No One In Ottawa Feeling Sorry For Leafs Woes

The latest Black Aces column is up at Faces Magazine. Read it here.

"Let’s call it an “involuntary compulsion”.

Hockey fans in Ottawa always seem to have one squinty eye on the blue and white team down the 401, a glittering city that’s four and a half hours away by car but just a quick step or two away via memory lane.

The history between the Maple Leafs and the Senators is ugly and traumatic. Ottawa was always on the wrong end of multiple playoff battles, but skirmishes have been won by both sides along the way. Just a cursory glance uncovers a seamy underbelly of drama and irrational behavior that would seem almost barbaric if it were to happen in today’s NHL of concussion spotters and civilized discourse.

Yet some things never really change....."

Read the full column here.

Leafs Rivalry Dies Hard For Some, Never Existed For Others

Another Saturday night. Another Leafs vs. Sens matchup.

It doesn’t seem to have the same intensity that it used to, does it?

In fact, there’s a whole generation of new fans who probably don’t truly understand the enmity both teams and fanbases had towards each other during the height of the rivalry. At times, there was real bloodlust there, like when Tie Domi absolutely crushed Martin Havlat with a hit that ended up on repeat in Don Cherry's videos, or when Domi beat up Magnus Arvedson. Clips of Daniel Alfredsson destroying Darcy Tucker against the boards are now played alongside sentimental music during tributes to the former captain, but many forget the ugly incidents that led up to or followed that.

Like Darcy Tucker irrationally diving with fists swinging into the Senators bench, trying to fight the whole team, only to later claim that a Senators player spat on him. Or Leaf coach Pat Quinn accusing Marian Hossa of intentionally swinging his stick into Bryan Berard’s eye. Or Curtis Joseph exploding into a rage after a Sens goal and tackling plump referee Mick McGeough in the corner, later claiming to have “slipped”.

The last major controversy was probably Mark Bell crushing Alfredsson with a blind-side hit just before the 2008 playoffs. Even that seems like ancient history.

Now we mostly get Nazem Kadri and Cory Conacher yapping at each other in scrums. Luckily for Conacher, Kadri always has Lupes to “hold him back”.

Expect all this politeness to change. Very soon.

But before we get into the reasons for that, let’s take a quick look back at some of the playoff carnage:

1999-00: Leafs beat Sens in 6 games in the first round of the playoffs. Ottawa scores only twice in 3 games against Curtis Joseph at the new Air Canada Centre.

2000-01: Leafs sweep Sens in first round, despite losing all 5 games to Ottawa in the regular season. Ottawa scores 3 goals in the entire series, getting shutout by Joseph in the first two games at home. Games 1 and 3 ended in overtime on goals by Mats Sundin and defenseman Cory Cross respectively. Ottawa’s best player, Alexei Yashin, gets one assist in the series and promptly gets traded to Long Island.

2001-02: Ottawa loses again to Toronto, this time in a close 7-game, second-round series. This is made all the more painful because the Senators held a 3-2 series lead going home for Game 6. They raced out to a 2-0 lead early in the first on goals by Hossa and Alfredsson, only to watch defenseman Ricard Persson take a 5-minute boarding call and game misconduct for checking Domi from behind into the boards. Many felt Domi went down a little too easy, but the Leafs tied the game with two goals on the ensuing power-play and went on to win by a goal, tying the series. The Sens didn’t recover in Game 7, getting shutout by Joseph again in Toronto.

2003-04: After marching to the conference final the year before, the Senators and their fans were confident going into a first-round match against the now hated Leafs. It would be Jacques Martin’s last as coach in Ottawa. Somehow, the Senators get shutout 3 times in the series but still manage to push it to a seventh game in Toronto. Before the game, new Sens owner Eugene Melnyk was quoted as saying “We’re gonna kill ‘em!” Famously, Ottawa goalie Patrick Lalime implodes in the first period on two long shots by Joe Nieuwendyk and his career in Ottawa ends along with Martin’s. Domi says after the game, “A big inspiration was Eugene Melnyk's comments.”

***

At the time I was working at Hy’s Steakhouse and one of the cooks came in the next day with a broken hand from smashing it into his coffee table after the second Nieuwendyk goal. He had to work the salad station for a month.

Tensions were extremely high during that series. I remember watching the last game with my younger brother and his girlfriend. When Toronto scored one of those goals against Lalime, his girlfriend (now his wife) let out this huge roar of frustration, ran out of the room and up the stairs where we heard a bedroom door slam so hard that we thought the hinges had snapped off the frame. She stayed up there the rest of the night with all the lights off. And she didn’t even like hockey.

That’s the kind of mass anguish we’re talking about here.

The Senators and Leafs haven’t played a series against each other since. That could change very soon for a couple of reasons.

One, the new NHL alignment calls for divisional playoff-matchups, although that’s mitigated by the “wildcard” slots which will frequently result in cross-divisional matchups. Only the 2nd and 3rd seeds in each division are guaranteed to play each other in the first round, but sooner or later the Leafs and Sens are bound to end up there together.

Secondly, we've hit an era where both teams are likely to be perennial playoff contenders. That hasn't been the case since 2004. After crushing the hearts of Senators fans that year, the Leafs went on a horrific streak after the 2005 lockout, missing the playoffs seven straight times. When they finally made it back to the dance last season, their usual partner was locked in a nasty affair with the Montreal Canadiens. This just further diverted local Ottawa fans from their old enemies across the province.

Thus, the rivalry has died off, kept on life-support by the press needing angles and older fans who still can’t quite use their hand the way they used to in 2004.

Now that Ottawa actually has a temporary hold on a wildcard spot, and with the Leafs looking like a lock for the post-season, we may actually get another series out of these two in the near future.

When it does happen, it’s going to be wild. Remember, in the heyday of the Battle Of Ontario, there was no such thing as Twitter. Fans used to diss each other on forums or by writing letters to the Hockey News, putting it in an envelope, licking a stamp and walking down the block to the red box. Two months later when the new issue hit the stands… BURN.

Until that next series, we’ll have to make do with some minor hacks and whacks, unless the two truculent coaches, Randy Carlyle and Paul MacLean decide to get into it in the hallways. I think it could look something like this. Or we can hope.

