Sens at Land’s End

Since Saturday’s loss, I’ve been feeling a bit hostile towards the Sens. This weekend was just not cool. I will put up with a lot, but back to back poorly-played games resulting in losses to Anaheim and Toronto is apparently past my limit. I was so annoyed that I didn’t even wear red today. Normally I always wear red on gameday, but this morning I thought: screw it, they don’t deserve it. They clearly don’t care about me enough to make any special effort to spare me pain, so why should I make a special effort to be supportive of them? It would be pathetic of me to do so, really, when they treat me so poorly. But then, when I was putting on my jewellery I saw my Sens logo earrings sitting there and … I caved. I wanted to do the tough love thing, but in the end I couldn’t abandon them completely.

My relationship with this team is very complex.

Pregame Remarks

The NHL Network commentators introduce this game by noting that it’s a matchup of the second best team in the NHL (Buffalo, undefeated in regulation so far) against the second worst team in the NHL (that would be our Senators), and that the Sens are off to the worst start they’ve had in 13 years. Well, I sure feel pumped up for this one now!

Again, we have new line combinations: tonight, it’s Heatzza with Antoine Vermette, while Alfie finds himself on the second line with Mike Fisher and Nick Foligno, which actually sounds like a promising combination to me; however, I have little faith that I’ll see it beyond the first period. Other lineup notes: the Sabres have elected to start the Sens’ old buddy Patrick Lalime instead of Ryan Miller, while Alex Auld is in net once again for the Sens with Brian Elliott backing him up. Christoph Schubert is back in on defense; Luke Richardson is the scratch.

First Period Notes

For a period of two or three minutes, the commentators go wild with praise for Jason Spezza. He’s “oozing skill,” they say, and making “all-star passes.” It’s pretty nice to hear TV guys talking about Spezza’s multitudinous good qualities for a change, instead of honing in on his one bad habit, and talking about it endlessly, and picking away at him until you’d almost think he’s about on par with Donald Brashear in terms of talent and lucky to be in the NHL at all.

Apparently, the team will be going to visit owner Eugene Melnyk at his ranch in Florida tomorrow, and the commentators joke that the players could be made to clean Melnyk’s barn if they don’t win tonight. Melnyk has a barn? I thought he was more a beach house kind of guy. Then again, he is in pharmaceuticals. Get it? Pharmaceuticals. Ha! Ha ha … ha. *cough*

The first period is one of missed opportunities for the Sens, who have a few of what look like sure-fire goals fail to find the net, including a loose puck just outside the Sabres’ crease that no one can quite get to and a Dany Heatley deflection of a Filip Kuba shot that hits the post on a late power play.

But then, a miracle happens at 18:06, when Jaroslav Spacek tries to clear a puck from behind the net. The puck ends up in the slot on the stick of a wide open Christoph Schubert, who scores! The Sens! Score!! First!!!! They have the lead! I know it’s hard to believe! But it really did happen! Of course, I am quite sure the Sabres will follow this with five unanswered goals.

With a little more than a minute left in the period, there’s a scrum near the Ottawa net when Maxim Afinogenov takes a shot on Auld after the whistle and the entire Sens team, led by Jason Smith, jumps him. When the dust clears, the Sabres are shorthanded: Afinogenov has been given two for unsportsmanlike conduct, apparently as a punishment for the initial late shot that started the whole thing. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen that called before but I’m not complaining.

The shots are 11-8 for Ottawa after the first. And the Sens have actually managed to come out of the period with a lead. Praise the hockey gods!

Second Period Notes

Nineteen seconds in, I get to shout something I haven’t shouted in a while: HEATER GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!! It’s a little bit of that old Heatzza magic as Heatley gets one off a setup by Spezza from behind the net. Maybe this is a good sign. The commentators are now giving Heatley his turn on the wheel of praise. “He’s a hockey-playing machine!” they declare. He certainly looks much less depressed now that he’s got a goal.

