With his Senators set to take on the Arizona Coyotes tomorrow night in Glendale, Senators assistant general manager Pierre Dorion met with the media for a few minutes to discuss the current state of affairs for the team.
To listen to the short four-minute interview, you can stream it using the media player that adorns the top of this post. You can find the transcript below.
As always, my thoughts are in bold.
On being happy with the direction of the team…
“Obviously as a team, we’re really happy with where we are right now. I think this is our best start since (2007-08), I believe. We’re sixth in the league at this point in time in points. We’ve just gone into two buildings where we hadn’t won a game in ten years. We just got four points, so I think it’s pretty positive that way. I think our goalie is on top of his game. I think if you look at the way Erik Karlsson is playing, his points per game, I think it’s the highest he’s been (at) for a long time. I think he’s playing really well. He’s definitely showing that he’s a two-time Norris winner, so we’re really happy with the way the direction of this team is going.”
Eeeeeeesh, probably not the best idea to reference the 2007-08 team that infamously floundered down the stretch and necessitated the Cory Stillman and Mike Commodore for Patrick Eaves and Joe Corvo trade that was designed with the intent to shake up the team without touching its core. Although the team finished second in the Northeast Division, they were swept in the first round of the playoffs by a vastly superior Pittsburgh Penguins team. It’s impossible to disagree with his assessment of Craig Anderson and Erik Karlsson though, both players are playing incredibly well of late. I mean, there’s still room for growth in Karlsson’s possession proxies, but from a pure production standpoint, he’s killing it right now.
On it being a situation where everyone is contributing to the team’s success…
“Yeah, for sure. If you’re looking… obviously our special teams have been better lately. Our power plays, I think last night the streak got stopped, but we’ve scored in nine games in a row. Is that it, if I’m (correct)? Eight or nine games that we’ve scored on the power play, so I think that’s good. I think if you’re looking at our scoring, we really like the way that we’re attacking (and) scoring. If you look at the last few games also, we’re getting scoring from the third and fourth lines, so if all four lines can score consistently, I think that bodes well for us.”
Okay, so Dorion’s not exactly going to disagree with Gord Wilson’s comment about everyone contributing to the team’s success. He’s not going to publicly acknowledge that some of the guys are shitting the bed. As someone in management who watches every single one of Ottawa’s games, he’d have to share Jared Cowen’s lack of awareness to believe that he or Mark Borowiecki have played well or played well together. Hockey is a results-oriented league in the sense that people tend to often get tunnel-visioned on the numbers that appear on the back of a hockey card instead of the process that leads to it, but with Ottawa’s shooting percentage and save percentage propping up some underwhelming individual efforts by its skaters, you have to dig a little harder to measure what’s really going on. Case in point, I explained how the third line of Milan Michalek, Jean-Gabriel Pageau and Alex Chiasson has performing at an almost -26 corsi event swing from last year’s trio of Erik Condra, Pageau and Curtis Lazar earlier today. Give it a read, won’t you.
On Shane Prince and Chris Wideman’s contributions thus far…
“I think in Shane’s case, I think Shane was just holding the stick so tight before last night’s game. I think finally when he got his first one early in the game, he just started rolling and we saw the Shane Prince that we all think we can see eventually play for us. As far as Chris Wideman, when he’s gotten into the lineup, I think he’s been arguably one of our better guys. He’s played really well. He’s moved the puck. His passing skills are outstanding and it’s just for him, it’s the ability to defend. For the most games, I think he’s maybe had one off-game, but for the rest of the time, he’s been pretty solid.”
Prince is a perfect example of a player whose results didn’t reflect how well his underlying numbers had been. Ideally, like guys like Mike Hoffman before him, the production will catch up to what he’s doing on the ice, but he’s a guy who has the ability to make those around him better. It’s a ridiculously small 40-minute sample size, but he’s actually made Smith and Neil better! How many guys can actually say that?! (Note: seriously though, play Prince on the third line with Pageau and Chiasson. They desperately could use him.)
On Jean-Gabriel Pageau’s play of late…
“Yeah, Jean-Gabriel has played where he left off last year. I think his energy, I think how tenacious he is… I think people say he might not be the biggest player, but you can never measure the size of the heart. I think for us, he’s a key cog in our success as a team just because he has the ability to kill penalties and he has the ability to play against the other team’s first or second line. So I think he’s left off (like) last year where he was so good.”
He’s not like where he was last year. His line hasn’t been either. Just read this piece.
On whether management has any concern regarding the team…
“Yeah, obviously there’s always (concern)… you know, if we were 22-0 and won every game by five goals, there wouldn’t be any concern and even there, there might still be some concerns. I think for us, I think the coaches know more than anyone. I think for us to go where we want to go as a team — a team that can win in the playoffs and not just be happy about getting into the playoffs – we have to tighten up defensively as a five-man unit. It’s like in baseball, you can’t give a team 37 outs. I think you have to give a team 27 outs and sometimes you give a team a few more chances than you want to. It just hurts you. You can’t do those things moving forward and our coaches are very well aware of that. Our players, I think, are very aware of that and sometimes through the course of the season you’re going to have lapses, but I think at the end of the day, we’re alright.”
The more I listen to Pierre Dorion interviews, the more transparent it is that he reads the blogosphere. Throughout his interviews, he’s always placating concerns brought up by bloggers regarding the team’s underlying numbers.
On having only five regulation losses and whether this team is getting the respect it deserves…
“I think respect comes maybe from doing it over a long span of time. I think at points in time, we’ve been inconsistent this year, but when we’re on, I think we’re a pretty good hockey team.”
A pretty good hockey team that desperately could use two or three more defencemen.
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