camp, even though he had a new coach who wasn't going to be faithful to Cory Clouston's setup.

Then the sophomore jinx came and kicked his ass for a while.

He started camp slow, got injured, sat out a stretch of games and couldn't buy a goal when he was in the lineup. Going into tonight's match in Calgary, Butler was wearing cement shoes on a line with Zenon Konopka and Jesse Winchester. Meanwhile, fellow college kid Colin Greening was holding his spot quite nicely alongside Spezza up in first class.

60 minutes and two goals later (including the winner), Butler might just have remembered what made him successful in the first place - his shot.

That's his best asset, his one true weapon. It's not a hammer like Dany Heatley's, but it's sneaky. When Butler was scoring goals alongside Spezza, he was finding that vacated space around the circles and simply getting shots off quickly before goalies had time to react. Same thing tonight against the Flames. The first goal he does a basic deke and snaps the puck about one beat earlier than a lot of players would, and it looks clean, like Patrick Kane looks when he shoots. It's on and off the stick right away and the wrists barely move.

The second goal was much the same minus the deke. It wasn't ripped, but it was quick and a little early. It seems more like a product of hockey sense than it does plain physical skill, but it's obviously a nice combination of both.

If these two goals take off a lot of the dead weight that's been sitting on his shoulders in the early going, then the Senators may not need to go out and trade for another top six forward before Christmas.

All season the Senators have seemed to be one skilled forward short (actually a center), and that's mostly because Peter Regin shredded his shoulder again, Nikita Filatov didn't seem to be right and Bobby Butler most definitely wasn't right.

If he can snap out of it, and tonight was a hell of a start, the Senators might be able to go cheap on the pro scouting for a little while.

Black Aces Senators 3 Stars

1. Craig Anderson: Dominated before and after puck handling gaffe that led to tying goal.
2. Bobby Butler: Two goals in under ten minutes of play.
3. Jason Spezza: Had his wheels going and dominated the face-off circle.

Honourable Mentions: Daniel Alfredsson, Chris Phillips, Filip Kuba, Sergei Gonchar and Jesse Winchester

NOTES

Lamest moment of the night: When Zenon Konopka and Tom Kostopoulos were engaged in a pretty good scrap early in the second period, the music guy at the Saddledome felt he had to play some loud MMA style metal in the background. Since when do fights get music in NHL rinks? I may be wrong but I'm pretty sure that's never happened in Ottawa so far. It reminded me of being at a Toronto Rock lacrosse game where music was blaring while the play was going on. .....Not sure what Zack Smith did to deserve a boarding penalty late in the first period. I suppose the hit made a loud noise, so maybe if your hits are too loud that's now considered a dangerous play. As Norm Macdonald said in Dirty Work, "ridiculous".....  The parents of those kids sitting directly behind the penalty box may want to stop their tykes from banging on the glass right after a Flame like Chris Butler takes a bad penalty in the 3rd period. Just saying....

....That was one of the more emotional Hall of Fame ceremonies in recent memory. They’re always great each year but Mark Howe’s induction speech was unbelievable. There were so many intense moments – like when he pointed out the late Brad McCrimmon’s wife who came specifically for Mark’s induction. Or when he threw on the #9 Red Wings jersey in honour of his father Gordie Howe, who watched the whole thing with tears in his eyes. It was almost too much to take. When Doug Gilmour closed his speech by saying that the late Pat Burns would someday join him in the Hall, I started waving the white flag at the TV. That’s why hockey is the best sport in the world – it has the greatest guys playing it…..

.....Why does it still bother me that there are actually two Stanley Cups? The real one, which the players hoist at the end of the season and cart around to barbeques all summer, and the “fake” one (created in 1993) which fills in for the “Presentation Cup” at the Hall Of Fame when the real one is on tour. I’ve been to the Hall Of Fame many, many times but there’s always the letdown knowing that the Cup you’re looking at is not the real one (they do have the original bowl on display that was retired in 1970 for being too old and brittle – this was the one that was dropkicked into the Rideau Canal in 1905 by Harvey Pulford after Ottawa beat the Dawson City Nuggets. The Cup went into the canal near Laurier and Elgin and stayed there all night long while the Ottawa players slept off a nasty hangover). The HOF is very open about it and don’t try to pretend the replica is the real Cup, but the purist in me thinks people would be okay with just having an empty stand where the one true Cup is supposed to sit if it’s not there at the moment. That would make seeing it in person even more special. What should they do with the replica then? Maybe donate it to the Leafs so they can string it from the rafters of the ACC like a dangling carrot to their players. Plus, guys can try to hit it with pucks during practice….

