-Ottawa gave up a one-goal lead, but came from behind in the third period to beat Montreal 4-2. The win, which included 48 saves from Craig Anderson, was overshadowed by a massive hit by Eric Gryba on Lars Eller that knocked the Danish center out. I’ll get into that momentarily. Erik Karlsson, Jakob Silfverberg, Marc Methot, and Guillaume Latendresse scored the goals for the Sens, who were out played for two periods before taking over in the third. Here’s the boxscore.
-My thoughts on the Gryba hit are that it was clean, but had a terrible result (which seems the general consensus; here’s Kerry Fraser‘s take as an example). Gryba isn’t a dirty player, he’s not even a consistently physical one. The entire play went as badly as it could for Eller, who was hung out to dry by his teammate Diaz. As for discipline, the NHL has no measure of consistency whatsoever in how it handles things, but injuries are punished much more commonly than anything else, so the two game suspension is no surprise. I suspect Sens fans would be in an uproar if a clean Prust hit had the same result–it’s hard not to be outraged when your player gets hurt. For me, I’m not that concerned with the discipline is, as the main focus should be Eller and his health.
-With Gryba out, Patrick Wiercioch will play tonight.
-A lot of the nonsense coming from the Montreal organisation today is, I think, meant to be a distraction from Carey Price‘s rough night and the Habs injury woes (besides Eller both Max Pacioretty and Brian Gionta will miss tonight’s game. Hopefully the Sens ignore the comments and focus on playing their game.
–The Raaymaker offers his view of the game and says that P. K. Subban outplayed Erik Karlsson:
I thought that on the whole, with all aspects of the game taken into consideration, P.K. outplayed EK65 in Game One. You can’t argue with results, and Karlsson had two points for a reason, and he definitely created much more offensively than Subban (especially considering Subban‘s 8:36 PP TOI), but Karlsson was highly questionable in the defensive zone. I’ll attribute that to the fact that it’s his fourth game back from a severe tendon injury, and his D-zone unreliability was mitigated by ample forward support, but it is what it is.
Raaymaker’s argument really boils down to Subban being better defensively, and Karlsson did make some uncharacteristic turnovers in his own zone and still seems to be a half-step slower than he was pre-injury. That being said, I don’t think the distinction between the two is that clear cut.
–Worsteverything also offers a recap and among the many things he says mentions the Sens powerplay being awful. I think one of the two was terrible, but the other created chances.
–Scott looks at the Sens scoring chances for the last quarter of the season and looks at the trends and all the Corsi and Fenwick goodness hardcore fans love.
-Binghamton’s season came to an end with a 3-2 loss to Wilkes-Barre. Nathan Lawson made 25 saves in the loss, while Matt Puempel and Mark Borowiecki scored the goals. Pat Cannone‘s terrible season ended appropriately, as he took the penalty that lead to the Penguins winning goal. Here’s the boxscore.
This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)
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