Cowen Just Needs Time And Patience... Wiercioch More Of An Unknown

Jared Cowen is feeling the heat in this early, miserable, god forsaken Senators season that’s spanned a month but feels like two thanks to a marathon exhibition schedule and crowded training camp that may or may not have contributed to a sloppy disorganized start when the real games began.

In Cowen’s case, it’s starting to look like he hurt himself by missing most of camp sitting in Saskatchewan waiting for his agent to make a deal with GM Bryan Murray on a new contract, and that’s on top of missing almost all of last season with hip surgery.

When you look at it this way, it’s no wonder the guy is struggling. At 22 years old, Cowen really only has one full 82 game season behind him. He just recently passed the 100 game mark and that’s not much when you’re talking about a young defenseman who’s still developing. Not everyone can win a Norris Trophy at 21 years old like Erik Karlsson, who’s more a freak of nature than an athlete.

Maybe, just maybe, the short-term expectations for Jared Cowen from the fans and management was a bit too high. And now they’re both paying for it.

The decision to trade Sergei Gonchar was both financial and hockey related. There was no way they could pay both Daniel Alfredsson and Gonchar and stay within the much publicized “internal budget”. Turns out the Senators lost both players, one purposely and one through a misguided attempt to go cheap on their captain and franchise player. But let’s not get into that again today, at least for humanitarian reasons.

The Senators thought Patrick Wiercioch and Cowen would emerge to take over those important minutes from Gonchar and everything would be smooth sailing, give or take a few rocky moments that all teams experience with young defensemen. Given Murray’s financial constraints, it was a logical move, supplemented by bringing in Joe Corvo as insurance.

Cue the October disaster.

Both Wiercioch and Cowen have been dying out there for the past month, with a new record of shots against threatening to be surpassed almost every night. Wiercioch has been in and out of coach Paul MacLean’s doghouse along with Eric Gryba, another young defenseman going through problems of his own, although expectations for him are a lot less than the team’s other young defensemen.

MacLean has tried everything to get these guys on track. He’s switched their partners and sides of the ice. He’s played them together. He’s bag skated the team and rested them. They recalled Mark Borowiecki who played very well but, almost predictably, still managed to score an own-goal. That’s the kind of luck we’re seeing here.

We even heard the unthinkable from outraged fans, clamoring to trade one or both of Cowen and Wiercioch. Thankfully, we can assume Bryan Murray still has a firm grip on his sanity and the thought has never crossed his mind.

In Cowen’s case, all that’s needed here is time and patience. This guy is going to be a top NHL defenseman for a long time but right now he hasn’t played enough games, especially recently, to play like everyone knows he can. Losing Gonchar has clearly forced Cowen and Wiercioch to play minutes they’re not ready for but Ottawa has no choice but to keep sending them over the boards in the hope they can adjust. I think Cowen will have a much easier time overcoming his early struggles because he’s not directly replacing Gonchar. Cowen’s issues seem more like rust, whereas Wiercioch’s seem more deep rooted.

Is Wiercioch really a top-pairing offensive defenseman? At this time he’s not, but he may be by the end of the season or a few years from now. The Senators will find out one way or another, but it could be a painful process. Cowen’s issues seem more prominent right now because he’s a defensive defenseman and this Senators team can’t keep pucks out of their net. There’s not much trouble on the offensive side of the game and that’s why Wiercioch isn’t hearing it from the fans as much as Cowen is.

There really isn’t much for Ottawa fans to do but watch and hope this all turns around. My hunch is Jared Cowen won’t be a fan target for much longer.

Hey, he is 23rd in NHL shooting percentage. Of course, that’s off just 8 shots.

Gotta start somewhere.

Chris Neil A Pariah on Twitter, Loved In The Stands

I can’t seem to understand it.

During a Senators game I’ll occasionally scroll down my Twitter feed to see what everyone is saying, maybe catch a few good one-liners from Bonk’s Mullet or the handful of other people worth following. The majority is just Sens fans reacting to whatever play just happened, like an Erik Karlsson rush or a Joe Corvo “uh oh” moment. There’s fans throwing in the towel after one goal and fans pleading for the team to trade the last player who touched the puck. You know the drill.

I get all that. I get the instant passion that causes people to write things that could get them thrown in a jail cell if said on the streets. People have always said this stuff, except for most of a century they’ve been screamed inside a living room in front of a TV or next to a Victrola radio cabinet where only the neighbours could hear you lose your marbles over an offside call.

But one thing I’ve never understood about Sens fans on Twitter, that certain young demographic that’s completely dependent on social media for self-expression, is their almost total committed haranguing of and dislike for Chris Neil.

It doesn’t make any sense to me, but admittedly a lot of things don’t, like Dexter or Robin Thicke.

It would make sense to dislike a player that doesn’t play to the best of his abilities, that doesn’t play with passion and doesn’t stand up for his teammates. It would make sense to rip into a guy who’s not effective on the ice no matter how hard he tries.

In the case of Chris Neil, none of these attributes apply. Not even close.

I don’t feel I need to go into what Chris Neil brings to the table, because anyone who has watched hockey for more than a few years will understand that, but here it is anyways. He’s a role player, and a very unique one, because he’s one of the few guys playing that has almost 100 career goals, can fight a heavyweight like Milan Lucic, plays meaningful minutes and is an acknowledged leader for his team. These kinds of players are highly coveted by general managers and coaches for a reason.

What I don’t understand is how Twitter fans don’t feel there’s a need for this type of player on their favourite team. Part of it, I feel, is that Neil is part of the “old guard”, players who have been around so long that they’ve been picked apart by fans for years. Familiarity breeds contempt. Chris Phillips gets slung by a lot of these same arrows. But it could also very easily be a case of “don’t know what you got until it’s gone”.

Whenever Neil takes a penalty, and it’s often, fans lose their minds, as if it was some outrageous act of laziness and stupidity. A player like Chris Neil, with the role he plays, is going to take lots of penalties. That’s just the way it is. Penalties are a part of the process of playing the game the right way. You have to cheat and play as close to the edge of what’s acceptable to win hockey games unless you’re extremely skilled like Pavel Datsyuk or Sidney Crosby. The problem is, those players are harder to find than Florida Panthers fans. They exist, but you gotta be lucky to stumble onto one.

Coaches play these kinds of role players because they go out and hit guys like Crosby and Evgeni Malkin and try to wear them down over the course of 60 minutes. Or they match up with their counterparts and it becomes a war of third and fourth lines, made up of checkers and pests. These battles can be just as important, especially in tight games. Facewashing, hacks and whacks are all part of the recipe.

It works, otherwise these players wouldn’t have jobs in the league. Teams win with a combination of all different kinds of skills, partly by necessity, partly by design. It’s not the argument from me that should win you over, it’s the fact that MacLean and every other coach in the league plays these guys, sometimes for significant minutes in the case of Neil. It’s self-evident. I’m merely pointing to the rosters and ice-time and saying “Look for yourself”. What more do you need?