......Tough times in Tampa Bay right now. They’ve lost both games since Flyers coach Peter Laviolette decided to make a mockery of Guy Boucher’s 1-3-1 defensive system by instructing his defenseman to stand still if they weren’t challenged. And they weren’t. The Lightning won that game but they haven’t looked right since. Boucher called the loss against St. Louis on Saturday “shameful” and basically bag skated his charges the morning of their game against the Jets. The Lightning responded by getting whacked 5-2 in Winnipeg and now you have to wonder if some of the vets on the Lightning were somewhat demoralized by that incident against Philly. You think a proud guy like Martin St. Louis enjoyed standing at the blueline for minutes at a time and getting laughed at by the Flyers bench? It probably embarrassed him and a few of his teammates. Ask any player and they’ll tell you they want to skate and chase the puck, the way hockey should be played. Ask a coach like Boucher or Ken Hitchcock and they’ll tell you they want to win above all else, no matter what it looks like. I’m sure Tampa will snap out of it once they get some of their top defenseman back but maybe Boucher needs to drop the intensity once in a while. He got in front of a microphone before the Jets game and talked about “going to war” etc. The guy is about a 9 on the tension scale all the time. That can get old rather quick with some players….

.....The Flames may not be very good, but their Heritage Uni's are as good as they come. Seeing them play the Oilers in these flaming orange sweaters is every 80's hockey fans dream come true.

.... And finally, congratulations to my brother Ben and his wife Michelle on the birth of their second baby boy today. I'm guessing Ben still found time to watch the game tonight. Ridiculous.....

Kuba - Meszaros Trade 3 Years Later

Back in August 2008, the Sens swapped young defenseman Andrej Meszaros to Tampa Bay for Filip Kuba, Alexandre Picard and a first round pick . Some thought dealing a young d-man like Meszaros was a mistake (like myself) and others felt Bryan Murray robbed Tampa Bay blind. Meszaros did struggle with the Lightning, some of it due to injuries, but he's found a new lease on life in Philly while Kuba has regressed in the Ottawa organization after a strong start, also a result of injuries.

Just for comparisons sake, here's how the two have stacked up statistically since the deal (as of Oct. 12, including Mesz's game Wed. night where he got the game winning goal against Vancouver):

GP
Kuba: 191
Mesz: 217

G
Kuba: 9
Mesz: 17

A
Kuba: 76
Mesz: 51

PTS
Kuba: 85
Mesz: 68

PPG
Kuba: 5
Mesz: 6

Plus/Minus
Kuba: -26
Mesz: +15

Who got the better of the deal if we take Picard and the draft pick (which the Senators sent to the Islanders along with Dean McAmmond for Chris Campoli and Mike Comrie) out of the equation?

Kuba has significantly more points but is trending downwards while Meszaros is trending up. Kuba's cap hit is 3.7 million in the last year of his deal while Meszaros carries a 4 million tag for a couple more seasons. Money is basically even and so are the stats when it all shakes out in the end. The plus/minus category is more an indication of weak Senators teams and one year in Philly on a great team for Mesz. Plus/Minus is the most overrated statistic for defenseman anyways. Good defenseman on bad teams will get buried in that category. Even good d-men on good teams can get burned by it. Nicklas Lidstrom was -2 last year and won the Norris.

But I guess it comes down to who you would rather have on your blueline right now. I'm guessing 29 out of 30 GM's would pick Meszaros because at 25 years old he's just beginning to enter his prime years. Okay, more like 30 out of 30 but we shouldn't expect Bryan Murray to throw himself under the bus.