Sens Lose Shootout In Hogtown... Turris Line Rolling Early...And More Game Notes

If the season opener in Buffalo didn't exactly live up to the hype, Saturday's tilt against the Leafs on Hockey Night In Canada certainly made up for it.

After the 1-0 goalie battle on Friday, it was a welcome sight to see a few goals no matter what team you were cheering for. The Senators were a victim of their own success after Jason Spezza and Jared Cowen opened up the game with two goals in 15 seconds to go up 4-2 in the second period. That got James Reimer the hook (maybe for good) and Jonathan Bernier came in and absolutely stoned the Senators the rest of the way, allowing the Leafs to chip away until winning it in the shootout.

You could see Coach Paul MacLean rewarding the best Senators on the ice as the line of Kyle Turris, Clarke MacArthur and Cory Conacher kept getting sent out, and for good reason - they were incredible tonight. Turris and MacArthur in particular were all over the Leafs, while Jason Spezza was the only one making anything happen on the top line (more on Bobby Ryan in the Notes section below).

Erik Karlsson, the hero from Friday in Buffalo, didn't seem to have much going on and looked a little too casual until finding his legs late in the third period. Craig Anderson didn't have much of a chance on the goals he gave up and still made 38 saves in total.

The real positive for Ottawa has to be the fact they showed some secondary offense with the Turris line, while Spezza also scored and looks healthy. If that holds up, it's only a matter of a few games until Ryan and Milan Michalek get their first of the season as well.

BLACK ACES SENATORS 3 STARS

1. Kyle Turris
2. Clarke MacArthur
3. Jared Cowen


NOTES

When Clarke MacArthur made that semi-breakaway dash to the Toronto net at the start of the third, it was like watching Shawn McEachern again in a Senators uniform. MacArthur is a lot faster than I thought he was and could end up being the sleeper UFA signing of the summer.... Hmmm, not sure I made the most brilliant move dropping Kyle Turris from my hockey pool. With Spezza healthy, Turris is going to get away from facing the best shutdown combos that slowed him down at times last year. The only thing slowing me down is my annual tendency to overthink everything about my fantasty team. Just saying "fantasy team" makes me think I'm lucky to have ever kissed a girl..... It looked like Dion Phaneuf was ready to turn around and floor the Senator who pressed him to the glass at the first period buzzer, but when he saw it was old buddy Clarke MacArthur he let it slide. If that was Chris Pronger, whom Phaneuf was compared to early in his career, the ex-teammate would have eaten at least three fingers of Pronger's glove....

..... Speaking of brotherly love, Brian Sutter, longtime NHL coach and player once said to The Hockey News, "Let's put it this way: if one of my brothers were standing in front of the bus last night and we were about to leave and he was on the other team, I'd have run over him. I wouldn't have called out first to ask him to get out of the way, either. That's my mentality, that's the way it is. I don't really care." That's one of the best hockey quotes I've ever come across. Insane, but probably true. Luckily Brian was never presented with that situation in real life, although it's not hard to imagine a Sutter brother standing in front of a team bus wanting to fight every single person in it..... James Van Riemsdyk looks like he's going to have a huge year. I never really understood why Philly let him go in the first place, but they also moved Mike Richards and Jeff Carter who both went on to win the Stanley Cup almost immediately....

....Don Cherry is right about Dave Bolland looking like Doug Gilmour. He doesn't have the same skill, of course, but Bolland just looks like one of those guys on the early 90's Leafs teams that went to the conference finals a couple of times. He's going to be a blue pain in the ass for the Senators for the next few years..... Interesting moments in colour commentating: Glen Healy criticizing the Leafs defense after the first period Turris goal by saying “It’s like the Three Musketeers out there. Too much stick checking”.... Veteran move by Chris Neil not to fight Colton Orr moments after Jason Spezza had made it 4-2. Ottawa had nothing to gain from a fight at that point.....

...... Colin Greening has always looked strong in puck battles, but this year he seems to be meaner against the boards and a little quicker and more involved. Wonder if it's just maturity or that new multi-year deal he signed in the summer that's given him some jump. Not sure he'll ever score 20 goals in a season but his value really isn't in points anyways. It's early, but I like the way he's playing so far.... Tough watching Phil Kessell lying on the ice near the end of the 2nd period after taking an undetected high-stick from Erik Condra. I'm not saying it didn't hurt, but lying there like you've been hit by a sniper waiting for a call while the Senators break out with the puck is a little much. He looked fine complaining on his way to the bench. Hopefully he recovers....

.... CBC did a nice job isolating Bobby Ryan on a replay of the Kessell goal that tied the game 4-4. He had gotten tied up with a Leaf defender behind Jonathan Bernier, but it also showed Ryan coasting back down the ice before he realized his team was in trouble and had to start moving his legs. Not a very flattering few seconds for the highly touted winger.... Not completely surprising to see Joe Corvo sub-in for the rusty Eric Gryba in Toronto, but Corvo didn't exactly make a strong case to keep Gryba on the sidelines for more than a game or two..... Stephane Da Costa was a healthy scratch and Matt Kassian went in to the lineup in case there problems with Colton Orr and others. Nothing ended up happening but Kassian played a pretty strong game when he got onto the ice by going to the net and being part of a few rushes. The guy doesn't get much respect from the snippy Twitter heads but MacLean sure likes him. I do too..... It's nice to have hockey back, isn't it?

The Backhander: Kadri Gives Sens Fans The Douche Chills... Pageau Snaps Them Out Of It

It’s very easy to dislike Nazem Kadri.

Senators fans find it easy to despise anyone wearing the blue and white of the Toronto Maple Leafs, but it’s been a while since there’s been a real pain in the ass like the brash and talented Kadri, at least not since the days of Darcy Tucker, Tie Domi, Shayne Corson, Steve Thomas and Gary Roberts.

Last night’s exhibition tilt in Kanata featured Kadri at his antagonizing best – yapping at the refs, scoring a big goal, throwing softies at the only player smaller than him and generally acting like the superstar he is in his own mind.

Reading back that last sentence, I suddenly realize I’ve been afflicted with fan disease, something I’ve managed to avoid for most of the time I’ve done this blog. But Kadri is just that kind of player. He has that lethal combination of knowing how good he is (ie. contract holdout) and being that good for a team that year after year beats and bullies the Senators in every important game.