For the most part, Neil’s penalties are from playing on the edge of acceptable levels of aggressiveness. Sometimes Neil gets caught, sometimes he doesn’t. Sometimes he gets over emotional, but that’s also a strength of his in certain situations. He’s brought an entire rink and his own bench to their feet with a massive hit or a fight at the right time. It doesn’t always work, of course. People love to snarkily point out that a fight or a hit didn’t do a thing for the team’s momentum, but the fact that it works SOME of the time is the reason it keeps happening, and the reason a guy like Neil is so valued by the organization in Ottawa. The old saying of “it takes a lot of different ingredients to bake a cake” is relevant here. You win by having all the elements, not just one. You need skill, you need goaltending, you need defense and you need toughness. To embrace one side of the team over the other doesn’t even seem rational if you want your team to succeed in today’s NHL.

Chris Neil brings a vital element to the Senators, even if his importance is not on the level of Spezza or Karlsson. The fact that he’s loved in the community and loves playing for this team is just a bonus. There’s plenty of tough players out there who work as mercenaries, going from team to team and not making much of a difference along the way. Neil has roots in this city now and plays his heart out every night, even if that emotion gets him into trouble on occasion.

You may not like “tough hockey”, and you wouldn’t be alone in that sentiment, especially nowadays with the puritan trend in full swing with the media, but you can’t argue that it’s not part of today’s NHL game, because it so clearly is. And not many play that type of game better than Chris Neil.

The divide between fans in the rink, who cheer Neil after every hit, and the whining about him on Twitter is something I’ll never understand. Oh well, you can’t win ‘em all.

Vintage Black Aces: Pierre McGuire Gets Canned In Hartford

This is a pretty wild read on Pierre McGuire (tweeted by Gare Joyce today), from all the way back in 1994 when he was fired as head coach of the Hartford Whalers. I remember some of the drama that was going on at the time but forgot how heated it really was.

If you think McGuire is an intense, polarizing character now, read the article. “When the hallway curtain opened after a loss in Boston, McGuire was found by the media wildly smashing sticks against the wall. When the door opened after a loss in Pittsburgh, McGuire was seen knocking furniture around the coach's room.”

It goes on to say that Jaromir Jagr felt his overtime goal against Hartford in a regular season game was the “biggest of his life” because it was against McGuire. Wow.

Senators Playing Small In A Big League

“What’s our identity?”

When your head coach says that in public, maybe it’s time to start worrying. Just a little.

Those were Senators coach Paul MacLean’s words after Sunday’s loss to arguably the league’s best team, the San Jose Sharks. It’s been a hellish October schedule for Ottawa but that can’t account for everything that’s going wrong.

Where’s the intensity from Erik Karlsson? He played one of his strongest games of the season against San Jose but there were still times where he looked to be in cruise mode like he has for most of the first month. He’s skating as fine as he ever has (and putting up points) but his body language is all too obvious. He’s banging his stick on the ice after goals against, shaking his head, yapping at the refs and looking very much like the young player he is. There just seems to be a little poise and focus missing, but you could say that about a lot of players on this Senators team that’s lost 3 of the last 4 with all those losses being on home ice.

They’re getting killed in their own end and they’re getting killed with sloppy starts to games and periods. They look soft in front of their net despite having two big defenseman in Jared Cowen and Eric Gryba that have the size to actually prevent Craig Anderson from being rattled. It doesn’t help that Gryba is in and out of the lineup due to being inconsistent and Cowen doesn’t seem to be as aggressive in his own zone as he was in the past. Marc Methot is as steady as they come and has been the defensive conscience of this team along with Chris Phillips, both of whom have showed up to play so far.

For the most part, the veterans have done their jobs but there’s a few struggling. Milan Michalek only has 2 goals in 11 games and just 1 in his past 8, despite playing regularly with one of the best playmakers in the game, Jason Spezza.

Don’t blame Michalek’s struggles on Spezza. The captain has been one of the better Senators this season, but he’s never really had great chemistry with Michalek. I get that MacLean likes Michalek’s speed combined with Spezza’s slower, more cerebral game, but Michalek is not the type of winger who hangs back and gets into prime scoring areas for a pass. Michalek is hell on wheels and scores his goals on the rush going top speed or banging in rebounds in the midst of chaos.

On the other hand, Bobby Ryan is the type of player who should be able to complement and read Spezza’s playmaking abilities, but a slow start on that line and some early success with Kyle Turris doomed the Spezza/Ryan partnership prematurely. Some would even say that combination hasn’t been given the chance to blossom like it should but I’m not in the habit of telling the Jack Adams award winner what lines he should play together. It’s hard to argue against the success of Ryan and Turris together, but it must be tempting to reunite Spezza with Ryan just to see if it sparks something.

Yet, it’s not goal-scoring that’s losing this team games. It just seems like they’re small out there all the time, and it has nothing to do with actual physical size. Colin Greening isn’t winning puck battles. Zack Smith is being yanked from centre to wing, sometimes shift to shift and it’s not working. He’s being physical but he hasn’t settled into a role as a centreman as he should, mostly because Ottawa went with younger, smaller players in that role, namely Stephane Da Costa and J.G. Pageau and it hasn’t worked out. At all.

All these Western teams have certainly made Ottawa look small, but if the Senators start slow and only bring the intensity and physicality when they’re behind in games, the Eastern conference teams aren’t going to be any easier.

The Senators built an identity the past two seasons under MacLean by being tough and relentless. It’s hard to deny that. They spent all of last season playing that way with most of the talent on the injured reserve. Somehow they’ve lost that mentality in the early going here and they have to get it back. If it takes someone getting in a fight that usually doesn’t fight, so be it. If it takes someone like Turris paying the price in front of the net to score a goal, that might do it. Something has to spark this team back to life and just scoring goals from outside the faceoff circle isn’t going to do it.

This Senators team is a little too nice right now. The pacifists will roll their eyes and get their hackles up, but this team wins when they play mean. Two first-round series wins were accomplished with that style. It has to come back, and come back soon.

"Black Aces" Now A Song - Check It Out

One of the readers of this blog, Matt Gower, pointed out to me recently that his local Ottawa band, Capital Grass and the No Men, have recorded a song, "Black Aces", (click on link to hear) and have entered it into a CBC contest called Song Quest, which seeks to find "Canada's next great hockey song". Matt mentions the title of this blog gave him an idea for the song, and I have to say it's a pretty strong entry, especially if you're a fan of Americana roots or Appalachian music as I am.

Matt says, "Ever since I started reading Black Aces, in the back of my mind, I've thought to myself, that would make for a great hockey song. Plus, being a Canadian songwriter, I know that it's required to have at least one hockey tune on the set list."

Anyways, I thought this was too cool not to share with the rest of the readers and wish the best of luck to Matt and the rest of the boys in Capital Grass and the No Men in the contest. Here's a link to their website. They play fairly regularly around town and have also taken the stage at Bluesfest.

