The Ottawa Senators played poorly and deserved tonight’s loss. It was an ugly game for several players and Ottawa had no answer to Boston’s aggressive forecheck. For the box score here link. Paul MacLean finally played Bobby Butler a little more, but Nikita Filatov barely saw the ice (he wasn’t bad in his limited moments). A look at the goals:
1. Foligno (Da Costa, Butler)
A fortunate bounce after Da Costa wins a battle along the boards
2. Boston, Lucic (pp)
Karlsson can’t control Lucic in front of the net who buries a rebound
3. Da Costa (Foligno, Neil)
A great play by Rundblad leads to a great play by Foligno to set up Da Costa
4. Boston, Bergeron
3-on-2 with Anderson having no chance
5. Boston, Kelly
Both Da Costa and Foligno collapse down low leaving the top of the slot open for a one-timer
6. Cowen (Neil, Foligno)
Weak wrister flutters through the Neil screen
7. Boston, Boychuk
Anderson can’t pick up the point shot through the screen (the play developing from a Spezza turnover just inside the blueline)
8. Boston, Paille
An ugly five-hole goal to Paille who out skates Gonchar for a mini-breakaway
In a game this bad it’s hard to reward any player with positive comments, but I have to acknowledge Nick Foligno‘s three-point night and Zack Smith‘s strong game.
The worst players tonight (and it’s hard to pick among the many):
Jason Spezza – lead the team in turnovers and accomplished absolutely nothing
Zenon Konopka – he barely played, but fighting Shawn Thornton right after the Sens scored was dumb–it gave the Bruins and the crowd life
3 Comments
Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI
eyeonthesens 
“In a game this bad it’s hard to reward any player with positive comments”
Why so negative? They were even with the cup champions through 45 mins of play, and still showed a lot of fight after the lapse where Boston pulled ahead by 2. Take out a couple of dumb penalties or throw in a couple of big saves by Anderson and the result could have easily been different. I saw a lot of positive in this game. Obviously there were some bad breakdowns, but that is going to happen when you have two rookies and Karlsson out there against a group of forwards as good as Boston’s.
I agree about Spezza, but let’s keep in mind he had an extremely tough matchup all night.
I’ll refer you to Paul MacLean’s comments in terms of how the team played (check them out on the Senators website). They did not play well and were fortunate to keep the game as close as they did. I don’t think the young players were responsible for the poor play in the game–the team’s veterans were more the issue.
I know they did not play well. I don’t think I said they played well. My point was that I felt you were being overly negative considering they were playing on the road against a Stanley Cup Champion team that came out flying. Saying “it’s hard to reward any player with positive comments” in a 5-3 game against an excellent team is quite extreme I think.