Sens at Land’s End

The heat is back on: two goals, one assist for the Heater in his most triumphant return! Even better, the Sens actually won the game 5-4. It wasn’t a brilliant performance by the team overall, but a win is a win right now.

Today being Hockey Day in Canada, normally all six Canadian NHL teams would play other Canadian NHL teams and the CBC would show all three games; however, because the Northeast and Northwest divisions do not meet each other this season and none of the Flames, Oilers, and Canucks plays the Sens, Leafs, or Habs even once this season, that can’t happen. Instead we got Detroit playing Toronto for the early game, Vancouver playing Colorado in the late game, and for some reason the only two all-Canadian matchups of the day — Edmonton vs. Calgary and Ottawa vs. Montreal — were at the exact same time. Thanks, NHL.

This was unfortunate scheduling, especially for me because CBC of course opted to show Calgary and Edmonton in the Vancouver region and I had to watch the online stream of the Sens game on my computer. Still, I was feeling good before the game because Alfie came back today and the big three were at last reunited! This realignment of the stars had disastrous consequences for the Habs: Spezza scored two goals in the first two minutes and then Alfie got another. With the Sens up 3-0 with only 6 minutes gone in the first, I was praying to the hockey gods that they could hold the lead.

They did, and even better, they added to it. Final score: Ottawa 6, Montreal 1. Spezza: 3 goals, 3 assists (moves up to 4th in the league in scoring). Alfredsson: 2 goals, 3 assists (13 points in his last 3 games, and after tonight he is now back to being tied for the league scoring lead). Heatley: 1 goal, 3 assists (7 points in 2 games since returning from injury). Big line total: 15 points. Emery: 33 saves, in what I think must have been one of the best goaltending performances for the team all season. If he can keep it up, I’ll be able to stop hating the goalies and demanding that they both be traded for a bag of pucks.

The team was also a bit lucky in that Montreal had about 4 or 5 shots go off the goalposts, but I tend to think puck luck is a good sign and might mean things are going to turn around now. I hope so anyway. For now, the Sens are back on my good side. I can put a hold on my fan breakdown, stop staring at that bottle of Jack Daniel’s, and regain my normal sunny disposition.

But back to the big line. They’re just so ridiculously good when they’re on, those three, clicking, like they were born to play together. And not one of them has a contract that expires before 2012. Score! Amusing fact: Spezza had a total of 13:37 minutes of icetime. He is truly an elite player. Hahahahaha … ahem. This was his first ever hat trick, and he was extremely happy about it. I saw him in post-game interviews and he was absolutely beaming.