The first song my old band, The Hitmakers, ever wrote was a joke called "Hockey Tonk". It wasn't very funny, nor was it very good. Luckily no recordings exist of this trashterpiece, so you've been spared.

Spezza Steps Over Alfredsson In Biggest Test Of His Captaincy So Far

Watching last night’s game in Detroit, you got the feeling Jason Spezza was a little sick of talking about Daniel Alfredsson. After two goals and one much needed trouncing of a division rival, we’re now talking about the new captain, not the departed one.

From the day he was given the captain’s “C”, Spezza probably hasn’t gone 48 hours without answering a question about Alfredsson and how he plans to fill those shoes. Then there was the Olympic summer camp snub, which would have been painful for a proud guy like Spezza who only fell off the radar because of injuries that destroyed his previous season. It would be enough to make a man want to go out and prove something to everybody on the biggest stage of the campaign so far.

And that’s what this game was. Media were swarming Joe Louis Arena for the Alfredsson angle while the game was nationally broadcast on TSN with as much hype as your average Toronto Maple Leafs game. That’s a lot of hype, by the way.

Imagine the mood if Alfredsson had scored a couple of goals against his old team and Ottawa limped away with their second consecutive loss. Luckily for Senators fans, Spezza made sure that didn’t happen.

You can argue that Spezza scored the two most important goals of the game. Eric Gryba’s opener set the tone but a 1-0 lead in Detroit is nothing to dance about. When Spezza scored 5 minutes later to make it 2-0, that’s when people started to believe Ottawa had a chance of winning this thing. Sure, the true believers would still pick Ottawa against the 1984 Oilers but just look at yesterday’s Citizen Prediction Panel. Only one of eight, Steve Lloyd, picked Ottawa to squeak out a win. Wayne Scanlan, who only seems to miss when he’s feeling merciful, picked Detroit. I picked Detroit. Mothers of Senators players probably picked Detroit.

When Bobby Ryan made it 3-0, the faithful were moonwalking on Elgin Street but Todd Bertuzzi’s late goal before the end of the first, on a power-play no less, could have easily swung the momentum back in Detroit’s favour, and with guys like Pavel Datsyuk, Henrik Zetterberg and Alfredsson, a two-goal deficit isn’t the end of the world.

That’s when Spezza put it away with his biggest goal of the year so far. He went straight down the middle at Datsyuk in the Detroit zone and buried his own rebound off the lively Joe Louis Arena boards. That was pretty goddamn impressive if you ask me.

A lot of guys would have hooked left or right and tried to feed someone coming in with more speed, especially facing two red sweaters, one of whom happened to be a 3-time Selke award winner. Maybe they expected Spezza to do just that but he went right at them, shot the puck, and kept going to the net. Simply put, Spezza was the hungriest player on the ice at that moment and Datsyuk could only swing at him as he blew by.

At 4-1, the captain had taken the spirit out of the building and probably a lot out of Alfredsson as well, who only days ago commented that he caught a replay of a Senators game, saw the “C” on Spezza and thought it was himself for a brief moment. The cameras continually focused on Alfie as he sat on the bench, with everyone sitting at home dying to know exactly what he was thinking as the whole scene played out. Was he regretting everything? Was he stoic, knowing that there’s a long way to go and many chances for revenge?

I was thinking about Senators owner Eugene Melnyk, who had settled his vendetta with Dany Heatley only the day before, and was probably watching the Detroit game from Barbados or Toronto, relishing the moment. I joked on Twitter that he was likely drunk with power at the moment, but like games in October, that too will fade with time.

But for Jason Spezza and the Senators, this is one game, one memorable performance, that can lead to bigger and better things, and just maybe bury some old skeletons that had been haunting them for too long.

And that captain’s “C” on Spezza looks a little sharper today than it did yesterday. What a game.

Black Aces Senators 3 Stars

1. Jason Spezza
2. Bobby Ryan
3. Kyle Turris

Honorable Mentions: Eric Gryba, Craig Anderson, Jared Cowen, Mika Zibanejad

Timing Is Right For Zibanejad Re-call

Pretty good timing by Bryan Murray.

With all the attention on Ottawa’s upcoming game in Detroit against ex-captain Daniel Alfredsson, Murray felt the time was right to bring Mika Zibanejad back to the NHL today.

Makes sense on a couple of fronts. First, the Senators can use his size and skill to try and energize a team that didn’t look overly inspired against Edmonton on Saturday. No matter how you look at it, Zibanejad is an upgrade on J.G. Pageau and Derek Grant. Hell, he’s an upgrade on most of the players in the bottom-six, especially if he comes in a little ornery from his surprising training camp demotion.

Going into Detroit is a quagmire, and that’s before you even get to the rink. If you get into the Joe Louis Arena with your shirt still on your back, you have Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg waiting for you, and worse, they’ve stolen your best hockey player and, by all reports, he couldn’t be happier wearing the red and white (without the black).

And that’s the second point here. It won’t alter the media’s interpretation of this game much – it’s still Alfie vs. the Sens, but parachuting Zibanejad into the game changes the feel a little bit for the fans. If Zibanejad, who is a clear favourite around town, can manage to have a strong game, it will take some of the focus away from Alfredsson and maybe ease the pain a little. Of course, if Bobby Ryan gets a couple of goals, that would be more significant considering how the two will always be linked from that fateful day in July, but Mika has become a bit of a cause célèbre on Twitter with the #FreeMika hashtags and his stint as DJZbad in the summer. They love their young players here. Erik Karlsson is a rockstar and Zibanejad isn’t far behind. What better way to say goodbye to an old legend like Alfredsson with a win featuring his former Swedish students.

Think of it this way – imagine Ottawa went into Detroit with the same lineup that lost to Edmonton and ended up getting creamed. Fans would start to hit the panic button, especially with Anaheim, San Jose and Chicago next on the schedule and calls for Zibanejad, who’s had a strong start in Binghamton, would have been deafening.

The time was right for an infusion of energy on the ice and a welcome respite from the Alfredsson narrative. Murray managed all that with the call-up of Zibanejad.

Now comes the hard part. Actually beating Detroit in Detroit.

They have more of a chance to do that with Zibanejad here instead of in Binghamton.

The Backhander: Notes From A Long Night At The Rink

It’s late, I’m groggy and there’s popcorn in my hair. But here’s a few notes from the Senators home opener against the New Jersey Devils which I viewed from the nosebleeds in lonely Section 306.

