Sens at Land's End

This game was a flashback of sorts for me as it was not televised, and therefore took me back to the dark age before I had Centre Ice, when I listened to almost every Sens game via The Team 1200’s website.

I realize now that I am easily distracted without visuals and I have very little idea what’s going on in a game I can’t actually see, so I don’t have too much to say about this one. I do know that the Sens lost 3-2 after an extremely lengthy shootout, though.

Lightning = Wusses. If Dean and Gord on The Team are to be trusted, the Lightning were all about avoiding contact in the first. What a bunch of sucky babies.

Feel the Heat! Dany Hot-Hot-Heatley and Antoine “Hot French Guy” Vermette accounted for the Sens’ two goals this evening. Vermette, who also assisted on Heatley’s goal, hadn’t scored a goal in almost a month. From what I could tell, he continued to play on the top line with Heatzza.

Alexander the Playing Very Well. Alex Auld stopped 32 of 34 Tampa shots and was named the second star of the game by The Team. Unfortunately, Mike Smith stopped 29 of 31 Ottawa shots and was named the first star of the game by both The Team and NHL.com. I hope to see Auld get the start on Tuesday against Washington. He has certainly earned it.

Shootout Shenanigans. The lineup of players the Sens sent into the shootout went like this:

Vermette
Daniel Alfredsson
Jason Spezza
Heatley
Jarkko Ruutu
The Absolutely Stone Cold Mike Fisher (described during the game as “covered in snake bites”)
Nick Foligno
Dean McAmmond

Would it surprise you at all if I told you that Spezza and Ruutu were the only one who scored? No? I didn’t think so. I have no problem with sending Spezza and Vermette out in the first three shooters; both have decent numbers over their careers (Spezza: 36.4%, Vermette: 29.4%). But I can only assume that Heatley (18.8%) was unable to convince Craig Hartsburg how much he sucks in shootouts.

Heatley: “Uh, coach, I’m not so good at these things.”
Hartsburg: “What? You’re the sniper! The 50 goal man!”
Heatley: “But –”
Hartsburg: “Heatley! Get out there!”
Heatley: “Okay, okay.”
Rest of Bench: “We’re humped!”

Alfie is a decent choice with his 23.5% career shootout percentage — or he would have been, if Ruutu and his 50% rate of success had not been sitting right there on the bench! I think it’s fair to blame this one on a faulty shootout order. Replace Heatley or Alfie with Ruutu in the lineup and the Sens would have the extra point.

Tomorrow night, I will be going on a field trip to GM Place to see the Canucks play the Detroit Red Wings. This will be the first NHL game I’ve attended since May 2007, and the first one I’ve ever been to that hasn’t involved the Sens. I hope it’ll be fun, despite their absence.