You can’t claim he isn’t effective. When you think of the most noticeable players on the ice last night, both Kadri and J.G. Pageau immediately come to mind and it’s no surprise the nastiest moment of the game happened to be a confrontation between those two along the boards.

Pageau threw a tough little hit on Kadri and the two ended up exchanging a few gloved shots before the inevitable swarm began. In that melee, David Clarkson tried to pry Pageau’s helmet off sideways which nearly resulted in Pageau’s head coming clean off. It’s hard to say if it was Kadri’s punch which bloodied Pageau below the eye or Clarkson’s fingernails, but somehow the Leafs ended up on the power-play and Kadri himself scored the goal, accentuating it with a “Yep, I just did that” hand wave as a celebration.

Sens fans everywhere had the douche chills.

Luckily for those same fans, they got to watch Pageau do his imitation of a young Denis Savard all night, dangling and racing around like a guy who doesn’t know or doesn’t care he’s the smallest guy on the ice.

There really is something special about this kid. In interviews he’s very soft-spoken, almost shy, but when he’s on the ice he has this real spirit in his play that goes beyond his all-too obvious skills. He’s not afraid of anybody or any situation. We all saw the hat-trick against the Canadiens in last year’s playoffs, Pageau’s first in the NHL. You could forgive a young, French-Canadian rookie being a little intimidated playing the legendary Habs in his first playoff series, especially with just 9 regular season games under his skates. Yet Pageau ended that series with his name being chanted in the stands, which is unheard of, at least in this town.

You could also predict that same player getting a bit of a swelled-head after all the hype and coming into this camp thinking a roster spot was locked up. Clearly, Pageau doesn’t have this problem. He was playing desperate hockey, going as hard as he did last spring and making a few well-paid veterans look like they were waiting for the 96 bus to Bayshore.

I don’t know how Paul MacLean or Bryan Murray can justify keeping this kid off the team. It’s going to mean someone on a one-way contract is going to be pretty pissed off being waived, demoted or traded, but there’s no denying how dynamic and exciting a player Pageau is right now.

Get ready for the next decade as Kadri and Pageau make this Battle Of Ontario their own.

***

The other real standout for Ottawa was Patrick Wiercioch who was nailing tape-to-tape passes all night coming out of his zone and looking dangerous on the first-unit power-play with Erik Karlsson. He still looks gangly out there, a bit like Scooby Doo on skates, but he’s clearly coming on as a real offensive threat and looks a bit stronger out there. If he permanently steps up to the first PP unit, that lets Ottawa keep Joe Corvo on the second unit which is a pretty good one-two punch of offensive defensemen. .... That was a hell of a backhand by Andre Petersson, who also had a real good night. It’s scary how many forward prospects this team has right now. You can see why Murray didn’t have much of an issue trading Stefan Noesen in the Bobby Ryan trade. Ottawa could lose two or three of these guys and still have a loaded prospect pool. Expect longer and longer tenures in Binghamton for young players, much like Detroit’s model.... Been hearing a lot of great things about Swedish defenseman Fredrik Claesson and last night was the first time I got to see him play. Seemed very steady in his 16 minutes of play, almost unnoticeable except for his goal. You know how the cliche goes, “the less you notice a young defenceman, the better....”

.... Very surprised to see Karlsson logging over 29 minutes last night, on top of the 26 he played against Winnipeg earlier this week. Maybe MacLean is trying to push that leg and see what happens. If that’s the case, I don’t there should be any worries about Karlsson’s skating. The guy looked incredible out there. I think there’s a huge season coming up here.... And if you’re worried about the Spezza-Ryan-Michalek line, don’t be. In a month you’ll be looking back and wondering why everyone was so worked up about pre-season hockey anyways. These guys will be ready to go when the puck drops for real.

The Backhander - Grim Scene In Sens Loss Sets Off Another Dead-End Fighting Debate

It’s somewhat rare to see someone actually get knocked out in an NHL hockey fight, but that danger is always there when 200 pound men start punching each other in the face. Just ask Nick Kypreos. And last night we all saw 6’5, 230 pound Leaf enforcer Frazer McLaren drop 6’3, 204 pound David Dziurzynski with a vicious blow to the chin, resulting in the Senator lying face down on the ice with trainers rushing to his side. It was ugly. No question about that.

Makes you wonder what Dziurzynski was thinking by taking on a bigger and clearly superior fighter like McLaren. Well, it’s actually not that hard to figure out. McLaren allegedly asked him “to go” and Dziurzynski obliged, partly because he wants to do whatever it takes to stay in the NHL and also because he found himself in a bad situation where backing down from a challenge would have made him “lose face”.

Such is life when a team like the Senators, without a real enforcer since Matt Carkner departed for Long Island, faces a team like the Leafs with a couple of guys looking to justify their role and give their team a lift. If Ottawa had signed or at least replaced Carkner with a similar player, chances are Dziurzynski doesn’t have to fight in that situation. He may have wanted to anyways and there’s nothing you can do about that, but generally an enforcer like McLaren won’t fight a regular, smaller roster player if there’s a guy like Carkner on the other team. That’s the way it works. Or supposed to anyways. McLaren doesn’t want to be known as a guy who takes on a smaller player and would have challenged Carkner in that same situation last year. But the problem is that there’s no natural partner for him on the Senators. So he asks Dziurzynski to go and that’s what you get sometimes – a mismatch that results in a sickening injury. You could tell McLaren felt bad about it and looked upset heading to the box as Dziurzynski lay there.

And then you look at it from the Senators perspective. All year they’ve watched their star players fall to injury and been outmatched physically at times because Zack Smith and Chris Neil aren’t fighting as much because their team needs them on the ice. Facing their biggest rival, a young AHL’er like Dziurzynski wasn’t about to back down even though he must have known he was in tough against the big Leaf. This also resulted in Neil having to fight the bigger Colton Orr (Carkner's former sparring partner), and even though Neil got the better of him in a close one, the Leafs ultimately win because Neil goes off for 5 minutes and that’s not a fair trade for a player like Orr.