***

... There were only four people in our row way at the top. Looking around the rink five minutes before the opening ceremony, it looked like there would be swaths of empty seats, especially in the lower bowl. Those seats filled up quickly once everything got underway but it seemed like each upper corner was almost completely unsold from the middle to the top. Strange to see during a home-opener, especially one with free parking on a warm night. Yet it didn’t seem to damper the atmosphere at all once the game got going. It was loud from where I was sitting, with lots of “Andy” chants and profanity filled screaming at the refs. When Milan Michalek blew a puck by Martin Brodeur in the third to put the game away, it was deafening. It can still be a hell of a loud rink when it needs to be.... As for the pre-game ceremony and the hype that came with hiring the guy out of Montreal who used to do their in-house entertainment, it seemed to fall pretty flat. All that happened was they dimmed the lights and played a predictable video on the scoreboard before announcing the players one-by-one. Not much of a light show and the video was that tired old schtick with the Roman Gladiators that looked about 10 years old. As usual, anthem singer Lyndon Slewidge had to be relied on to get the fans pumped up and he came through. I don’t remember hearing the old beloved Senators entrance theme song but maybe I just missed it. If they’re thinking of screwing with that tradition again, they better get their heads screwed on right. No matter how cheesy that song is, it’s the Senators through and through and should never be replaced by canned UFC music....You could hear a few boos mixed in with the cheers when Eugene Melnyk was introduced at centre ice. Not too many, but it was there. I was cringing, to be honest....

.... Still hearing lots of criticism of Erik Karlsson, who ONLY got 3 points on the night, but apart from one or two bad giveaways that I saw, he played a slick game. Giveaways are going to happen for Erik just like they happen for Jason Spezza, because both players are trying to make plays out there instead of being safe, but Karlsson got everyone on their feet when he raced back from the far blueline and stripped Stephen Gionta of the puck after giving it away in the first place. That wasn’t the only strong defensive play he made on the night, something he rarely gets credit for outside of people who watch him every night. He could have easily been one of the 3 Stars last night. He’s going to have an incredible year.... Speaking of which, hard to understand why they gave Gionta the 2nd Star last night. It was a polite move, but if it had to go to a Devil, it should have gone to Steve Bernier who at least scored a goal and tied Gionta with 5 shots. I would have given it to Karlsson. .... The 3rd Star, Bobby Ryan, probably couldn’t have scripted a better home debut in Ottawa and the fans really embraced him throughout the game, including a video they played during a commercial time-out that welcomed him to the city. I’d still like to see him with Spezza again now that injuries and slow-starts are out of the way, but it’s hard to argue the chemistry he’s finding with Kyle Turris. Once again, Turris was flying out there. I was one of those people who turned my nose up at the trading of David Rundblad, but I gotta admit I was wrong there. It will be interesting to see if opposing teams load up defensively against that “second line” now with Ryan there, and how that will affect Turris. He struggled at times going up against shutdown defenseman when Spezza was out last year, but at least he looks stronger in the early-going and might be able to fight through that better.....

.....Michalek is showing no signs of struggling with that bad knee. The guy is skating as good as I’ve ever seen him in Ottawa. That was a nasty shot that beat Brodeur high in the third period. ..... Maybe shaving the beard off was bad luck for Eric Gryba. He struggled in his own zone last night and still looks like a guy who missed most of training camp. I still think he solidifies his spot on that blueline but he might be in and out of the lineup for a while until he gets better. ... Craig Anderson once again put to rest any worries about his play with a 40 save performance that included a desperation paddle save at the goal-line that will be in every best-of-year highlight package. For some reason, this guy has a lot of doubters when he struggles even for a few games, probably because Robin Lehner is still unblemished in many fans eyes, but Anderson always reels them back in with games like that. .... As usual, the parking lots after the game were a confused nightmare. Took a solid hour to get back on the road. But, hey, there’s worse things to complain about. It’s kind of a Kanata tradition to sit in your car and listen to the post-game show, wondering when you’ll ever see your bed again. They should just dig up that grassy hill and put 5 more on-ramps to the Queensway and say to hell with it.... It may have seemed like a less than glamorous opponent for a home opener, but seeing both Martin Brodeur and Jaromir Jagr in person is still something all fans should appreciate. We’re talking about two players who are arguably Top 10 all-time in the history of the league, both first ballot Hall Of Famers. This might be their farewell tour but it’s still special to see them out there, especially if you’ve watched their entire careers. Brodeur had a tough night but I thought Jagr was still dangerous, especially in the Senators zone. The guy still has power. And he’ll have a chance to get a Cup this year. Expect him to be dealt at the deadline when the Devils finally throw in the towel. Imagine he went back to Pittsburgh? It could happen.

BLACK ACES SENATORS 3 STARS

1. Craig Anderson
2. Erik Karlsson
3. Bobby Ryan

Still Lots To Be Optimistic About For Senators Fans

I know it looks bad. 106 shots against in the last two games. Winless in 4. Goalies yanked. An early loss to the hated Leafs. And GM Bryan Murray has already fired a warning shot in the press that roster changes could be coming.

Yet with one win tonight in Phoenix, the last game of this ugly Western road-swing, the Senators could head home 2-2-2, with the toughest trip behind them and a few easier games coming up on the schedule.

Right away they face the Devils and Oilers to finish off the week, two teams that don’t have anything going for them right now, followed by three days off that will no doubt be used to practice and get comfy in their own rink, things they haven’t had much time to do after a bloated training camp and a time-zone changing road trip.

This team is too good to struggle this badly, and more games against a much weaker Eastern Conference is going to help in the long run, even if they still have rematches with Western powerhouses San Jose and Anaheim and a visit from the defending Stanley Cup champs Chicago before the end of October.

November will be much nicer to Ottawa fans. 9 of 14 will be played at home in Kanata, including 4 in a row that with teams like Florida and Philadelphia. Lots of ground can be made up in a month like that, even for a team that stumbles in October.

Other early weaknesses should turn into strengths when normalcy returns. There’s no way Jason Spezza is going to remain this team’s second best centre as long as he’s relatively healthy. Kyle Turris has been much more dynamic and dependable early but once Spezza gets rolling he’s going to be more than a point-per-game player, especially against an Eastern Conference that’s giving up goals all over the place.

Erik Karlsson will find himself at some point, and it’s going to be scary when he does. This guy can win games on his own when he’s feeling it, and if that depends on how he’s skating, then I’d have no worries. He’s still flying out there but his struggles seem to be more mental than physical. He looks a little unfocused, showing frustrated body language when calls don’t go his way or he misses a scoring chance. That can’t go on forever.

Craig Anderson hasn’t looked bad, but he’s not stealing games like he usually does. Already you can feel a shift of allegiance from some fans to Robin Lehner, which happens every time Robin has a strong game or two, but the pendulum always swings back to Anderson. Last year’s shortened training camp was full of calls for Lehner to take over but Anderson quietly shut down his critics and he’ll do that again. Anderson is just too consistent.

Lots of rumours out there that the Edmonton Oilers will be begging Murray to send them a goalie, possibly in return for one of their young star forwards like Nail Yakupov, but it seems way too early for a huge deal like that. At some point, Ottawa will deal one of their goalies because the return they can get will be too huge to pass up, but right now it’s one of their strengths and will be something they can ride all the way to the playoffs. The time for that deal isn’t now unless they get offered something unbelievable. It’s a deal that Murray has to win, even if it doesn’t come until next season.

