Archive for the 'Ottawa Senators' Category
The NHL just posted their playoff promo commercials to YouTube. There’s “Tighter” with Ryan Getzlaf, “City” with Roberto Luongo, and in a most unfortunate pairing of bad timing and bad wording…”Shorthanded” with Daniel Alfredsson.
Oops. Is anyone in the NHL Marketing Department an actual hockey fan?? Do they not get the NHL Network in the office? Did they not see this hit last night? None of the NHL suits thought it might be a good idea NOT to release that last commercial?
The Sens (if they make the playoffs) are going to be “shorthanded” for the first couple of weeks of the playoffs. Captain Alfredsson is expected to miss 1-2 weeks time between that hit and a knee injury also suffered last night.
After a lost weekend at the Coliseum in which the Isles scored one lousy goal, the team finds itself five points behind the Flyers for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. The Islanders, who are currently in tenth place, have 15 games left, one less than Philly and ninth place Buffalo. The Sabres have 71 points, two more than the Islanders.
It doesn’t look good but the lights ain’t out yet. But man did the Islanders lay an egg this past weeked or what? First, they fell to the Flyers 4-1, a game which was pretty much sealed when the Isles gave up yet another short-handed goal. Then on Sunday, after a pretty awesome ceremony marking the “Core of the Four,” the Isles went out and failed to put one of their 53 shots past backup Panther keeper Craig Anderson.
Here’s what some Islanders had to say after the game.
“I looked up at the scoreboard and I turned to Wade [Dubielewicz] and said, ‘I can’t believe we had 52 shots,” newest Islander Rob Davison told Newsday. Asked whether Davison had ever been on a team to register 52 shots that failed to win, he said “Absolutely not.”
Wait a minute, my bad. Davision didn’t say that after yesterday’s game. He said that after the Islanders pulled almost the same stunt and lost to the Penguins just last week after recording 52 shots. At least they scored two goals in that game. Yesterday – nada. 53 shots and no goals and a big loss. I hope this freak occurence ends here. One time is bizarre. Two is suspicious. Any more and we have a trend. The Islanders don’t need bad trends right now. They need goals and points in the standings.
For the season, the Islanders are tied with Columbus for the second-fewest goals in the league with 164. The Blues have the fewest with 161. The Islanders and the Blue Jackets share the worst goals-per-game ratios in the league, however, averaging just 2.44 tallies. The Blues average 2.47. If the season ended today, none of the three would make the playoffs. By contrast, Ottawa leads the league with 216 goals in 66 contests – a 3.27 goals-per-game average. On paper it doesn’t seem like such a huge difference but it is.
The Isles’ lack of scoring has been a major storyline all year. We’re not breaking any new ground but the fact remains, as we’ve said and as many others have said, this team isn’t going to win consistently until a little more firepower can be had. Maybe I need to revise that statement, and exchange “scoring’ for “firepower” because the shots have been coming lately. Shots are great. The Islanders need goals.
They needed four points over the weekend. They came away with zero. The clock is ticking.
Next up, a home-and-home series against the Rangers starting tomorrow night.
While underdog lovers everywhere were salivating over two huge upsets in the NFL playoffs yesterday – the Chargers dethroning a shocked Colts team and the Giants stepping on the throats of an equally surprised Cowboys club – the biggest upset of the day may have taken place on the ice in Ottawa, where the Islanders beat the number one team in the conference 3-1.
The Islanders knocked the Sens senseless. They were faster, stronger, and smarter and won on the strength of nine power plays. That’s right. They got nine power plays on the road against the top club in the East. They had to be doing something right.
It helped that all-star sniper Dany Heatley missed the game with a shoulder injury and high-scoring forward Jason Spezza was taken out of the action early by a crushing hit from Freddy Meyer. Still, the way the OrangeAnd Blue played with passion for 60 minutes, I think they probably would have skated away with a win no matter who suited up for the Senators. They were that good.
And being that good in Ottawa is a rare occurrence for the Isles. In fact, it was the team’s first win in Ottawa since 2003 and just its third since 1996. To put that in perspective, the Yankees have won more World Series over that span (four) than the Isles have won road games in Ottawa (three).
It’s been sort of a rollercoaster first half of the season but Islander fans have to be happy with where the team is after 44 games – all alone in eighth place, just six points off the division lead. All the problems that have dogged this team are still there – an often punchless offense, lackluster defense, and stretches of bad penalties – but the Islanders seem to have recaptured the grit of the early season that catapulted them to the playoffs last season. They need to hold onto that.