You could say Ottawa won this deal in the short term because Kuba excelled while Meszaros struggled. But now let's take into account the other components of the deal. Picard was a bust on the blueline (he was a throw-in anyways) and the first rounder was essentially wasted because Comrie struggled in his second stint in Ottawa and Campoli can only be described as a disappointment before he was shuttled off to Chicago for depth player Ryan Potulny and a second rounder.

Yet Murray used that second rounder in a package to get Detroit's first in 2011 with which they chose winger Matt Puempel, someone who the organization is very high on.

Exhausted yet?

I still think it was a mistake to trade a young player like Meszaros instead of paying him, but Ottawa was under a different kind of salary-cap pressure than they are facing now. Hockeywise, the deal doesn't look great (but it's not a landslide either), yet whoever said modern trades were about hockey? It's all salary-cap, probably for the rest of our hockey watching days. If it wasn't Meszaros gone, somebody else would have been dealt.

But if Kuba has a good year and the Sens make the playoffs, or if he can get some more value for this team on the trade market....and... if Puempel turns out to be the goal-scorer this team thinks he will be down the line.... well, this saga will be far from over.

This deal will end up being so convoluted and open to interpretation, it will make the movie Inception look like Ernest Goes To Camp.

Konopka Still Fighting For A Roster Spot

Right now it's looking 50/50 for new Senator Zenon Konopka to make the top 12 right out of the gate, for a variety of different reasons.

One, he had a slow camp with a minor injury that bothered him in the early going. Two, the Senators already had too many NHL forwards before Mika Zibanejad and Stephane Da Costa showed up and opened some eyes, likely forcing management to keep them around for a longer look. Three, the team is also overbooked at the centre position. Four, they aren't lacking toughness up front with Chris Neil and Zack Smith being regulars (and the league's top heavyweight Matt Carkner on the blueline, although he's also being bothered by injury which has slowed his camp showing).

But I'm betting Konopka will outright work his way onto this team once he gets his chance and shows what he's all about. Training camp isn't where you judge a guy like Konopka's value. He'll be a major spark for this team in the dog days of the season just like he was in Tampa and Long Island where he was very popular. Nobody likes to play against this guy because he's always on, always chirping, always finishing checks, always challenging players bigger than him.

To note: Konopka played all 82 games with the Islanders last year and 74 games with the Lightning the year before. He's an NHL regular, not a guy clinging on to a career.

There's also that comment coach Paul MacLean made when he was first hired that he liked "tough teams" and that he's already talked glowingly about Konopka for his faceoff abilities and highly recommended him to GM Bryan Murray. To me, it sounds like Konopka is one of MacLean's "guys" but that's really just an educated guess. For all I know, Konopka might be eating a lot of popcorn in the pressbox in October.

Somehow, I don't think so.

Konopka has had some memorable run-ins with the Senators in the past and here's a few of them:

Konopka vs. Chris Neil Dec. 2008

Most bizarre moment is when the colour commentator for Tampa says "Konopka likes long fights. Neil doesn't. This is one of the first times I've seen Neil drop his gloves". That's like saying the Germans don't like David Hasselhoff - empirically untrue. Regardless of the broadcast shenanigans, I'm sure Neil and Konopka have already reminisced fondly about this epic battle from a few years ago.



Konopka vs. Chris Phillips Oct. 2009

Zenon gives out a late shot as the buzzer goes and Chris Phillips goes on the attack, but watch Neil just dying to get in there at Konopka. It's really rare to see Phillips this angry as he's usually the picture of calm and stability back there, even when it gets hairy. Not the best fist thrower though. A little noodly.



Konopka vs Neil Oct. 2009

Just a few games later, Neil finally gets at Konopka. This one ends contentiously (how can a fight not be contentious from the start, you might ask?) when Konopka gets upset about a late punch thrown from Neil.



Konopka is going to be a fun player to watch in Ottawa this year. This guy has a presence as an agitator, but one who will do anything for his teammates. In a way, he's the de facto replacement for Jarkko Ruutu (who wasn't in his agitating prime while in Ottawa) but with the added bonus of being a faceoff ace.

Konopka is the forgotten forward right now, but Sens fans will be familiar with his style soon enough.