In the short term, expect to see one or both of Stephane Da Costa and J.G. Pageau sent down to Bingo for Mika Zibanejad and possibly Jim O’Brien or another player (I believe Mark Stone is injured). Right now, this team is way too small down the middle with those guys and it’s not like Spezza and Turris provide much brute strength there either. There’s certainly a place for small players, especially over-achieving ones like Pageau, but you run the risk of turning into the Montreal Canadiens from the last few years if you have too many. With Zibanejad up from exile, that would allow Zack Smith to move back to the middle where he belongs and suddenly you have 4 bonafide NHL centres, while Zibanejad can also spot on the wing in the top-six if you need him.

It sounds strange that O’Brien would even be considered at this point, after MacLean publicly said younger players had passed him on the depth chart (and unsubstantiated rumours of O’Brien complaining about ice-time last season). Yet the Senators are paying his full NHL salary whether he’s here or in the minors thanks to a regrettable one-way contract offered by Murray. The budget might force their hand and give O’Brien that second chance no one thought was coming.

To me, it looks like the Senators are paying a bit of a price for over-thinking and over-evaluating during that monstrously long training camp where it became more about rewarding players for instant success rather than making sure they had the best team on the ice to start the season. Zibanejad has only himself to blame for not showing the intensity the team wanted, but now it’s time to see if the message has sunk in and get this guy playing important minutes down the middle.

Early season struggles can be just as misleading as training camp heroics, as we’ve seen with the struggles of Da Costa and Pageau. The Senators look terrible right now, but until they start losing games at home, (don’t put too much stock in their home opener against New Jersey after a long road trip – a classic trap game), I see this team the same way I saw them before the puck was even dropped – a playoff team and one of the top seeds in the East.

It may just take a month before we see the evidence.

82 Game Schedule Better Suited For Bobby Ryan and Old-Man Bloggers

I was ready for the game. Upstairs TV, laptop, pajama pants, clear head.

The kid was tucked safely in bed, drooling. The wife was downstairs watching some kind of show I could never stand to sit through, our two cats nodding off beside her. It was a peaceful scene. Too peaceful.

I passed out.

10 minutes before a 10:30 PM puck drop and I was a goner. Missed the entire West Coast Senators-Kings game. Didn’t even get a sniff at it.

Missed Bobby Ryan’s first goal in an Ottawa uniform, missed seeing Dustin Brown, a new pick-up in my pool, score a couple goals for me. Missed what looked like one of those now patented “pesky Sens” comebacks which we’ve seen a lot of the past two seasons (this time unsuccessful). Missed what sounded like a strong game from Stephane Da Costa.

And the Western swing continues, challenging my manhood as I struggle to even make it to midnight as a relatively young 37-year old who used to stay up until 3 in the morning every night of his twenties. What ever happened to that good-looking guy?

I guess it’s all in the pacing. An 82-game schedule where every game isn’t life and death is a strange beast to get used to again. The early-season feels important, vital almost, when you’ve been deprived of the game all summer. Missing a game feels like missing a week. Snap judgements are made on the basis of one night, which is why you see superstars (like Bobby Ryan) getting thrown under the bus while adrenalin-fuelled rookies with early success are praised to death (like Sean Monohan).

Yet when the pace evens out and the veterans get into a groove, the training camp and early season heroes tend to fade and get forgotten. It’s that type of dynamic that allows a player like Da Costa to unseat future blue-chipper Mika Zibanejad on the roster, but I’m betting in two months we’ll be talking a lot more about Zibanejad than we will Da Costa.

Hey, some guys are slow starters, which can be murder in a condensed, lockout shortened season, but in a full year you can afford to have some lulls, no matter how much the hyper-driven media tells us the opposite. Just not too long.

As Ian Mendes pointed out in the Ottawa Citizen recently, Bobby Ryan is historically bad in October but has still ended up with four 30-goal seasons. Jarome Iginla was another notoriously slow starter. Look at Alex Ovechkin last year. People were ready to put this guy on a plane to the KHL or at least revoke his superstar status. He ended up winning the Hart Trophy.

Luckily for Ryan, he scored last night in Los Angeles, but you can already sense a bit of defiance in him towards some of the “slow start” talk. I don’t blame him at all for getting his back up, but he’ll quickly find out that won’t help him either. Not in this market. But Ryan’s got 79 more games to score 29 goals and prove Bryan Murray was right bringing him in here. Fans will be patient because they’ll have to be. The playoffs are a long way away and so are the dog days of January and February when even the most hardcore hockey fan occasionally mixes a movie into their routine.

Even for a blogger it’s tough to find a pace early-on with late night games and endless days in between. I usually like to get a rhythm going of 3 articles a week and see how it goes. Sometimes there’s nothing to write about when you pass out before games like an old sheepdog after a meal.

Yet it’s a bit of a luxury to know you have a full season of hockey to look forward to. So what if you miss Matt Kassian scoring a hat-trick against the Leafs on Hockey Night in Canada. That type of thing will happen again, right?

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?

Season Opener: Karlsson Delivers Win In Final Minutes

It was exhausting watching all those saves.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BLACK ACES SENATORS 3 STARS

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

NOTES

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

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

Sens Blindside Zibanejad With Demotion - Theories Start Flying

One day it will be an obscure footnote in the career of Mika Zibanejad, but today it seems like a strange turn of events in the early going for the Ottawa Senators, who shipped Zibanejad down to Binghamton, presumably because of his waiver ineligibility and the notion he was beat out for a roster spot by players like Stephane Da Costa and Jean-Gabriel Pageau.

Meanwhile, rumours and insinuations are being thrown around that this was a budgetary move on orders from Eugene Melnyk, who commented publicly the other day that he “just found out” the team was over-budget. Others suggested, like myself, that the old-school management team might have been less than impressed with his one-off summer gig as DJ Zbad at a local nightclub, possibly bringing up issues of focus. Both theories seem like a stretch (although if you count in Zbad’s entry-level performance bonuses, this has the potential to save real money in the unlikely event he stays down), but until GM Bryan Murray speaks to the media later this afternoon, people will remain guessing why the fan favourite just got dumped on the eve of the season.

Strictly from a hockey perspective, it’s a tough one to get your head around. I suppose the signs were there for everyone to see but it almost seemed impossible to imagine Zibanejad, a near prototypical modern hockey player with size, skating ability and soft hands, would be thrown overboard for one of two smallish centres in Da Costa and Pageau.

Now Pageau, I can understand. This guy was going to be on the team no matter who he had to climb over. His character and talent dominated the Senators training camp and he’s already shown he can play at the NHL level. But Da Costa?

