-Ottawa fell 3-0 to the Leafs tonight in a game that was much more entertaining than I expected. The score is somewhat deceiving as Toronto did not dominate and the Sens could have earned a point or two if they had more puck luck (there are many instances one could pick, but for example Stephane Da Costa losing control of the puck on a clear breakaway in the first comes to mind). Craig Anderson made 25 saves in the loss, but wasn’t really a factor either way in the loss. Here’s the boxscore; Scott had the scoring chances 12/10. As for the players debuting for Ottawa, Derek Grant struggled the most and played the least, while Eric Gryba played the most and tied as a team-worst -2.
–Nichols transcription service offers some words from Bryan Murray:
Some of these damaged tendons take up to a year (to recover fully). Dr. Chow was the front doctor on this with a couple of others working with him and indications were that it went well enough that the timeframe was basically confirmed to be 100-percent.
So the expectation continues to be that Karlsson will fully recover.
The league, Brendan [Shanahan] being the front guy for the league in this case, has to do what they feel is right. They feel it was a hockey play gone bad. I suggested that Matt Cooke had somewhat of a history and that maybe that should be considered as well. But I don’t believe that’s the approach that they took; they took it as the individual act. I’m not sure. I’ve heard some sources say that this is the new way to do things in hockey – get your body in position and your skates are more in the play than they have been in the past. Being in hockey all these years, I don’t see that very often but beyond that… it’s no benefit for us or for anybody (to push for the player to be suspended). It’s up to the league to make these decisions. We get no value out of a player being suspended and I’m not pushing that at all.
It’s a polite way for Murray to say he thought Cooke deserved a reputation suspension, but has already moved on.
We’re going to talk to teams. I don’t think I want to give up first round picks right now to finish up the year. I want to continue to… we have got some kids. We have got a few hurt down there but we’ve got a few kids that we’ll give a chance to – out of necessity, more than anything. I think we’ve got a core here and I know we’ve got a good coaching staff and they’ll put up a game plan to make us competitive every night. I thought last night we kind of lost a little heart in the third period because of Erik (Karlsson). I think they all went into the room and saw him. I thought we had a really good second period; we were very competitive in the game. Now we’ll have a day to recover and hopefully come back.
These comments (and others) boil down to is that Murray isn’t looking for quick fixes and is taking the long view.
-Binghamton lost 5-2 to Wilkes-Barre last night; Robin Lehner made 30 saves in the loss while Tyler Eckford and Jack Downing provided the goals (Louie Caporusso picked up his first-ever AHL point). Binghamton then proceeded to defeat Albany 3-2 this afternoon in a shootout, with Lehner given a rest so Cheverie made 35 saves for the win; Cole Schneider and Caporusso scored the goals and Chris Wideman enjoyed his first two-point night in the AHL.
This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)
eyeonthesens 