Sens at Land’s End

I woke up this morning to the news that the announcement of a new contract for Daniel Alfredsson was imminent, and a few hours later it happened: Eugene Melnyk, Bryan Murray, and Alfie himself appeared at a press conference in Florida to tell us that Alfie has signed a four-year deal that will probably make him a Senator for life. The deal, which is very frontloaded (he’ll make $9.1 million next season and only $1 million in the final year of the contract), is worth a total of $21.6 million.

Scott Morrison has the cap hit at $4.88 million in his blog at CBC. My best guess as to where he gets that figure is that the $2.1 million Alfie will be paid next year for scrapping the option years on his old deal does not count towards the cap. Maybe someone who knows a little more about the CBA can let us know if that’s true. (Edit: The Globe and Mail’s Eric Duhatschek confirms my assumption.) If Morrison is correct about the cap hit, then I think it’s fair to say that Alfie has given the Sens a pretty nice looking discount. But who would have expected anything else from the captain? I know some alarmist members of the media were speculating that Alfie might actually make it to free agency this summer, but I think Sens fans always knew that was never going to happen. Alfie is, as has often been said, the heart and soul of the team, and it’s a role he obviously takes very seriously. I could never have imagined him going elsewhere and I’m overjoyed that he’s in all likelihood never going to wear another NHL team’s jersey.

I figure this pretty much guarantees Ottawa will have a Cup championship within the next four years, don’t you think? I’m choosing to believe that, anyway.

So, the most important Sens story of the day happened well before the game even started. Unfortunately, they still had to play the Panthers this evening.

Pregame Remarks

Before the game, the commentators on the NHL Network discuss the Sens’ goaltending situation. “We’re not the only ones that think the Senators are a better team with Auld in there, are we?” No, you’re not. Next up: it’s a nauseating retrospective on Ottawa goalies through the years. Wow, I think these guys might be even more inept than I remembered, and I remembered them being pretty darn inept.

Tonight’s lineup is the same one that faced Buffalo on Monday, with one exception: Brian Elliott has been sent back down to Binghamton. Alex Auld is in goal. He is being backed up by an individual whose name I have vowed never to utter in spoken or written form again.

Blogger Fashion Watch: Since it worked out so well on Monday, I have once again not worn red. I do have my Sens earrings on though.

First Period

The Sens have quite a bit of pressure in the Florida zone early in the game, which leads to a couple of golden opportunities — including one where the puck is right in front of Dany Heatley and he just can’t get it — and a Florida penalty six minutes into the period. According to the NHL Network, Florida’s penalty kill is 25th in league. However, the Sens don’t get much going in the first minute of their power play. Or, actually, anything at all. In the second minute, they get … also nothing.

I can hear the sound of Christoph’s Schubert’s skates scraping the ice at one point, and I wonder what the ice quality is like. This building was much, much fuller for Barack Obama’s campaign event yesterday.

Midway through the period, there’s a rinkside interview with Jason Spezza. He says the team trip to Eugene Melnyk’s ranch was “real fun.” The commentators inform us that the team had a softball tournament yesterday, and now some of the players are working on getting a softball team up and running for this summer. Chris Kelly has been named the team manager. How funny would it be to find out that the Sens’ team was playing in your neighbourhood league?

Shean Donovan takes a hooking penalty with 6:51 to go in the period. A minute later, Jason Smith is in the box for, ugh, delay of game, giving the Panthers a minute of five-on-three time. Really, this delay of game crap has got to stop! As they drop the puck for the first faceoff of the five-on-three, I have enough time to think that Smith is not a great puckhandler and then just like that, Florida has a goal on a point shot from Keith Ballard. Rostislav Olesz is screening Alex Auld on the play. Just standing in front of Ottawa’s net, totally unmolested. That must have been nice for him.

With 1:25 to go in the period, Alex Auld comes diving out of the net, apparently to retrieve a puck that was sliding through the Ottawa zone before David Booth could get to it. This is one of those insane plays that makes me wish teams could just use leashes to tie their goalies to the net. Auld almost takes Booth out but he does not get the puck! This is potentially bad news for the Sens, but happily Schubert is there to play makeshift goaltender and nothing horrible comes of it.

First Intermission

The shots are 9-8 for Florida in the period, which seems about right. I thought the Sens started off well but Florida pretty much took over after the Sens’ power play. Our intermission content includes an interview with former Ottawa 67’s player Nick Boynton, as well as a feature called “Jarkko Ruutu Unplugged,” which, haha, is clips of Ruutu miked up during the first game of the season in Sweden, giving his new teammates some insight into his old teammates. Watching Evgeni Malkin go in on goal, Ruutu lets the bench know that Malkin will always shoot. Watching Sidney Crosby carry the puck, Ruutu announces that Crosby will always pass. We then get a brief interview with Eugene Melnyk, who discusses the Alfie signing. “Daniel is the centrepiece of our organization,” he says.

Second Period

The Sens seem to start to getting a few good chances around five or six minutes into the period. At 13:20, Nathan Horton takes a big shot at Auld, but Horton hears a clang as the shot goes off the post.