We’ve heard nothing but praise from Coach Paul MacLean on how Da Costa showed up to camp ready to play after being told he needed to change in exit meetings last season. It’s pretty easy to assume he showed more hunger than Zibanejad in camp, because if you’re talking NHL talent, there’s no way you could justify either player over Zibanejad, especially Da Costa who already fell out of favour once with the organization because he couldn’t adapt to the NHL.

Yet if two centres outhustled Zibanejad, and MacLean has already stated he only likes Zibanejad as a centre, you can see what happened here. Don’t believe for a second the team intends to have Da Costa ahead of Zibanejad for the long run. This is strictly message sending time and its clear Ottawa didn’t like the young Swede being outperformed by two prospects on the bubble.

There are very few times an organization has the ability to swing this kind of hammer on a young prospect and not hurt their own chances in the short-term. It happened to Jason Spezza early in his career under Jacques Martin when the comment was made about the NHL being a “man’s game” to justify Spezza sitting out. Now it’s happening to Zibanejad, and it’s likely the Senators can get along without him for a few weeks if it means getting this kid back into the right mindset to compete harder, assuming that’s the issue the Senators have with him.

Starting for a few weeks on the road without last line change will be pretty tough on some of the more slightly built Senators, such as Kyle Turris, Pageau and Da Costa, so it wouldn’t be surprising to see Zibanejad join them halfway. It’s a bit mystifying why MacLean would want to go into L.A., Anaheim and San Jose with the smallest team possible, but maybe Zibanejad’s training camp was just that bad. He looked good in the pre-season games that I saw, so there must be something behind the scenes that hurt his spot on the team.

It seems excessive, but it might be the best thing for both Zibanejad and the Senators if this cranks the kid up a bit.

Conacher Makes It Easy For Coach MacLean

Okay, I was wrong about Cory Conacher. This guy isn’t going anywhere soon.

I was convinced Mike Hoffman was destined to be on that second line going into the pre-season with all that speed and those flashes of NHL ability he showed last season before going on the shelf. Yet all he’s done this month is pretty much disappear and I’m not sure of the reason, whether it was not impressing early on in camp practices or not coming out of the gate strong in his first pre-season game on September 16. Whatever it was, Hoffman didn’t see another game until last night, a stretch of 10 days in which Conacher likely sewed up the job next to Kyle Turris and Clarke MacArthur.

Just look at Conacher’s last three pre-season games. 3 goals, 4 points, 10 shots on goal and he’s probably smelled more gloves from pissed off defenseman than any other Senator as he crashed the net every shift.

There’s no competition here right now for that spot. It’s Conacher’s. Hoffman had 3 shots on goal in his two games but hasn’t stood out. Mark Stone looked better than Hoffman but he still doesn’t seem like an NHL player. The gargantuan Buddy Robinson stood out early with two goals in two games but has started to fade. When the pace started to pick-up, it was Conacher, the guy with the most NHL experience, who kept pace.

And this guy is entertaining to watch too. You see scuffles at the net and eventually this little guy comes out of the middle with his helmet on sideways and his shoulder pads hanging out of his jersey. He’s fearless along the boards, behind the net and obviously has a way of getting goals standing right outside the crease. I’m not sure there’s going to be many laser beams from above the faceoff circles but Conacher doesn’t seem to mind going up against huge defensemen down low anyways. He’s going to get his head kicked in scoring 75% of his goals.

An 82 game schedule is going to be hard on him, as it was last season when he faded with Ottawa after tearing it up early with Tampa, but he’s probably learned a lot from that.

Pencil him in. Throw away the pencil.

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.

Black Aces Vintage: 78-79 Topps Wrapper

How incredible is this 78-79 Topps hockey wrapper?

Image courtesy of Shoebox Legends.

The Backhander: Karlsson Does A Tap Dance on the Jets And Other Pre-Season Notes

A few quick notes on the Ottawa Senators returning to action in Winnipeg last night for some pre-season hockey:

The only important reason to watch that game through the Jets website feed (with 1972-era AM radio audio quality) was to get an early look at Erik Karlsson. If he had come out of the gates looking slow and awkward, that could have been enough for some Sens fans to call the season off right there and head to the closest Royal Oak for a bender. Thankfully, the franchise kid looked fine. More than fine. He was the best player on the ice and seemed to have a little of that old swagger back too, smiling in between shifts, winking at the ladies in the stands (that’s a lie but it’s a good lie). His skating was noticeably better than it was in the playoffs. You’d even be tempted to say he looked exactly like the pre-Cooke Erik Karlsson but a September evening in Winnipeg isn’t enough to bet the house. But it’s a promising start.... There’s something about seeing the captain’s “C” on a #19 sweater in the NHL that just looks right. We can thank Steve Yzerman and Joe Sakic for that. Jason Spezza wore it for the first time last night and it’ll look pretty good on a hockey card. .... That top line looked really strong and not just because of Bobby Ryan’s snipe goal (which was a beauty). To me it was a healthy looking Milan Michalek who was going “biceps, triceps, arseps hard” everytime he went over the boards. I’ve never been convinced of any real chemistry between Michalek and Spezza, but with Ryan now there to feed off #19’s passes, that frees Michalek to do that straight-line, head-down style and go to the net which just naturally makes more room for his linemates who like to dangle a little bit. Michalek was even diving for pucks in what was a meaningless exhibition game. Maybe this guy is back in business. If he’s going like that all season, it’s almost a bonus scoring winger for the Senators. I’m not too sure many people were banking on him being healthy enough to play that style or stay in the lineup. First impressions are good though....

The player that surprised me most was Stephane Da Costa, who seemed to create something every time he was on the ice. He’s been the forgotten prospect in the organization and I’d almost forgotten how talented he really is. Yet even if he stays on this path through the pre-season, I can’t see him earning a spot on this team. Not only are the Sens over-stocked down the middle, but one more mighty mite may be one too many with Cory Conacher and J.G. Pageau expected to play games this season.... Nice to see Jim O’Brien still exists as a player for this franchise after being buried late last-season due to rumoured ice-time complaints. I was more impressed with college kid Buddy Robinson who ended up with a goal going to the net and generally played like the behemoth he is. He’s probably way too green to start the season here, but sometimes just having size is enough to be effective with limited minutes in the NHL. Just look at Matt Kassian in last year’s playoffs and in Winnipeg last night. As long as Kassian lays the body on every shift and keeps his tree trunks moving, he has an undeniable presence out there. Robinson obviously has way more tools than Kassian does, but if he plays any games this season, it will be his size and strength that keep him around until he develops his offense and gets a feel for the league. I think he’s one of the first call-ups when injuries hit, as they inevitably do....

