Putting up 14 shots at home is never going to help you with a metric dependent on shot attempts. So while last night's game was particularly poor and not really representative, the trend of the graph is clear.
With Karlsson the Senators were taking 53.0% of the shot attempts in score close situations, the past 19 games without Karlsson they've been taking 47.5%. League wide they've fallen from 7th to 18th.
Replace an Erik Karlsson with an Eric Gryba and your team is going to have the puck a lot less.
I'm not predicting doom and gloom for the team, they're comfortably in a playoff position and their schedule down the stretch isn't exactly filled with world beaters. That MacLean has held things together with this roster and continued to bank points is a huge credit to him, and the goaltending.
But once they're in the postseason I'd certainly like their chances better if they were the team more than not putting up the most shots. A healthy Spezza will help in this department (obvious statement is obvious), so we just have to hope he's Spezza when he returns…and not something else. I'd be cool with similar form to Havlat after he missed the bulk of the 05/06 season.
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