Often, playing an enforcer just evens the odds up. If the two tough guys go at each other, they cancel each other out and the game goes on. In this situation, Ottawa lost both Dziurzynski and Neil, two guys who actually contribute points and quality minutes. The Leafs didn’t really lose anybody who would make much of a difference. So like it or not, employing an enforcer can really take some pressure off your team and serve as a deterrent. Sometimes it can actually lead to less fights, if you follow the argument to its logical end, or at least mismatched fights that lead to ugly scenes like we saw last night in Toronto.

In the end, Dziurzynski made his own decision and knew the risks. All players do. That’s why most of them don’t fight. It’s extremely hazardous. If you relate it to the visor debate, some would say that the league should just take it out of the player’s hands and ban fighting (and legislate mandatory visors, which I support wholeheartedly). Yet time after time, players share a much different view than the guy pushing a pencil for a living. They take all the risks, they want the choice. They keep saying they don’t want mandatory visors. They also keep saying that fighting is part of hockey and useful in certain situations. They’ve never wavered from this and show no signs now, even though player safety is pretty much the only issue we hear about on a daily basis.

It always comes down to fans and media thinking they know more about the game than the players do. That’s all it is. How else do you explain the chasm in opinion? The public can’t understand why anyone ever has to get hurt in a game, yet the players don’t even think about it. It’s just an accepted risk that they gladly take on for millions of dollars.

Take the emotion out of it and that’s what you come to realize. At some point there’s nothing left to argue if the guys who actually take the risks don’t have a problem with it.

Notes

.... Dziurzynski was credited with 3 seconds of ice-time last night. I don’t know if that’s a record but if it’s not, he’s only 2 seconds off of it..... Somehow Kyle Turris wasn’t credited with any giveaways on the stat sheet last night, which only proves how stat guys don’t always get it right. He had at least two blatant ones that I can recall but it felt like a lot more. Another tough night for #7. If it wasn’t for his faceoff ability, some of his recent games would have been a complete wash. If anything, it gives the fans a new appreciation for what Jason Spezza brings to the team when he’s healthy. Even when Spezza has a bad game by giving up the puck in the offensive zone, he’s creating 3 or 4 chances a period. Good news is that it sounds like he’s going to be back sooner than many thought. That’s going to give Turris a lot of room out there and a lot less pressure, which should naturally lead to goals. Hopefully it’s not too late for the Senators by that point..... Erik Condra only racked up 11 minutes and change of ice-time against Toronto and it’s been like that 3 out of his last 4 games. Yet he always seems to be on the puck or creating havoc out of nothing. I’m no coach, but you’d like to see Condra around the 15 minute mark most nights, even when there’s not a lot of penalties to kill. Somehow, Condra ended up a +2 last night, leading the team. The last game against Toronto on Feb. 23 he was +3. He hasn’t had a game yet this year where he was any worse than -1. ... Congrats to good guy Ray Emery for setting an NHL record with 10 straight wins to start a season. Nobody deserves it more... And finally, RIP to Stompin’ Tom Connors. One of my most treasured pieces of vinyl is the Stompin’ Tom Live At The Horseshoe Tavern in Toronto. I always thought of him as a modern Canadian Woody Guthrie. Have a drink for him next time you get the chance. I know I will.

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 Beat Rangers At Own Game .... Klinkhammer! .... Farley! ... Game Notes

Ottawa 4  New York 1

Let's not yank each other by calling this a huge statement game for the Ottawa Senators.

The Senators pumped 3 goals past funny guy Martin Biron, which was a little easier than putting 3 past probable Vezina winner Henrik Lundqvist, who watched this fairly slow tilt from the bench.

But.... the Senators will take the two points and probably get a good dose of confidence from it. Just getting to the net is a bit of a feat when going against the Rangers, and Ottawa merely cashed in when the rare opportunity for a good scoring chance arose.

So let's take the goalies out of the equation. Skater to skater, the Senators were the better team on Thursday night in what turned out to be more of a playoff-style game than you might have expected with both teams not exactly desperate for a win to keep them alive.

For some reason, the rest of the league can't beat the Rangers but Ottawa matches up with them quite well, winning the season series 3-1. It's unlikely these two teams would meet in the first round unless Ottawa drops to 8th or the Rangers drop to 2nd, but you'd have to think the Senators would prefer this matchup than the one that's staring them in the face right now - the Big Bad Bruins and Tim Thomas.

Jared Cowen had one of his better games this season and Zack Smith looks like he's back to being that nasty, Undertaker-looking SOB after getting iced a few games ago for sleepwalking on the job. Even Nick Foligno scored a goal, the winner, which is cause to break out the good cigars for a change.

Black Aces Senators 3 Stars

1. Jared Cowen
2. Zack Smith
3. Ben Bishop

Honourable Mentions: Kyle Turris, Filip Kuba, Rob Klinkhammer, Daniel Alfredsson, Sergei Gonchar and Nick Foligno.

Black Aces 3 Star Season Scorecard

(3 points for 1st star, 1 point for 3rd etc.)

1. Karlsson – 50
2. Anderson – 49
3. Spezza – 45
4. Alfredsson – 40
5. Michalek – 35
6. Neil – 23
7. Cowen – 19
8. Greening – 17
9. Foligno – 16
10. Gonchar – 14
11. Smith – 12
12. Turris – 9
13. Lehner - 9
14. Kuba – 6
15. Phillips – 4
16. Da Costa – 4
17. Condra – 3
18. Butler – 2
19. Daugavins - 2
20. Winchester – 1
21. Carkner – 1
22. Bishop - 1

NOTES

Is 40 goals the new 50? Some would say scoring 35 is the same as scoring 50 in the 80’s and early 90’s. If so, Milan Michalek is well on his way to a “50 goal season” with his current 32. Wait, I’ve confused myself…. With the new white mask and the all-white pads, Ben Bishop is going to look like a Stormtrooper the next time the team wears the road whites. The Sens already had Darth Gerber. And I guess Kyle Turris has the same look and build as Luke Skywalker. Also like Skywalker, Turris would stand in the Phoenix desert staring into the horizon, knowing innately that his destiny lay somewhere else….. One more for the road. Jared Cowen is definitely Chewbacca. I think he emits the same sound when he makes a bad play on the ice.... Henrik Lundqvist had perfectly coiffed hair sitting on the bench tonight. And I mean perfect. If I had hair like that, I’d be much more successful in life. People would respect me. They'd bring me towels and call me King Jerome. I guess I’ll just have to live with my rat’s nest….. Rob Klinkhammer has only played 3 games for Ottawa but the guy looks like he belongs. Seems like a more cerebral player than Jimmy O’Brien, more along the lines of Erik Condra. It’s early, but it looks like another smart pickup by Bryan Murray. The Senators could go into this summer’s draft and not pick a single forward if they were so inclined. In fact, if they use their first three picks on defensemen, would anyone be surprised? Now watch Murray draft six Swedish centres….

