Sens at Land’s End

Another lacklustre effort from the Sens last night results in a 4-1 loss to the Thrashers. The Thrashers! Remember beating them 5-1 about two weeks ago? Or did I dream that?

This latest crapfest found the team being put through its paces at a “rough” practice this morning by coach Craig Hartsburg, who called yesterday’s performance “very poor” and criticized the team for failing to make even one good pass during the game. Reporter Brent Wallace, meanwhile, referred to the team playing “emotionless hockey” in a story for TSN. And that’s exactly what it was. With the exception of Chris Neil and Jarkko Ruutu, who both deserve credit for at least trying to get the team going with a big hit and a fight respectively, no one in an Ottawa jersey looked remotely interested in winning.

Bryan Murray says he’s been looking into making a move of some kind, but does not expect anything to happen until after the NHL roster freeze ends on December 27. Until then, the solution appears to be a bit of line juggling from Hartsburg. Oh, I know what you’re thinking: Line juggling! Really?! From a Sens coach? HOW ORIGINAL!! Which is pretty much what I’m thinking. However, there is a fresh twist here as, rather than just taking one member of the Pizza Line (Daniel Alfredsson) and plunking him down with some new linemates (Mike Fisher and some other dude), Hartsburg will take the fairly radical step of putting each of Alfredsson, Dany Heatley, and Jason Spezza on a separate line.

In a video report on the Ottawa Sun website, Hartsburg frames this move in a positive light: “I believe in all three of them, and I think all three of them can maybe help a line be better.” But reading Bryan Murray’s comments on the situation gives a somewhat different impression:

“I watch a number of players who have played at a very high level – certainly regarded around the league as top quality players – and I don’t think we are getting the results from them we have to get,” Murray said.

“We can point fingers at anybody (management or coaches) around them, but the bottom line is good players should be good players, unless they are playing hurt or unless they have reached a stage in their career where they are on a downward decline or whatever that may be,” Murray said. “I don’t think that is the case here. Certainly that’s why we made commitments here to get continued improvement and results from them, and it is astounding that we don’t score goals, in particular. We have that ability and that’s not the coach, that’s not the manager, that’s not the teammate – that’s the player doing, to their best of their ability, what they can do.”

Ouch. That “downward decline” thing looks like a not-so-veiled dig at Alfie to these eyes. It will be interesting to see what new line combinations the coaching staff comes up with for Friday’s game against New Jersey and how they perform and, if they fail to perform, how long they last. I guess Sens fans are about to find out the answer to the question of whether three big ones are better than one big three.