Heading into the 2015-16 season, excitement for the Senators was palpable. Not only did the Senators have one of the youngest opening night rosters in the NHL, their best player was coming off his second Norris Trophy win by the age of 25 and the team was looking to carry the momentum from their historical regular season run into this season.
In taking four of a six possible points from Atlantic Division rivals in their first three games, the Senators certainly started the season off on the right foot.
Their goaltenders are stopping 94-percent of the even strength shots, Erik Karlsson is averaging a point per game and their new first line combination of Mike Hoffman, Kyle Turris and Mark Stone has combined for four goals and 11 points.
On the surface, everything is gravy.
Look a little under the hood however, and the record and production look like little more than window dressing.
Just like this preseason and seemingly every season since Paul MacLean left, the Senators are still plagued by high event hockey. Through three games, the Senators have given up disproportionate volume of shots (39.9-percent of 5v5 shots, worst mark in NHL), shot attempts (42.2-percent of 5v5 shot attempts) and scoring chances (39.6-percent at 5v5).
It’s not just the relative nature of these stats either, the Senators are allowing 34 shots per game and 35.4 shots per 60 minutes of five-on-five ice time. When the Senators are only averaging 25.3 shots per game or 23.5 shots per 60 minutes of five-on-five ice time, it means the opposition is spending a lot more time with the puck.
Preseason concerns for the second line’s ability to produce and control the play while playing away from Mike Hoffman have continued. Bobby Ryan and Mika Zibanejad are still searching for their first even strength points and they own the two worst relative CF% marks on the team. (In other words, relative to their teammates, no one on the team has been on the ice for greater percentage shot attempts against than these two.)
The performance of the blue line has also been dreadful. With Jared Cowen and Mark Borowiecki, it was expected, but the first and second pairings have also struggled to keep their heads above water.
One of the worst-kept secrets in Ottawa these past few years is that the Senators’ success has been predicated on the performance of its goaltenders and through a few games, it certainly feels like this will ring true again this season.
The good news is that it’s just a small sample size of games and Ottawa’s underlying numbers will inevitably normalize and improve. The numbers will always feel worse considering the Senators weren’t exactly playing world beaters, but it’s important to remember playing three games in four nights is always going to be difficult irrespective of the quality of the opponent.
Most importantly, the Senators are 2-1-0 and can simply improve the quality of their team by improving the choice of their personnel or by staggering the talent through their lineup. As good as the first line has been, the second line needs a puck possession driver to make it successful. The answer isn’t Curtis Lazar and hopefully it can be Clarke MacArthur because of how good the first line has been. I know that Dave Cameron obviously wants balance offence with defensive aptitude, hence using Hoffman with responsible players like Turris and Stone, but if the second line isn’t effective with MacArthur, he has to bump Hoffman back to the second line where it has worked before. And for as much as I believe the bottom six misses Erik Condra, eventually Chris Neil is going to run out of rope and Cameron will be forced to give Shane Prince an extended look.
All these things can help improve the Senators’ underlying numbers and make them a more competitive team, but if this organization keeps playing high event hockey, I can’t help but wonder when the conversation will eventually shift and we can debate the merits whether or not this team can ever contend or have sustained success playing that kind of hockey.
Sens Owner Had a Stroke
Bruce Garrioch had an excellent one-on-one interview (that I’m sure he would be happy to remind you was an Ottawa Sun exclusive) with Senators owner Eugene Melnyk that ran over the weekend. If you haven’t already, give it a read because it’s the first time that Melnyk has spoken publicly since his liver transplant.
A few points that were of particular interest to me were the revelation that Melnyk’s health issues “really started with a stroke in January and by early April he learned he needed the transplant in order to live,” and Melnyk admitting that he does not know who his anonymous liver donor is. According to Melnyk, “he hasn’t met the person and doesn’t have any information about them — isn’t even sure if it’s a male or female.”
Bobby Ryan Gets Scoring Advice From Bobby Clarke
Pierre LeBrun had an excellent feature on the Senators’ Bobby Ryan for ESPN that examined last season’s scoring struggles and the steps that he has taken to prevent those struggles from reoccurring this season.
Ryan reviewed the last 25 games from the 2014-15 season and observed that he was cheating offensively.
“As a goal scorer, I think you get past that three- or four-game stretch of not scoring where you start to force things and you start to cheat a little bit. When it comes to nine games and 10 games, you’re like, ‘Holy s—! How do I handle this?’ What I saw is that I did a lot of swinging, I got out of the hard areas and played a lot on the perimeter. That’s kind of the cause of it.”
Besides getting into the gym and putting some work in, Ryan even received advice from the Bobby Clarke because what would a Bobby Ryan story be without something or someone that links him to the Philadelphia Flyers organization?
“Bobby Clarke told me to kind of abandon the game that I was playing and get mean, get to the hard areas, do the dirty work, get the net and whack away.”
Sure, whatever works. I would have settled for Clarke telling Ryan that he just needs a little more Mike Hoffman in his life, but if Ryan wants to play less on the perimeter, I’ll take it.
As an aside, LeBrun played up Bobby Ryan’s class because he handled reporters respectfully when they asked whether or not he was playing hurt down the stretch because of his struggles. I think I liked it better when we all believed that Ryan’s play was hampered by injury.
Other News and Notes
– ESPN revealed its latest Ultimate Standings rankings which asked fans to rate their favourite teams in a variety of categories such as affordability, coaching, fan relations, ownership, players, stadium experience, title track and bang for the buck. The 122 teams from the MLB, NHL, NBA and NFL were rated across these categories, so you’re interested in reading more about how ESPN weighted these categories to arrive at their final rankings, you can click here.
After dropping 83 spots from their ninth overall ranking from 2013, the Ottawa Senators moved up 34 places from last year’s 92nd spot to finish as the 58th-highest rated organization in 2015. The Tampa Bay Lightning (third) and Anaheim Ducks (fourth) finished as the top two respective NHL franchises in the rankings, but Ottawa finished as the 18th-highest rated NHL team. Although Ottawa did not grade well in the title track, ownership, players, coaching and stadium experience categories, they finished 24th overall in the best bang for the buck category. If you want to read more specifically about Ottawa’s ranking, you can click here.
If there was one nugget of information that was interesting, it was the write-up for the team’s arena situation.
“While Ottawa doesn’t excel in any particular area, the soulless, suburban arena predictably gets the worst mark even if the stadium experience is slightly better than it was last year. No wonder Melnyk is keen to move his team downtown during the next decade — provided taxpayers foot some of the bill.”
After hearing Senators president comment on the public not having the appetite for publicly funded stadiums or arenas, I wouldn’t put too much stock into this. Mind you, we’re still waiting for the RFP proposals to roll in and have some of their details reach the public, so there is that.
– Andrew Hammond returned to practice today and indicated that he’s healthy enough to return to the lineup. With that news, the organization returned Matt O’Connor to Binghamton.
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