The big three get a good chance at 11:48 of the period as Jason Spezza steals the puck from Boynton beside Florida’s net and sends it out to Alfie, who is zooming into the slot. Vokoun stops Alfie’s shot and holds on with Heatley standing there waiting for a rebound.

I wonder if Nick Boynton wears number 44 in honour of the fact that Brian Campbell wore it when they were partners on the 67’s. Did you know that Boynton finished the season with a plus/minus of +81 one year with the 67’s? It’s true.

Um … there’s a rinkside interview with Cory Stillman. I liked him with the Sens. The Jarkko Ruutu-Chris Kelly-Chris Neil line seems to be working hard … okay, I was up sort of late last night and well, this game isn’t exactly a thrill a minute so you’ll have to forgive me if I missed some stuff.

Yikes! With about four minutes to go in the period, Heatley runs into Spezza, and we see Spezza grimacing and flexing his hand on the bench. He doesn’t go in for treatment and doesn’t miss any time so I guess he’s alright, but really, Heater, it’d be best if you could avoid taking out your own guys.

A shot of Jacques Martin reminds me of the most boring hockey game I’ve ever attended. Coincidentally, it was between these very teams back when Martin was Ottawa’s coach. Wade Redden lost his helmet during play and then couldn’t get it back on. He went off to defend without it, then came back towards the end of his shift and finally put it back on, and everyone cheered because it was quite literally the most exciting play of the game.

Florida is penalized as Karlis Skrastins takes down Antoine Vermette. The Sens get the first 16 seconds of their power play in the second and will finish it off in the third. Hopefully they can get a goal and you know … not lose.

Second Intermission

I take this opportunity to check in with my fellow Sens bloggers and see what they’ve got to say about Alfie. We are all familiar with the phenomenon that is the Sens’ inability to win without Alfie in the lineup. For a while now, I’ve been concerned about what will happen when he eventually retires. Well, a comment Senators Lost Cojones made over at Hockeyschlock got me thinking, and I believe I’ve come up with a way to prevent the horrible leadership vacuum and onset of total suckiness that will probably occur when Alfie retires. There’s this trilogy of episodes of Farscape where Crichton has to marry a princess on some weird planet, and after they get married they get turned into statues. They are supposed to stay in this state for 80 years, during which time they preside over the planet’s senate. The purpose of this is supposed to be continuity of government: as statues, they can still hear everything that’s going on and even communicate, and they learn everything there is to know about the government this way. So, you see, all we need to do is invent this statuizing tecnology, use it on Alfie when he retires, and then he can lead the team forever. He wouldn’t just be a Senator for life: he’d be a Senator for eternity.

By the way, if you’ve never watched Farscape, you should check it out: it’s amazing.

Statue Crichton, providing government continuity. (Image from FarscapeCaps.com)

Third Period

Ottawa gets some pressure on the power play but nothing comes of it. The commentators say they aren’t shooting enough, and I’m inclined to agree. I have learned over time that, in hockey as in life, you can’t score if you don’t shoot.

Stillman takes a delay of game penalty at 14:42 and finally, the Sens capitalize as Heatley puts a crazy seeing eye shot between Tomas Vokoun and his goalpost and it’s 1-1. How the heck does Heatley do that? I’d love to know, but I bet he could never explain it.

Uh oh, Mike Fisher takes a hooking penalty about 40 seconds after Heatley’s goal. Florida’s power play is apparently 30th in the league: basically, they’re good five-on-five but their special teams suck, which makes them the Sens’ shadow selves or something. The Sens are able to kill the penalty. A brief note on Fisher: he looked good on Monday but I can’t say that I’ve noticed him much tonight.

At 9:40, the Ruutu-Kelly-Neil line is back on the ice doing some very good work indeed in the Florida zone. Neil tries the wraparound on Vokoun. The puck ends up loose in the crease with Ruutu and Kelly both in front of the net hoping to pick up a rebound. Kelly is eventually able to put the puck under Vokoun, and it’s 2-1 Sens. Good job!

During the next few minutes, Florida has trouble getting any kind of offense going as the Sens are doing an excellent job of stopping them in the neutral zone. The Panthers shoot themselves in the foot a little at 3:13 when Booth is called for highsticking Alexandre Picard. For 1:47 straight of the ensuing power play, the Sens are in the Panthers’ zone. They don’t get many good chances, but the pressure they have is very impressive.

Vokoun is out of his net with 50 seconds to go. The Panthers are buzzing in the Sens’ zone but they do not score and the Sens hang on to win the game 2-1. This is two wins in a row now! It’s their first winning streak of the season! Isn’t that both awesome and kind of sad?

Postgame Thoughts

The bulk of this game could not really be called exciting, but to my mind it was the best third period the the Sens have played in a while and probably the most solid we’ve seen them when playing with a lead (though, admittedly, they didn’t have to hold the lead for very long). They still took a couple of dumb and inopportune penalties; however, they kept the number low — only three penalties on the night (and Schubert has now gone two games in a row without ending up in the box). Meanwhile, Alex Auld continues to look solid in goal. Overall, I feel pleased. Well played, Sens. Well played.