.... Matt Gilroy just played two consecutive games against the first two teams he started his career with. Talk about getting closure right away…. One good thing about trading Brian Lee: Sens fans will no longer be subjected to the “could have drafted Marc Staal” every time Ottawa plays the Rangers. Although pundits enjoyed pointing out that Ottawa could have drafted Chris Pronger in '93, even after Alexandre Daigle left town in a trade for Pat Falloon and Vaclav Prospal. Anyways, as they say, “show me a scout who hasn’t made a mistake and I’ll show you a blogger”….. Good thing the Globe and Mail, a national newspaper, occasionally obliges us by covering the Toronto Maple Leafs in such painstaking detail, because otherwise we would suffer from a lack of information and opinion about Canada’s true team. Take, for instance, the Wednesday edition of the Globe. Front of the sports section you come across the half-page photo of Leaf goalie Jonas Gustavsson. Underneath is an article by Roy MacGregor about the Leafs loss to the Boston Bruins on Tuesday night with an opening paragraph that reads “When it comes to hockey, The Centre of the Universe is a bit of an understatement.” Okay, Roy’s being cheeky. Pretty good column. Now, let’s see what else is happening in the hockey world. Let’s skip past the two soccer articles because soccer is just as boring in print as it is on television. Top of the next page, David Shoalts weighs in on Mikhail Grabovski signing a 5-year deal with the Leafs. There must be a non-Leaf story somewhere in here, right? Let’s see. The next headline is “Toronto takes its lumps” and we get another synopsis of the Leafs loss to Boston, this time by James Mirtle. Another big photo of Gustavsson in his pretty Toronto blues. Directly below that is the continuation of MacGregor’s Leafs story with a picture of new coach Randy Carlyle. Oh wait. What’s this? Nestled snugly into the bottom corner of the page is a 2-inch column that says “Senators 7, Lightning 3”. Apparently Ottawa also played a hockey game on Tuesday night. Obviously, not very important. Turn the page and we get another vital Sidney Crosby article explaining to us that he may or may not be back this season. That’s it folks. Oh, wait, one more thing. The NHL standings and the box scores from the night before. There were 12 games on the Tuesday night but there’s only one of the box scores. Let’s see which one it is. Yep. It’s the box score from the Toronto game….. Thursday’s edition of the Globe had only one small Leafs story in addition to good coverage of the Habs and Canucks. Brian Burke must be in the Globe offices trying to get an editor fired….

Time for some random vintage New York Rangers programmes found on the net:

...... "There's no better pass in hockey than a rebound." Not a bad line from Denis Potvin tonight immediately after Turris put one past Martin Biron from a Daniel Alfredsson rebound.... Speaking of Potvin, I know it's sort of vogue for people on Twitter to pick apart everything he says in an attempt to ridicule him. I realize it's probably all in good fun and it makes you look ever so clever. But before you do it, think of it like this: Denis Potvin has 4 Stanley Cup rings. Have you even had 4 good tweets? The answer is probably no..... The NHL made the right decision not to suspend or fine Niklas Kronwall of the Red Wings for his perfectly executed hit on the Flyers Jakub Voracek on Tuesday night. Why are we even talking about it in those terms anyways? It’s the toe-in-the-crease rule all over again but this time applied to hockey hits. Voracek was skating up the boards with his head down like it was a game of shinny. No surprise he ended up on his back…. A pretty good read over at The Score by Daniel Wagner about the fact that referees are “on pace to call 200 fewer hooking penalties and 100 fewer holding penalties this season”. Not surprisingly, scoring is down and many are wondering if the “dead-puck era” is back for revenge. Brooks Orpik of the Penguins thinks it has something to do with the league wanting to decrease concussions by allowing some obstruction back into the game. Jaromir Jagr says there are “a lot more hooks. I feel it myself; I’m losing the puck…They let it go.” The article has a whole table of stats for the stat nerds but you can probably see the difference just by watching the games with your own eyes. I’m sure I can speak for all of us who had to sit through most of the 1990’s watching clutch and grab defensive hockey – we don’t want to go back there. However they decide to do it, whether it’s putting the red line back in, further decreasing goalie equipment, banning blocked shots or any other idea, the NHL has to open the game up for its star players and keep it that way permanently through vigilance. Scoring, skating and hitting need to be the priorities here. That’s hockey at its best. If it means another crackdown on obstruction, I’m all for it. Just don’t let the league slide back into that crap we all had to endure when goalies and coaches took over the league the minute Mark Messier handed the Stanley Cup back after the 94-95 lockout.....

Enjoy the weekend pals. Don't do anything I wouldn't do. Here's a little Chris Farley to get things started on the right/left foot.




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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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Chris Phillips Has A Classic Game As Sens Stop The Bleeding ... Plus Pop Shoppe Game Notes

Ottawa 4 Nashville 3

Playing in his 1000th game as an Ottawa Senator in front of his hometown fans and his huge extended family, Chris Phillips had the kind of night we only thought Daniel Alfredsson was capable of.

The Big Rig scored his first two goals of the season and more importantly had a big hand in stopping the Senators brutal seven game losing streak that has brought them right back down into the pack of teams fighting for that last playoff spot.

In accordance with his career, the media and fan hype in the week running up to this game was surprisingly low-key and overshadowed by bigger things on the boil. It wasn't until Phillips played in game 999 that the media really started swinging on it and even then, it wasn't nearly the same kind of glow that Alfreddson generated when he was nearing his 1000 game milestone.