Joe Corvo was back in a Senators uniform, and despite all the tired “Uh Oh” jokes on Twitter, he looks like he’s going to be a good veteran defenseman for this team. He’s a definite downgrade from Sergei Gonchar, but if you think of his role in terms of what the Sens wanted from Andre Benoit and Matt Gilroy in past years, he’s an upgrade for the second power-play unit. He had one tough giveaway in Winnipeg, but who’s counting in the pre-season? I guess I was..... Cory Conacher stood out and there really is something nasty about Conacher’s game that I love, yet he still feels like an odd fit on this team right now. With Mike Hoffman getting the early chance to show what he can do alongside Kyle Turris and Clarke MacArthur, Conacher may end up being a part-time player. I did like his approach in Winnipeg and he may make a believer out of me soon.... Something like this had to happen, didn’t it? In Spezza’s presser upon being named captain, his assistants Chris Phillips and Chris Neil had to help him with his collar before the photo-op. Spezza just laughed along with the reporters as he was tended to like a little kid on his first day of school. It wasn’t exactly a Mark Messier captain moment, but then again, Spezza didn’t cry like Messier so he had that going for him. In the end, coach Paul MacLean couldn’t have picked three better guys to get the letters.

Murray’s Final Days As GM Anything But Peaceful

Senators GM Bryan Murray is just one of those guys. Likeable, even when delivering bad news.

He has that mysterious but undeniable calming influence whenever he gets in front of a camera, with that shock of white hair and grandfatherly tone, telling us not to panic despite the latest crisis he has to deal with, whether of his own doing or by circumstances out of his control.

When the proverbial shit hits the fan, as it always does with this born-dramatic franchise, Murray always seems to have a way of holding the strands together, whether that’s the strands of hope for the fans or the strands of their own sanity. And that’s on top of keeping his own cool. He’s mostly composed in public, even when his own neck is on the line, but those darting eyes sometimes hint at a man who can be highly emotional about his job.

We only get to see glimpses of it when the cameras pan to his box in the rink where he studiously hovers over a steaming cup of coffee, twitching every time a chance is missed or a big goal is scored on the ice. His reaction is usually to drop his pen, shuffle some papers and blink a lot. But don’t let that fool you. Murray is as competitive and gets pissed-off as anyone when things go south.

We saw a glimpse of that when cameras caught Murray screaming at Los Angeles Kings broadcaster Jim Fox in the Corel Centre hallways after a fight filled game in 2005 when he was the Senators coach. It was an epic rant by Murray which went something like this: “You say I can’t control my guys? That’s a fu**ing cheap shot on your part. You don’t have the right to fu**ing cut me up. I’ve never done anything like this in my fu**ing career. For you to say that is fu**ing wrong. You’re full of shit. You yappy little prick.”

You can say one thing about Bryan Murray. He’s a hell of a communicator.

While not dropping any F-bombs in his very public role as the respected and well-liked elder statesman of the franchise, you have to think he drops one on occasion in his own office, thinking out loud about some of the problems he’s facing in his twilight years as an NHL executive.

Losing Daniel Alfredsson and having to explain to the public how it happened on his watch was one of the more painful episodes of his tenure here. Firing three coaches in four years was another grueling experience, as rebuilding the roster just a few years removed from a Stanley Cup final appearance and trading fan favourites like Mike Fisher and Chris Kelly for draft picks and prospects.

Through it all he faced the fans with sometimes brutal honesty and kept the people who buy the tickets on-board with the program, all with that same disarming humour and tone.

Contrast that with Murray’s more volatile boss, owner Eugene Melnyk, who not only conducts himself much differently in public and elicits direct anger from the fans, but is arguably Bryan Murray’s biggest headache these days.

The latest in an increasing number of very public fiascos was Melnyk going on Toronto sports radio yesterday (as he always does, virtually ignoring the local Team 1200 in the process) and attacking Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson and deputy mayor Steve Desroches for a perceived unfairness in the casino process. He’s claiming losses of close to a $100 million dollars the past decade and doesn’t know how the team will “survive”. Coincidentally, his President Cyril Leeder abruptly resigned from every city board he could think of, which is very unlike Leeder, who is well-known for his commitment to the community. There are also hints the Senators won’t be involved civically in the future (outside of charities) unless Watson and his fellow martians start playing ball with the team.

Before that it was a potpourri of ugliness, from forensic investigations into Matt Cooke’s skate slicing of Erik Karlsson, a public battle over bonus money with former star Dany Heatley, unproven allegations of shaky finances, a drastically reduced team budget and the Alfredsson affair which turned sour after a promise of fair money to the franchise icon was broken by the organization, at least according to Alfie himself.

Melnyk granted the Ottawa Citizen an interview and, in my view, disparaged the character of the city’s favourite adopted son in a see-through pre-emptive strike before Alfredsson’s first local news conference. Contrast that with Murray’s words the day Alfredsson left, when emotions were still high and an aggressive stance would have been understandable. Instead, Murray’s words were filled with respect towards Alfredsson and a genuine regret at losing him in the free agent process. He even called it “devastating”, which are words that rarely come out of a GM’s mouth. It showed an empathy with how the fans felt and went some ways in calming the situation down (although his immediate trade for Bobby Ryan was the real balm). In contrast, Melnyk was still angry and defiant an entire month later, which seems to be his most defining characteristic lately.

Yet, despite being handcuffed with an internal team budget that forced him to balk at Alfredsson’s asking price, Murray has assembled a young contending team that’s ready to make some real advances in the standings this season and win some goodwill back from the fans. Meanwhile, Melnyk is out there spitting venom. Let’s be honest here. We’re all just waiting for him to mutter the familiar words “move the team” any day now, aren’t we?

In a fair world, Murray would be on the verge of going out a champion whenever he decides to retire (probably sooner than later), handing the reins to his nephew Tim Murray or Pierre Dorion and staying on as an advisor, the celebrated architect of a stable franchise. He’d be riding next to Alfie in the parade car, both hometown heroes.

He may still get to go out a winner, but his job just gets tougher and tougher every time his owner gets hold of a microphone or puts financial limits on the hockey side. This should have been an easier few golden years for the silver-haired veteran.

I remember seeing Murray on that weekend, two days after Alfredsson’s departure, walking out of a grocery store and across a parking lot, carrying a bag of groceries to his car like a normal schlub. Lots of people walked by and didn’t recognize him. There were no “good luck this year” outbursts or even whispers of “Hey, isn’t that...”. I passed him and noticed that same pensive look on his face, maybe wondering what went wrong, or more likely just wondering what he was going to cook on the BBQ that night.

Pretty soon the worries of running this team for a hockey mad city won’t be his problem anymore, but in my imagination, that day he seemed to me like a man with some heavy weight on his shoulders.

Imagination or not, it’s a good bet he’s feeling that weight going into this season.

Spitballing Forward Lines (aka Bullshitting)

Michalek – Spezza – Ryan

MacArthur – Turris – Zibanejad

Greening – Smith – Neil

Hoffman – Pageau – Condra

Subs: Kassian, Conacher

Line 1: This just seems too easy to put together, so expect Michalek to slip on a donut in the dressing room and force MacLean to call for Greening again, or even the unthinkable... which would be Spezza and Ryan having no chemistry. I can’t see that happening but stranger things have occurred... like Spezza and Michalek having no chemistry dating back several years. Yet this just seems like the right fit on paper going into the season and could be a hell of a line.

