A
An omission from Tuuka Rask’s ‘time on ice while short-handed’ statistic is the inordinate amount of time that Ottawa maintained puck possession on a Boston delayed penalty in the second period.
Tim passed along a story to me this morning. During this delayed penalty against the Bruins, a mutual friend of ours was watching the Senators taking the play to the them for almost two minutes. At that point, he stopped to take a long look at the red wine that he was drinking and said, “Is this actually happening or is it the wine?“
As a reward for his performance in the rookie tournament, Shane Prince didn’t receive much ice-time last night. He did however make a few nice passes during the aforementioned delayed penalty that led to a few quality scoring chances for the Senators. Although Prince, in all likelihood, is a few seasons away from being a productive NHL player, nothing seems to faze him. I’m already looking forward to watching him play in a few years.
B
“Mika Zibanejad spoke best with his overtime screamer, a rocket of a one-timer off a Brian Lee pass to beat the Boston Bruins with 1: 43 left in OT.” ~ Wayne Scanlan, The Ottawa Citizen
“A Mika Zibanejad fluttering shot fooled the B’s goaltender for the game-winner, but it couldn’t wipe out all the good work leading up to it.” ~ Joe Haggerty, CSNNE.com Bruins Insider
Isn’t it weird how two different people can watch the same game and drastically manipulate how the information is presented? (Note: You can judge the shot for yourself over in the videos at TSN.ca. PS – Scanlan’s the one who’s right.)
I digress.
I recognize that it’s only preseason play and the games aren’t supposed to mean anything but Mika was the first Senators forward to score in over 123 minutes of pre-season play. Is it too early to wonder where the goals are supposed to come from this season?
Maybe not. According to the 2011-12 Hockey Prospectus Annual, their VUKOTA projections have the Senators finishing last in the NHL this season with 206 goals. Here are the rest of their projections:
- Goals Against: 234 (21st)
- GVT: -27 (28th)
- Points: 82 (28th)
C
Full marks need to be given to two significant cogs from last season’s Calder Cup winning Binghamton Senators. Amongst the forwards, Kaspars Daugavin’s 2:38 TOISH was only behind Erik Condra’s 3:06 and he had the fourth highest total minutes. Maybe that’s an indication that he’s likely to be one of the first call-ups in the event of injury or Paul MacLean just really liked his shirt.
On defence, Borowiecki’s TOISH of 3:10 trailed only Chris Phillips’ 3:55. As easy as it is for some to make the argument that Borowiecki and Prince got to play in last night’s game because they have local connections, unlike Prince it’s obvious that the team relied heavily upon the Borocop.
D
Not since the days of Zdeno Chara has a Senators defenceman been discriminated against because of his height and size. Cue to the third period when Jared Cowen received a two-minute slashing penalty for having his stick broken in half by a Patrice Bergeron slash.
E
Yeah, just keep your head down Burke.
F
Can we finally put the Corey Locke could be a legitimate NHL center talk to bed now? Look at the mess he made of his stat line tonight. There’s sweet stat all to look at. Hell, it features more zeroes than a Justin Verlander pitching line. His only redeeming contribution was the fact he was the only center to win more than 50-percent of his face-offs and he only took five of them.
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