With New Year’s celebrations about to begin I thought along with good wishes to all of you I’d catch up on some Sens news.
Sheer Craziness offers a largely tongue-in-cheek series of resolutions for the Sens hockey community and I wanted to echo one I especially agree with that may not seem to warrant the emphasis of others:
3. Lose the buzzwords
Let’s face it: terms like ‘grit’, ‘character’, and especially ‘compete level’ mean almost nothing. They’re words you use to describe a veteran player who isn’t very good anymore, or a badly out-shot team who wins a few games in a row. With a few notable exceptions (looking at you, Alex Kovalev) everyone in the NHL competes. Only in very rare circumstances can you will yourself to victory. Let’s stop kidding ourselves.
Among one of the biggest flaws in actual sports journalism is an over reliance on vague and meaningless analysis accompanied by such buzz words. “Compete level” has as much to do with hockey success as gummy bears and while I don’t expect anything to change I truly wish it would.
Nichols wonders if the Sens will deal Craig Anderson with their playoff hopes spiralling down the drain. It would make a great deal of sense–the veteran goaltender ought to be on a Cup or at least playoff contender–but the Sens have shown a great deal of reluctance of moving veteran assets when their value is high. If they do trade the goaltender, they’ll need a rental to backup for Robin Lehner, as Andrew Hammond is not ready (although see the Mannino news below).
Jack Leiper likes the look of Colin Greening via his Corsi numbers (something Dustin Nelson pointed out a couple of weeks earlier). There are a couple of things to take away from the fact (keeping in mind the small sample size): 1) savvy NHL teams may be aware of the fact and that might mean there’s a trading partner for him, 2) the Sens may decide to wait for Greening‘s production (such as it is) to come closer to the underlying stats.
The B-Sens signed free agent goaltender Peter Mannino to an AHL contract. Mannino was bumping around minor league rosters this season without the security of a full contract; the thirty-year old has served as an AHL backup the three previous seasons. The roster addition could be an indictment of Andrew Hammond‘s ability to carry the load, insurance in case of injury given how short the organisation is on goaltenders (Jeff Ulmer is confused by the move), or a necessary step to make trading Anderson possible.
For anyone who wants to keep track of Evansville this season, here’s a blog dedicated to the team.
Enjoy the evening everyone!
This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)
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