-The Sens pulled off yet another victory by defeating Montreal 2-1 in the shootout. The team did not play well and owe the win to Ben Bishop (definitely his best game of the year). David Dziurzynski scored Ottawa’s only goal in regulation, while Jakob Silfverberg and Peter Regin scored in the shootout. Here’s the boxscore.
Game Notes
-interference hasn’t just crept back into the game, but it’s starting to get ridiculous (especially hooking)
-speaking of the officiating, one has to wonder what sins Bryan Murray committed for the organisation to continue to be on the short end of the power play stick
-the Sens were dominated by the Habs for most of the game and had few opportunities
-both Chris Neil and Mark Methot took dumb, selfish penalties in the game (the Habs scored on Neil‘s)
–Kyle Turris looks like he’s lost his confidence; along with his offensive woes he was horrific on faceoffs and took a pointless penalty in overtime
-Habs hit iron three times last night, the Sens just once (Regin in OT)
–Silfverberg remains deadly in shootouts
–Regin was not expected to play last night, but as Paul MacLean says:
I apologize, I said there were no changes, and after I came downstairs Peter marched into my office and said ‘I’m ready to play, I want to play. You’ve got to put me in the lineup.’ He’s a veteran player and when he comes in and tells you that, you’ve got to respect that. So I said, ‘well, you’re in.’ It was a good decision by him.
-I understand what Jeremy Milks means when he compares Dziurzynski to Brian Boyle as a player who has come out of nowhere for most, but let us recall that Boyle was a first round pick (1-26) in 2003 whereas Dziurzynski was a free agent signing out of the BCHL–very different pedigree. Jeremy also doesn’t like people criticising Neil because he’s done good things for the team–just because a player makes good plays doesn’t mean they are immune to criticism because of bad ones
-Don Brennan, he (and Bruce Garrioch and various bloggers like Milks above) of the Sens aren’t tough enough arguments, finally looks at the lack of fighting by the Sens. As Chris Neil points out:
It’s been different with all the injuries we’ve had. For Smitty and me, you don’t just go out and fight, you’re playing a lot more. If something happens to one of our teammates, we’ve got to go take care of it. We know that. But you’ve got to play the game as well. We’ve been going against the other team’s top lines, (coach Paul MacLean) wants us to shut them down, and that’s what we’re focused on.
So the fighters on the Sens have to focus on playing the game as opposed to fighting and look at how the team has performed with that focus. For those counting at home, the leader in fighting majors so far this season are the Toronto Maple Leafs (9th in the league), followed by NHL juggernaut Columbus (30th) and the Philadelphia Flyers (19th).
This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)
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