Line 2: We all know it’s going to be Turris in the middle, but I like the idea of making Zibanejad a winger right now. It allows Smith to stay at centre on the third line and loads a lot of skill into the top-6. Turris had some success with Alfie on his right side, so why not put in the young Swedish horse there this year and see what develops?

Line 3: You gotta have a grind line and this fits pretty good. Smith and Greening can both play a shutdown game with their size and Neil does a bit of everything . Plus, Smith seems to shrink when he’s shifted to the wing but thrives going up against big centres. Think of the battles this trio will get into with bigger, physical teams like the Leafs and the Bruins. Not that Alfie and the Red Wings will be given a pass. Neil “joked” on the Team 1200 when asked if he’ll hit the former captain by saying “For sure. I’ll text him before the game and tell him to blow his nose so I don’t get snot on my jersey”.

Line 4: Now it gets sketchy. Condra is a lock, but nobody else can say the same. Pageau is awfully small and skilled for a fourth centre it’s his job to lose at the moment. As for Hoffman over Conacher, I always account for one surprise every training camp and I think this is going to be it. It’s just a hunch, but Hoffman’s speed is so ridiculous and Conacher’s short stint with the team was so underwhelming, that I can smell an upset here. Of course, Conacher has had more success than Hoffman at the NHL level and he’s the favourite to stick, but I’ve always liked Hoffman (what little I’ve seen of him) so I’ll live dangerously. Kassian will go in there more than most people realize as both Bryan Murray and Paul MacLean like having that threat in the lineup during the regular season. Kassian may not be able to skate with Pageau or convert too many 2-on1’s, but he’s going to be like his big brother named Chongo and won’t let the kid be menaced by anyone out on the ice.

I’m sure you disagree with my lines completely, so go ahead and give me an earful.

Top 5 Contract Priorities For The Ottawa Senators

They’ve barely wiped the blood off the floor from the Daniel Alfredsson bar brawl that occurred this summer, but hangover or not, the Senators have a lot to get done over the next year or two contract-wise to keep this team moving forward. Here’s where they can start:

1(a) Jason Spezza and 1(b) Bobby Ryan – Lumping these two together makes sense because if one goes, it may just spur the other to leave as well. They both have 2 years left on their deals before a chance to test the market. Putting the “C” on Spezza won’t automatically ensure his loyalty to the organization or convince him to take less than market value. He’ll want big money and likely want a scoring winger by his side for the duration of his next deal as well. Right now that’s Bobby Ryan and the Senators find themselves in a similar situation to Ryan’s old team, the Anaheim Ducks, who were faced with losing both Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry before signing both to huge deals. They made some much needed room by dealing Bobby Ryan this summer and Ottawa may have to wave goodbye to pending UFA Milan Michalek after this season to fit in extensions to Spezza and Ryan, although Michalek’s bad knees may have sealed his fate anyways. If the Senators can’t convince Ryan that Ottawa is the place to play, Spezza may follow Alfredsson right out the door thinking that this team can’t compete for a Stanley Cup. These two deals could be Bryan Murray’s last major mark on the franchise, for good or bad.

2. Jared Cowen – This is a little too obvious because he’s unsigned going into training camp, but his importance beyond this season can’t be overstated. He’ll never surpass Erik Karlsson as the franchise defenseman but he’s going to be the rock back there for many years much like Dougie Hamilton in Boston. It’s not surprising to hear the Senators allegedly offered him an 8-year, $28 million deal. With the cap going nowhere but up and teams falling all over themselves for big, mobile defensemen like Cowen, it would be a good investment for Ottawa to lock him down. But I’m sure Cowen might envision a future where he’s earning around $4-5m a season if his development pans out. He may not be jumping at the chance to lock himself in at $3.5 for close to a decade.

3. Marc Methot – The surprise of last season still has two years left on his deal but the Ottawa native fits in so well with this franchise that it seems a foregone conclusion they’ll want to sign him long-term. In a way, he’s the next Chris Phillips (more on him later). Personality-wise and hockey-wise, Methot and Phillips seem very similar, although Methot is the better player right now. There does seem to be an invisible cap on defensive defensemen so it will be interesting to see how much higher than $3m the Senators would be willing to go, but there’s no doubt he’ll ask for a raise.

4. Colin Greening – Now it gets harder. The former college kid Greening is a UFA after this season and it’s still unclear whether he’s going to be a power-forward on the top two lines or a fourth-liner who plays smaller than his size. He’s already 27 and sometimes needs a kick in the arse from coach Paul MacLean to get out of sporadic funks. He now has both Bobby Ryan and Clarke MacArthur ahead of him on the LW depth chart and Michalek plays the left side as well depending who else plays with Spezza. Unfortunately for Greening, he seems locked into the bottom two lines unless something changes. Yet guys with his size and skill are valuable and there’s no question about his character. He could end up being the replacement for Michalek in a year or even right away, depending on the state of Milan’s knees. But what do you pay him?

5. Chris Phillips – There’s still some good hockey left in the 35 year old veteran and his leadership is obvious to everyone who even casually follows the Senators. It’s hard to envision a guy who could easily be the next captain leaving this summer as a UFA. The Senators blew it badly with Alfredsson, so it would be nice to see Phillips finish his career in Ottawa, even if he eventually winds up as a sixth defenseman by the end of it. Yet there doesn’t seem to be any signs of a big drop-off in play right now. He had a strong season last year, and with the losses of Alfredsson and Sergei Gonchar, he’s one of the last true veteran voices left. On top of that he’s durable, has a knack for scoring big goals and is widely respected. A two or three year deal seems reasonable at this point and I’d be surprised if Phillips was looking to move elsewhere.

Other than the players mentioned here, the Senators are in pretty good shape. Kyle Turris, Chris Neil and Zack Smith are all locked up for 3 years or more. Karlsson’s deal doesn’t run out until 2019 and even though Craig Anderson’s is up in 2015, they have his heir apparent in Robin Lehner ready to go. Not to mention Swedish goalie prospect Marcus Hogberg who seems to have appeared out of nowhere causing a few hardcore prospect nerds to wet their pants in excitement.

Of course, the trail forward can bend a little if the Senators remain committed to being in the bottom third of league spenders. It was that philosophy which led to the messy departure of Alfredsson and could force out other fan favourites in the future.

Going the cheap route tends to put a stink on a franchise that’s hard to shake off, and players like to believe in the myth that their owner can add salary to get them over playoff hump. When that doesn’t happen, it can wear on veteran players and it clearly did on Alfredsson, who also had to deal with playing well below market value for years. Spezza hasn’t had to do that so far, but he’ll be less willing to sacrifice after seeing what happened to #11. Some of the trust and goodwill has been lost along the way.

Bryan Murray has some work to do to repair the damage and keep this team and its fans happy.