Next up, three big games against conference foes Montreal, New Jersey, and Philadelphia.
The Ottawa Senators have beaten the Islanders in 8 straight games and are loaded with talent – Spezza, Alfredsson, Heatley…and Andrej Meszaros? Meszaros scored two fluky goals last night, one on an awful angle and one from the point that deflected off an Islander player to tie the game with less than two minutes to play. That led to a wild OT with 4-on-3 powerplays for both teams, and even a little 3-on-3 action too (kinky!). Ottawa had a fantastic chance after DP came out of the net to poke the puck away, and the Isles had a Park/Satan 2-on-1 broken up by an Ottawa defender. Sillinger had this to say about DP after the game.
“Oh man, I hate that,” Sillinger said. “He did give us a scare. I was thinking, ‘What the hell is he doing?”‘
Thank you Silly. You’ve just spoken for hundreds of Islanders fans everywhere.
Back to the game, DP and Emery kept the puck out of the net in OT and for the first time this season, the Isles were headed to a shootout. Alfredsson beat DP in the first round while Emery stopped Satan and Vasicek, which left the game on the shoulders of Captain Bill Guerin who came up with the big shootout goal to tie things up. Finally in round 6, Mike Sillinger scored and DP stopped Dean McAmmond for the Islanders 3-2 OT shootout win last night. Big win for the Orange and Blue who historically struggle vs speedy Ottawa.
The boys head to the city tonight to try and continue their dominance of the Rangers this season, looking for their 4th straight win vs the Blueshirts. Good thing there’s no such thing as a “Senators-hangover”…I hope. If you’re in the city, don’t forget about The Boss at the NHL Store today from 4-6pm before the game. I’ll be out watching the game and Thursday Night Football with the boys, so no live blog tonight unless Tommy can update.
Ottawa forward Randy Robitaille, who skated for the Isles last year, tells the Ottawa Sun today that he’s not surprised to see the team’s solid start to the 2007-08 campaign.
“Everything starts from the goal on out and they’ve got a good one in Rick DiPietro,” he said.
Randy also gave credit to Coach Ted Nolan. Randy’s off to a slow start for his new team, posting two goals, one assist and a minus 6 in 13 games.
James Gordon of the Ottawa Citizen ran a Q&A between fans and Senator scoring machine Dany Heatley today. Nothing earth-shattering in there but it’s definitely an enjoyable read. I’ve always thought it was a good idea to have a give and take between fans and players, particulalry the kids. See below for an excerpt from James’s article and see here for the rest of it.
Here’s hoping the Isles do something to slow down Heatley tonight. The guy has 17 points in 16 career games against the OrangeAndBlue, including 11 goals.
Several people wanted to know what Heatley’s schedule is on game day.
Dany Heatley: Generally you just come to the rink in the morning…obviously pre-game skate (usually at 10:30 a.m.). We usually have our penalty-killing meeting in the morning. Morning skate usually takes 20-25 minutes.
Just usually stretch it out in the morning, just kind of get the body loose and then the best part of the day is the pre-game meal.
You have some sort of pasta and chicken or fish. Then usually around 2-4 is nap time. Usually wake up around 4 p.m. and usually from 4, that’s when it’s time to really start thinking about the game. Get to the rink around five-ish.
I do a lot of sticks before the game. For about an hour, I get my sticks ready. Then we have our meeting about an hour and a half before (the game).
James Gordon: What would you talk about in that meeting?
DH: That would be the team coming up. You do special teams in the morning and then the team plan in the evening, and then you’ve got about a half-hour before warm-up, so usually I do a little warm-up routine in the weight room, get stretched out and get ready to go.
Shawn Bates may make his season debut tonight, according to the New York Post. Bates has been sidelined with a sports hernia and groin injuy since January. A lot has happened since January. It was cold, got warm, got hot, and has become cold again. The Yanks and Mets blew it. The Islanders got run over by the Sabres. My wife’s uncle gave us his 1996 Chevy Lumina (we’re all about style). And I broke half the bones in my face playing a co-ed soccer game. That’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Anyway, it will be great to have Bates back, if indeed he does return tonight against the Senators. When healthy, and that has seemed rare these past few seasons, Bates is a hard worker who can light the lamp. The Isles have been held to two goals or less in their last nine games, so any additional offense is big.
It would be great if the Isles could actually beat Ottawa for a change. The Sens have won eight straight against the Coliseum Heroes. Why? Well, for the most part, they have been too quick, too skilled, and just plain better. Isles need to grind these guys down a bit, get the hits going early and often.
