Sens at Land's End

A few noteworthy happenings for the Sens these last couple of days:

First, Jason Spezza has been named the NHL’s first star for December because of his 25 points in 14 games. I definitely think he deserves this, and am very glad to see him being recognized for his general awesomeness.

Second, because of the Sens’ great record to this point in the season, John Paddock will be coaching the Eastern Conference All-Star Team. Detroit’s Mike Babcock will coach the West.

Third, and this is the best news of all news ever, according to TSN, Anton Volchenkov will return to the Sens’ lineup against Buffalo on Friday. Huzzah! It’s probably too much to ask only one man to completely eliminate the team’s recent defensive problems — 14 goals against in two games?! Come on! — even if that one man is the shot-blocking equivalent of Sue Storm from the Fantastic Four. But having him back can only help.

The Sens have played a few games this year where they’ve scored a lot of goals but also given up a lot of goals (6-5 losses to both Nashville and Pittsburgh as well as a 6-4 win over Atlanta and the recent 8-6 horror against Washington), which concerns me a little. I don’t think they should ever score more than 4 and lose. I’d be extremely happy if they could go the rest of the season without giving up more than 3 goals in a game. Note to Sens: get on that.

This morning, TSN reports that Nick Foligno has been sent to Binghamton. I like Foligno and am a bit sad to hear that, but I’m sure they know what they’re doing. Cody Bass is still with the big team, which surprises me a little. I’d have assumed he’d be the first to get sent down.

Other than that, I woke up at a ridiculously early hour to watch Team Canada take on Finland in the World Junior Hockey Championship yesterday. Canada won, and will play the United States in the semi-final tomorrow. I thought Canada played much better against Finland than they had in any of their previous games so that’s a positive sign. The most impressive player on the team to my mind has been John Tavares.

Sue Storm, because she makes force fields, of course, not because she’s invisible.