Sens at Land’s End

Like Hester Prynne, Dany Heatley will soon wear a scarlet (or white) A on his chest. Unlike Hester Prynne, Heatley is not going to be publicly shamed by the town elders. Probably not, anyway.

Alright, so the Sens played like a giant steaming pile of poo poo last night and pretty much let themselves get violated by a makeshift version that stupid team from Montreal. It’s okay. It’s only pre-season, so let’s not think about it too much and just move on.

Aside from all the fights, I thought the most interesting thing about last night’s game was some new accessories which were, according to Dean and Gord from The Team, pinned to the chests of Dany Heatley and Jason Spezza: with Chris Phillips and Daniel Alfredsson both sitting out the game, Heatley took on the captain’s C, while Spezza wore an A. (Former Binghamton Senators captain Chris Kelly, who wore the C in one of the other pre-season games, had the other A.) Okay, the dynamic duo’s first foray into leadership together may have looked a bit, er … crappy. Even so, I think this is an extremely positive step for the team and two of its best players.

Obviously, this is just preseason and a heck of a lot of guys had to be taken out (Mike Fisher and Jason Smith also did not play) before Mr. Giggles was symbolically anointed with a leadership role. But it’s still good to see that the team is now comfortable placing this kind of trust in him. Spezza is a guy who, it seems to me, works very hard every offseason to get better at what he does (thought he rarely gets credit for it). The Senators have asked him to become a more complete player, and he seems eager to take on that challenge. He’s also establishing himself as a part of the community in Ottawa. These are great steps for a player who is going to be an important part of this team for a long time to come (knock wood, or I guess composite now).

As for Heatley, I offer him a big congratulations and a hearty “Well done!” as the Sun reports that he will most likely take on the alternate captain’s A left vacant by Wade Redden this season. Heatley says:

“I’ve always been known as a goal scorer and that’s never going to change. That’s kind of been my reputation: Just score goals and do nothing else. But I feel, and I think the staff feels, that I’m capable of doing more than that and I’d like to do it this year.”

And Bryan Murray agrees:

“I know after speaking with Heatley after the world championships (in May, where he was named MVP) that he wants to be a really important guy on our team and for it to be his team some nights. I’d like him to step up.”

Craig Hartsburg, too, has positive things to say:

“He’s a guy that I look to and he wants people to follow him. For a guy that’s scored 50 goals, everybody talks about his offence, but he wants to do more and not just be a goal scorer. He wants to be involved in other parts of the game. Sometimes those guys aren’t like that.”

I really like the fact that Heatley has actually asked to be placed in a position of responsibility on the team. It shows a great level of commitment and, as Hartsburg says, a lot of superstar players would probably be content just to show up, score their boatload of points, and go home. It should make all Sens fans very happy to know that ours intends to reach above and beyond merely being one of the best scorers in the game (though I doubt we’d turn down another season of 50 either).

It’s interesting that this year’s World Championship has been mentioned in connection with both Heatley and Spezza’s growth. If that tournament has actually been a major catalyst for all this, then it really might turn out to have been a huge boon to Sens fans, and we’ll all have to write Steve Yzerman, Ken Hitchcock, and the rest of the coaching staff a long letter of thanks.

Tonight is the Sens’ last pre-season game before they head off to the distant land known as Sweden (that’s where they make Alfies!) tomorrow night. Hopefully they can exact some revenge on the detestable bleu, blanc, et rouge for yesterday’s humiliation, not that the humiliation even matters ’cause you know it’s only pre-season. If you have TSN2, you can watch the game. If you only have TSN, you can watch the Stampeders taking on the Argos in exciting CFL action.