A couple of minutes later, the Sens are called for too many men. I read Craig Hartsburg’s lips during a shot of the bench and make out something that looks like “mucking bull pits,” which is no doubt a reference to the punishment that awaits the players tomorrow if they don’t shape up. Spezza serves the penalty, which seems like an odd move at first. When he comes out of the box, takes a pass from Vermette, beats two Buffalo defenders, outwaits Lalime, and then scores a goal, however, it starts to look like a positively brilliant strategy. 3-0 Sens at 4:48 of the second.

Scary moment for Ottawa when Alfie falls awkwardly after Ales Kotalik gets a stick between the captain’s legs. He grimaces as he gets up, but seems to be okay. With four minutes left in the period, Mike Weber hits Alfie with a hip check. Alfie goes down, and Mike Fisher is in there beating the living crap out of Weber before you can shout “unacceptable!” It’s good to see Fisher playing like a wildman again, and even better to see the Sens standing up for each other. Best of all, Alfie is uninjured and, as a nice treat for Sens fans, Weber gets the extra two for tripping.

A few minutes later, Alfie sets up Heatley, whose shot results in a rebound which Spezza converts for his second goal of the game. Unbelievably, it’s 4-0 Sens after two, the Sens have outshot Buffalo 14-7 in the second, and the Sabres are booed off the ice by their fans. This is bizarre, yet wonderful. I had so little faith that the Sens would even score a goal tonight that I actually benched Spezza in one of my pools.

… doh.

Third Period Notes

Shean Donovan, Offensive Dynamo, strikes again at 5:50, and it’s 5-0 for Ottawa. Woot!

The game gets its second fight as Chris Neil throws down with Andrew Peters. I’m chatting with some non hockey fan friends at this point, and one of them asks me if fighting is the best part of hockey. No, it’s totally not, but it is a nice occasional bonus. Neil and Peters are off to the box, and somehow Jason Smith gets a 10-minute misconduct out of all this hullabaloo too.

At 12:57, Heatley gets a tripping penalty. He protests to the referee that the other guy got him first, and he’s doing that thing hockey players always do where they compulsively check their faces for blood. That always makes me laugh. It’s less funny five seconds later when Anton Volchenkov is called for delay of game, and the Sabres now have 1:55 of five-on-three time. But then there’s a shot of Neil, Heatley, Volchenkov, and Smith all looking annoyed in the sin bin together, and that gets me laughing again.

What follows is a truly epic adventure in penalty killing: Alfie breaks his stick but is able to retrieve another one at a stoppage, but then, ridiculously, Fisher breaks his stick too, and he suddenly seems to be everywhere! He’s blocking a shot! He’s sprawling on the ice to block another! He’s wildly waving his arms, trying to stop the puck with his bare hands! It’s incredible! The Sens are 20 seconds away from killing the entire five-on-three when, sadly, the Sabres score. But it was an amazing effort all around from the penalty killers.

With a little less than two minutes left in the game, Patrick Kaleta and Jarkko Ruutu drop to the ice after a very brief skirmish following a Ruutu hit on Kaleta. Ruutu sits on Kaleta for a while, then gets an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty.

The Sabres score again on the ensuing power play with 32 seconds left in the game. The final score is 5-2 for Ottawa, and the commentators figure this means Eugene Melnyk will probably not make them muck out the stable tomorrow. “They’ll get pudding even if they don’t eat all their meat,” they say. “They’ve been good boys.”

Postgame Thoughts

Hartsburg seemed to leave the game with the line combinations he came with, and that makes me happy. I’ve been hoping we’d get to see a non-big three scenario get a full 60 minutes to click.

The final shot count for the game was 28-27 for Ottawa. After two, it was 25-15. In the third, it was 3-12. I’m not sure I consider this a full 60-minute effort. While I like seeing the players stick up for each other and I’m not averse to a little bit of violence, I’d like to see the team cut down on the number of hooking, holding, and delay of game/too many men/other useless penalties they’re taking. They need to lower the amount of time they’re spending shorthanded — Buffalo had 17:09 of power play time. That seems like a recipe for disaster. On that note, kudos to Christoph Schubert for making it through an entire game without taking a dumbass penalty for the first time in as long as I can remember.

Overall, they did well. I would probably also give them dinner if they came to my house tomorrow. If they keep it up for a few games we can think about dessert.