And that's perfectly understandable. But it didn't stop Phillips from delivering an Alfie-type clutch performance that quickly evolved this game from a nice moment to one of those nights that will be remembered by the fans for a long time. When the team turns 30 years old, there will be videos of this night played on the scoreboard when they introduce Phillips alongside Alfie at centre ice. The two goals against Nashville have already entered the "permanent reel".

In a way, it was refreshing to see another player get a piece of the spotlight, especially a player who only a year ago was getting booed by some people for not waiving his no-trade clause because he wanted to be part of the rebuild of the only NHL team he's ever know. It's just one good night, but it's a little bit of vindication as well after a few tough years for everybody.

As anyone who has watched the Senators for the past decade or so already knows, Phillips has a knack for showing up big when it really matters. How many times have we seen him get into that distinctive chug-chug skating stride as he comes barrelling in over the blueline during overtime games looking for that one shot he knows the goalie isn’t expecting to come from his stick. He doesn’t do it very often during the regular season but he has an underrated hockey sense that allows him to jump up at just the right moment and nobody seems to know where the hell he came from until it’s too late.

Yet Phillips will always be remembered for being a steady defensive defenseman, a role that doesn't come with much glamour or praise from the fans. They sometimes don't see the 99 things he does right every night but always notice the one giveaway. But that's life for guys like Phillips.

He's played in the shadows of Wade Redden, Zdeno Chara and now Erik Karlsson.

But all you have to know about Chris Phillips is he's always the guy standing at the open door after a win and congratulating every single player as they come off the ice before he's the last one to step off it and follow his team down the runway.

That says something about the role he plays off the ice and thankfully he should be doing that very same thing for at least a few more seasons.

Black Aces Senators 3 Stars

1. Chris Phillips
2. Jason Spezza
3. Milan Michalek

Honourable Mentions: Bobby Butler, Sergei Gonchar, Erik Karlsson, Chris Neil and Nick Foligno.

Let's take a look at how the season-long BA 3 Stars are coming along:

Black Aces 3 Star Season Scorecard

1. Anderson – 46
2. Spezza – 35
3. Karlsson – 34
4. Alfredsson – 34
5. Michalek – 27
6. Neil – 20
7. Foligno – 16
8. Greening – 14
9. Cowen – 13
10. Gonchar – 13
11. Smith – 10
12. Turris – 8
13. Kuba – 5
14. Phillips – 4
15. Da Costa – 4
16. Condra – 3
17. Butler – 2
18. Winchester – 1
19. Carkner – 1

NOTES

It was a tough morning at the Team 1200 in Ottawa as on-air personalities Jim Jerome, Phil Melanson and Mike Sutherland were layed off as part of "corporate restructuring" at Bell Media (an almost Orwellian term that exists solely to make firing people sound nicer than it actually is). Also caught in the shitstorm was Michael Harris at CFRA, the only host on that station who was worth listening to on any given day. Lee Versage of Sportscall survived the cuts but lost his second co-host in a few years with Melanson being shown the door. Melanson's predecessor, Glenn Kulka was let go in late-2009 after a few entertaining years of getting completely outraged with the callers on a daily basis. Jerome, who is the son of a former House of Commons Speaker (James Jerome) seems to have taken a different route to fame than his father did. Some people didn't like Jim Jerome but I thought he was fairly amusing when he actually showed up. He's probably thankful he doesn't have to wake up around 4:00 Edmonton time to do a 6:00 Ottawa show anymore. For a guy who seems to like the odd pint or two, it's actually pretty impressive Jerome managed to call in from Edmonton most mornings. Jerome's refusal to take Pierre McGuire seriously was probably the best thing he did for that show, as well as his classic "Turkey Skin Luggage" tune that I've hummed in my fog-addled brain on more than one occasion against my will.....

..... Jason Spezza punched the glass so hard after he scored in the first period that he could have broken his hand, broken the glass, or punched a perfectly round hole through the glass and knocked out the unlucky fan on the other side. Nobody needed a goal more than that guy (except Bobby Butler). You could tell Spezza was angry and giving everything he had in the loss to the St. Louis Blues but was fighting his confidence all night long. Once he got that first one tonight, he was absolutely flying for the rest of the game. Can’t find much fault with Spezza’s performance this year….. Spezza opted for the lowered knee, downward fist pump for his second goal. The guy has a lot of moves….. Goaltenders continue to be unreasonably coddled by the league as Nick Foligno’s slight brush against Pekka Rinne’s glove somehow cost the winger two minutes for goalie interference late in the first period, even though Foligno wasn’t impeding Rinne from making a save or anything else for that matter. The “collision” might have ruffled Rinne’s sweater a little…..

.....Strange scene with the big rookie Jared Cowen tying up Alex Auld’s loose equipment during a stoppage in play. I guess there’s no task too menial they won’t make a rookie do nowadays. Pick up the pucks after practice. Buy dinners. Tie up a veteran’s loose jockstrap on live television….. Every time I turned the channel to watch the Leafs/Flyers game on TSN, Scott Hartnell was up to something no good. That guy is incredible this year. At one point he banged in a garbage goal and before he could celebrate, he and Dion Phaneuf dropped the gloves and went at it right outside James Reimer's crease. This guy is turning into a modern Eddie Shack…..



..... Chris Neil had a hell of a shift in the third when he had the whole Nashville team chasing him around the neutral and defensive zones while he hacked and whacked at the puck like a crazed lumberjack. The Preds ended up taking a penalty call because all they could do was hack and whack right back..... I don't really know what it is but lately I've rediscovered Family Feud and caught it right before the game tonight. One of the answers on the board to the question "Name something a man takes ten minutes to do" was - for real - "Pinch A Loaf". Apparently that is the most family friendly term they could come up with. It would have been even better if nobody had guessed it because at the end of every round, they reveal the unguessed answers one by one and the whole crowd repeats it out loud, but in this slow, dragging tone of voice. What I would have given to hear a whole studio audience moan the words "Pinch A Loaf".... Mike Fisher was pretty quiet in his return to Ottawa tonight despite playing over 17 minutes in the game. He didn't have a shot on net but typically finished +1 with 3 blocked shots and a handful of hits. Same old Mike....

