In his first game behind the bench on Thursday night versus Los Angeles, Dave Cameron elected to dress the same lineup that his predecessor, Paul MacLean, frequently used, but today things have really been shaken up.
Ottawa’s new head coach was sold to Senators fans as a good communicator and today Cameron sent his first message by making veteran defenceman and assistant captain Chris Phillips a “healthy scratch” to allow Patrick Wiercioch back in the lineup.
Phillips out – “a coaches decision.” #Sens
— Bruce Garrioch (@SunGarrioch) December 13, 2014
Surprised about Chris Phillips. This decision wasn’t taken lightly. #Sens
— Bruce Garrioch (@SunGarrioch) December 13, 2014
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Whether the decision required a long deliberation or not, a large and vocal sect of the fan base will be rejoicing over news that Phillips will be sitting this one out. Phillips’ struggles this season have been well-documented, but despite the seemingly obvious quantitative and qualitative observations that portray a player who is no longer capable of playing significant minutes, Phillips has remained in the lineup and inexplicably been in used in high-leverage situations against tough competition. In fact, through 23 games, Phillip’s time on ice per game is 22:22 – which matches his career regular season high that he set in 2006-07.
As much as people will use this opportunity to thump their chests and score one for lineup optimization, unless the organization is prepared to keep making decisions like this over the long-term, I worry that short-term results could still be of influence here. I mean, Phillips will draw back into the lineup at some point and if the Senators lose this afternoon, that could come as soon as Monday night in Buffalo.
Taking that one step further, we still don’t really know who the coaching staff will utilize to play with Erik Karlsson in Marc Methot and Phillips’ respective absences. It’s completely possible that alternatives like Jared Cowen or Mark Borowiecki could similarly be overmatched thus compelling the coaching staff to put Phillips right back in there.
Part of the problem at work is that Ottawa’s coaches seem to have made a lot of their decisions because they feared for their survival and it playing the veterans at the expense of younger players was “safer” and harder to scrutinize.
Cameron definitely deserves credit for making this move, but unless he’s willing to commit to this with regularity and make similar decisions down the road, I’ll remain skeptical about this being a true changing of the guard. Hell, it’s tough not to be cynical and think with Ottawa’s luck that they’ll lose another afternoon game and all will be for naught.
Ah, the life of a Senators fan these days…
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