From Senators practice today:
Ryan is working on a pp unit with Michalek and Zibanejad, but before you think that could be No. 1 combo, Karlsson is on the other pp #sens
— Don Brennan (@SunDoniB) October 1, 2014
On the Karlsson pp unit is Turris (at the point), MacArthur, Legwand and Stone #sens
— Don Brennan (@SunDoniB) October 1, 2014
Interesting pp combinations … Turris on point with Karlsson, Zibanejad on point with Ceci
— Ken Warren (@Citizenkwarren) October 1, 2014
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It’s only one practice and as such, it’s pretty tough to get worked up over the use personnel. Case in point, in today’s earlier blog post, I didn’t even mention the fact that Chris Neil was on the ice for the Senators in a power play situation with less than a minute to go in last night’s 2-1 loss to the Jets.
Although Sylvain St-Laurent later mentioned that Jared Cowen, Chris Phillips and Patrick Wiercioch were also getting turns to play on the power play, you would assume that the Senators would figure out a way to get more reps for Wiercioch – a player who ledall NHL defencemen in power play points per 60 minutes of 5v4 ice time over the past two seasons. (Note: qualifier for this stat is that the defenceman must have played more than 200+ 5v4 minutes.)
I don’t know, maybe it’s crazy to suggest that the Sens, a team that may have difficulty replacing some of the offence that Jason Spezza brought to the table, could better utilize a player who averaged 5.64 points per 60 to help this team’s power play.
Unfortunately, Wiercioch is the same player who took only one shift in the third period last night following his egregious turnover in front of the net that led to Winnipeg’s second goal. For whatever reason, Wiercioch’s margin for error is a lot smaller than a guy like Jared Cowen and with the way that Ottawa’s utilizing their defensive pairings, none of this bodes well for Wiercioch’s future in Ottawa, no matter what his underlying values and numbers tell us.
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