.....It never gets old watching this Chris Phillips 2003 overtime goal against the Devils in the Eastern Conference final, if only to watch Zdeno Chara nearly kill five teammates with his now legendary celebration jump.



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Sens Forget What Got 'Em Here .... Plus Unpopped Popcorn Fuelled Game Notes

Toronto 5 Ottawa 0

Why is it when the bottom falls out for the Ottawa Senators, it always seems to be against the Toronto Maple Leafs?

Many people across the capital city on Sunday morning will be wondering how in the hell their Senators could have come out so emotionally flat in the Battle Of Ontario - something that has happened many times before - even while their comfortable playoff lead continues to get eaten away by hungrier teams below them in the standings.

There just doesn't seem to be much of an excuse for getting steamrolled by the hated Leafs in your own rink while failing to show even the slightest heartbeat until the embarrassing score on the scoreclock forced you to get angry enough to engage in a few hits.

The Senators became the league's surprise team partly because they had an emotional edge on other clubs in the first half of the season. They'd go and get kicked around in the first two periods like some kind of stray dog but keep scrapping through it until their legs outlasted their opponents in the third.

Frankly, the Senators are playing like a team that's lost their hunger and maybe felt like clinching the playoffs was just a coasted few weeks away from their All-Star break. They've gone from eating scraps in the alley to feasting on Alpo in front of the fireplace, even while the burglars rob the house blind.

Certainly the coaching staff is going to wake these guys up, either through the bag skate routine or with a garbage can or two hitting the walls in the dressing room, but once the tide turns against you, it can be hard to turn it around, even if you're heart is back in the right place. Six losses in a row has essentially wiped out the strong stretch they had in late December, early January which put them in the position to become lazy in the first place.

But that's just numbers. What's important is that the Senators have seemingly forgotten what it means to battle for goals and for a team that already gives up a lot in their own end, that's going to kill them if they can't get that bulldog mentality back.

When the Senators lost games in the first half of the season, they at least went down swinging and you rarely felt like they didn't leave it all on the ice. Now when they lose, there's a strange empty feeling where it seems like they didn't even give themselves a chance. It's not about working hard - that's a cliche that's used way too much - but it seems more like a mental fog has descended on these guys after revelling in all the great press they deserved up to this point. Now it's up to Paul MacLean and his staff to get these guys a little uglier again.

Black Aces Senators 3 Stars

1. Spartacat (kept the kids from crying too hard)
2. Beer vendors (kept the kids from getting too drunk)
3. The stairs (allowed people to leave the building)

NOTES

The big black shield the Senators have in the walkway to the ice still looks a little strange when you catch it on TV. Almost like a huge piece of hash stuck to the concrete wall with a circle of laurel leaf foil stuck into it. The shield might have been put there as a sort of touchstone or good luck charm for the players to tap with their gloves on the way out to the ice but only one or two guys ever do. Just aesthetically, it looks kind of ugly but at least it’s original. It would be cool if all the players punched it once before hitting the ice because after time it would become a tradition and new players would be tapping the same shield that guys like Daniel Alfredsson did. Think if a team like the Habs had something similar. Imagine tapping the same shield that guys like Rocket Richard and Jean Beliveau did? Not saying the Senators legends will ever be on par with that but that’s the kind of tradition you can build with a little foresight. Or, maybe some arena attendant gets an order to tear it down this summer and throw it in the dumpster out back. These things can go either way…. People like to take shots at the CBC and Hockey Night In Canada, but the fact is nobody does hockey better than HNIC. The pre-game Inside Hockey segment with Elliotte Friedman before tonight’s game that featured the struggles of ex-Senator Brian McGrattan and Jordin Tootoo with alcohol was HNIC at its best. The entire Saturday night production is seamless and nobody can touch what they do. Not TSN. Not ESPN. Sportsnet wouldn’t be able to put together 5 minutes of HNIC quality work. Clearly, it’s not just tradition keeping HNIC relevant……

..... Did you ever notice that when a team gets a goal scored on them, the players on the bench for that team almost all automatically grab a water bottle and take a big drink? It's instinctual, I guess. That's their subconscious way of putting the goal behind them and resetting the brain. Goalies in the net seem to do that too. What would Carl Jung say about it? We all know what Sig Freud would say - the bottle is a phallus or something like that..... I wonder why Saturday night against the Leafs wasn’t a Heritage jersey night for the Senators? Instead they wore their road whites at home. If there’s one Senators sweater that needs to be retired it’s their underwhelming, already dated Reebok Edge-era whites. A new road jersey with a couple of normal horizontal stripes at the waist would be a welcome addition to the wardrobe…… Somehow, the Senators still have 5 more back-to-back sets of games this season…. I actually think Dion Phaneuf is now somewhat underrated. I’d take him on my team anyday…. If Jacques Martin hadn’t been shitcanned by Pierre Gauthier at the first sign of trouble, I truly believe the Canadiens would be right there with Washington and the Leafs fighting for a playoff spot with Ottawa. Martin-coached teams always seem to even out with that consistent approach the veteran bench boss takes year after year.….. Geez, the shot that Kyle Turris heeled on the fresh wet ice of the second period reminded me of when you’re playing pool with your buds at the bar and wind up for the break but completely whiff on the cue ball while everyone laughs so hard that beer comes spraying out their nose. I’ve done that like twenty times in my life, usually a few pints in at the Dominion Tavern in the Market….

....Only being 3 games from his 1000th in a Senators uniform, you’d think Chris Phillips would be getting a little more press than he actually is right now. Barring injury, the Big Rig will play the milestone game in Ottawa Thursday night against the Nashville Predators. He would have gotten it done at home tonight against the Leafs if he hadn’t missed two games to injury. Ottawa’s been lucky to have a guy like Phillips over the years. Like I said before, he’s their Glen Wesley. Always under appreciated but one of the foundation pieces of the entire organization. Hopefully he gets his due from the fans when the time comes….. Jason Spezza, with 212 goals going into Saturday's game against the Leafs, is closing in on another Alexei Yashin mark, being only 6 markers behind the former franchise centre and #19 jersey wearer, who had 218 goals in 504 games. Once Spezza does that, he’ll be ahead of Yashin in all the main statistical categories. Some people have been waiting a long time to see Yashin’s name slowly removed from the leaderboards. It’s just about done…. Why is it that when you finish eating a bowl of popcorn you feel like you have to eat a few of those unpopped ones? All they do is break your teeth and taste like wood. But still, we perservere....

.... Jaromir Jagr, with 1,637 points, is closing in on Joe Sakic for 8th in NHL all-time scoring, needing just 5 more to put him right behind his former mentor and teammate Mario Lemieux who sits 7th with 1,723. Passing Mario might be tough but if Jagr plays another year for a good Philly team, he’ll have an outside chance (he’d likely need two more seasons). Pens fans will be pissed…. Jared Cowen has had a couple of games he’d like to forget, especially on Friday night against the Islanders. Yet Bryan Murray well knows you have to live with those stretches, even with a rookie who’s been as solid as Cowen. It always seems like a rookie defenseman is allowed fewer mistakes than a rookie forward, but the fact we’re even talking about this reminds you of how little we’ve had to point out Cowen’s faults. That’s a pretty good sign. If anything, it would be nice to see Cowen step up a little more in the offensive zone like he was doing a bit more in the months before Christmas. It reminds me of how Chris Phillips seems to find that extra gear whenever a game goes into overtime. You’ll almost never see Phillips take a chance during regulation but he gets goal hungry when it really matters. Cowen has a bit of that in him and might have better hands than Phillips if he chose to use them more.....

Remember when the Battle Of Ontario used to be like this?



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Circus Around Battle Of Ontario Crazy As Ever

The beat goes on for the Ottawa Senators after another comeback win, this time on the road against God’s Team, the Toronto Maple Leafs.

It was a game everyone wanted to see, and the hype was surprisingly strong for a mid-January tilt between clubs that play each other six times a season. Even if the game is ho-hum (this one wasn’t), the circus surrounding it is always worth a laugh simply because everyone takes it so seriously. Television’s talking heads lose their objectivity and seem to think they’re on the ice with the players (see Nick Kypreos). Or in the case of Damien Cox, use it as a platform to tell everyone what’s so awful about the NHL (ad-nauseum). Tweeters see every nuance of the game and tweet about it as if it was some vital piece of information, or proof that their viewpoint on the current state of hockey is being proven right beyond any argument.

Take the Nick Foligno – Dion Phaneuf incident. You all saw it. The hipcheck (or the “clipping”). Phaneuf going ass over chin and landing on his face. Phaneuf starting to get up and then faking an injury (allegedly). Then the big fight a little bit later.

As far as the two players are concerned, the fight was a natural reaction to the hit and the matter was settled. It’s not a complicated process for the players to understand.

Yet the reaction amongst the cognoscenti was far from simple and each side had to adjust the reality of it to fit their agendas.

The exchange between Nick Kypreos and Damien Cox on Sportsnet right after the game is a good representation of this.

Kypreos said that Phaneuf had to fight Foligno to send a message that it wasn’t okay to run him and think you can get away with it. Again, this is simple logic for most hockey players. It’s like an inherent truth, an archetype, a natural reaction.

Then you had Damien Cox with that sour look on his face exclaiming “But they lost the game!” His point was that Toronto was leading 2-1 at that point and that Phaneuf should have just accepted the fact that Foligno got a penalty and turned the other cheek.

This made Kypreos start flinging his arms around saying that you can’t let “guys like Foligno” take runs at you and not do anything about it. Kypreos was on the verge of hysterics while Cox smugly looked on like a kid who had just poked a hornet’s nest for the fun of it.

Cox’s theory is representative of a growing consensus in the game that players should leave all the policing up to the league instead of taking matters into their own hands.

If you read my blog at all, you probably already know my take. I think that’s complete bullshit. I’m on the pro-fighting side of the current debate and that’s that. I like the traditional way of players settling issues with each other on the ice, instead of expecting the league to take care of every issue.

Clearly I have my own agenda and I know that. Don’t bother calling me on it. I have a lot of respect for people on the other side of the debate like Roy MacGregor amongst others. There are lots of valid points in either argument.

Yet, I’ll go back to something I said about Don Cherry not too long ago. I’ll always respect the opinion of someone who genuinely seems to love the game, even if they tend to go off track once in a while either in the name of entertainment or bullheadedness. When I see Cherry or Mike Milbury get spitting mad about changes in the game, I see guys who are passionate and protective of a sport they based their entire life around.

I saw that same emotion in Kypreos last night. Cox won the argument simply by being cool and smug, and knowing that Kypreos could never articulate his points the same way a polished writer and communicator like Cox can.

But it doesn’t make Cox right.

To me, I will always err on the side of player’s opinion. They’re the ones who play the game and put their health on the line every night while guys like me sit and judge them for every move they make on the ice.

In short, I’ll take guys like Milbury, Cherry and Kypreos just as seriously, if not more than I would Cox, MacGregor or Adam Proteau. And that also means that players such as Stu Grimson and Chris Nilan have just as valid points to make. Maybe that’s a flawed approach, but it’s the one I believe in.

A major weakness I see in Cox’s argument, and the variations on it that you read in the blogs and on Twitter is that fighting largely has no effect on the game. People like to point out when a fight either hurts a team (like Toronto last night) or when nobody seems to gain momentum from it. But to acknowledge that it can have a negative effect also means you have to acknowledge it can have a positive effect on a team. That’s just logic, not some theory I invented in my spare time. You can’t separate the two in order to prove a point. If the fight was bad for one team, then it was clearly good for the other team.

But that’s the kind of world the NHL is in right now. It’s become so politicized that it’s a bit of a bummer at times. You can sit and watch your Twitter feed during a game and be amazed that so many people get sucked into the shallowness of it all, the pettiness and the egotistical crusades that make it like a deranged schoolyard atmosphere where grown adults embrace their worst impulses and try to peddle it as insight. The amount of straight-up bullies on Twitter is amazing to behold. It’s like stumbling onto the island in Lord Of The Flies and seeing people in rags trying to maim each other. It’s somewhat surreal.

But who am I to spoil everyone’s fun. It is what it is. I’ve waded into those waters myself from time to time.

As Bob Dylan once said in Talkin’ World War III Blues, “Half of the people can be part right all of the time, Some of the people can be all right part of the time, But all of the people can’t be all right all of the time.”