Thinking of the Post Season

The Ottawa Citizen's Wayne Scanlan is one of the better hockey writers IMHO, not just because he knows his stuff but because he also seems to take a very measured look at his subject.

As tough as it may be for the fans, Scanlan acknowledges the pros and cons of the Senators' season and looks ahead in this article from today's edition.

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/sports/Time+think+post+season+Sens+fans/1433093/story.html

Time to think 'post-season,' Sens fans

The recent run has been fun, but, with playoffs out of reach, the focus can turn to '09-10

Friday, March 27, 2009, by Wayne Scanlan, The Ottawa Citizen


If the Ottawa Senators' 2008-09 season was a hospital patient, the family would be gathering for the vigil, expecting the worst.

Their playoff hopes -- if they really existed after the all-star break -- are so minuscule that they barely register a blip on the radar screen documenting chances of reaching the top eight of the Eastern Conference. After Wednesday's balloon-puncturing 2-1 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes, the 12th-place Senators could run the table with their remaining nine games and the resulting 92 points might still not be enough if just one of the four teams immediately above them finishes decently.

Give it up, people.

For those who invest their time, money and passion into this team, it's time to stop daydreaming about the playoffs and to take stock of what went wrong and what's to come.

It's time to get after the Senators for their slovenly first half, but commend them for their reformation under new head coach Cory Clouston.

We've been through the "what ifs" of an earlier arrival by Clouston, which didn't happen because the organization was burning through coaches like training towels.

The Clouston Effect has been well enough documented in this space. With a 15-7-3 win-loss-overtime mark since assuming the job on Groundhog Day, Clouston has delivered 33 points in 25 games. Over a full season, that projects to 108 points and a place among the league leaders.

Whether Clouston could have maintained that clip over a full 82 games is questionable. As captain Daniel Alfredsson often says, every team goes through peaks and valleys in the regular season. This season, Ottawa hit Death Valley and showed no signs of climbing out until head coach Craig Hartsburg was fired.

Under a new system and facing no pressure, the team thrived. Temporary conditions, those.

Assuming general manager Bryan Murray and Clouston will return next season -- and there is no sign of a different plan -- they can spend the final two weeks of the season sorting out the depth chart for 2009-10.

With only a few players to sign in the offseason and not a great deal of cap room left to spend, what you see is more or less what you get with this team:

Three elite forwards and then a huge drop off to the next scoring level (no forward beyond the big three has as many as 30 points).

A defence that needs some help, but not nearly as much as seemed the case earlier this season.

A newly appointed No. 1 goaltender, Pascal Leclaire, whose first start for the club will be next season, with a promising young goalie, Brian Elliott, and decent veteran, Alex Auld, behind him.

All three signed to big long-term deals over the past year and a half, Alfredsson, Dany Heatley and Jason Spezza took most of the heat (along with Murray, Hartsburg, Martin Gerber ...) for the team's prolonged slump.

While none of the three is going to measure up to his numbers of last season or the season before that, Alfredsson's late surge gives him a chance to be a point-per-game player for a sixth consecutive season.

SIX seasons of producing one point per game or better would provide further evidence of the captain's consistent excellence. Not since 2001-02, when Alfredsson had 71 points in 78 games, has he had a sub-point-per-game season.
With two earlier campaigns (1999-01) of at least a point per game, Alfredsson could record his eighth season of producing as many points as games if he can maintain his current pace. (He has 71 points in 71 games.)

Since Clouston's arrival, Alfredsson has nine goals and 27 points in 24 games, a significant jump from his 44 points in the first 47 games under Hartsburg.

Alfredsson missed two games with injury, one pre- and one post-Clouston arrival.
Spezza is also a point-per-game player under Clouston (25 in 25), with 64 points overall in 73 games.

Heatley's sniping pace is roughly the same before and after Clouston. He scored 22 goals in 48 games for Hartsburg and has 12 in the 25 games under Clouston. With 34 on the season, Heatley has a shot at scoring at least 40 goals for the fifth time in his career. He has 66 points, second on the team to Alfredsson.

After that, the production dips like a downdraft to defenceman Filip Kuba's 37 points. The next forward on the list is Mike Fisher, with 29, though his play has also improved dramatically since Clouston took over. Just ask Fisher's linemates, Nick Foligno and Ryan Shannon, whose stock has also risen mightily over the past month. With 16 goals in his first full NHL season, Foligno, 21, has had a breakthrough season.

With revenue shrinking and the salary cap expected to drop over the next couple of years, NHL GMs need to have development from within, not to mention players who aren't expensive. Watching practice on Tuesday before the team left for a five-game road trip, Murray remarked that he has "the best fourth line in the NHL" with Jesse Winchester, Jarkko Ruutu and Shean Donovan.

If the first line returns to form next season, if the Fisher line continues to progress and Leclaire is for real ... the Senators may not be in this mess next year.

-----

In a related article by Allen Panzeri, Bryan Murray offers his reflections:

"I'm really happy with the way we've played," Murray said. "I'm happy with the fact that the guys have made an adjustment from a really tough situation to become a competitive group again, and I really think, going forward, that long term we'll really benefit from this.

"I think the disaster, if we might call it that ... I think the lessons learned from that, for every person in the organization, should be that we wouldn't let it happen again, to the point that it did.

"You're going to lose some games over the course of time, but I think we just let it slip away from us for too long."

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/sports/Lesson+learned+Murray+laments/1433101/story.html

So how does it look for next year? Is it too early to tell? Can the Sens build on what they have? Are changes needed, and what?

As always, the GM Hockey Forums members will have much to say...

I voted that the Sens are just a player or two away from being a playoff contender, won't reach for the Cup just yet, but with the emergence of a few prospects and hopefully a few rebound years from the big 3 and other poor preformers, and well, if isn't Leclaire being solid between the pipes, it will be Elliott, so not worried there. If Karlsson is ready to play over here full time, we may be on the upswing sooner than expected.

I haven't read the full article yet, but I voted that they are a player or two away from being Cup Contenders again. I say this because, if we can pick up another top 6F (In Comrie or someone else) and a top 2D, then we're right back in it for sure.

That's what I think anyway, we really aren't that far removed from the team that went to the Cup in 06-07. Add those 2 pieces, that we've lost in Redden (whoopdido) and Mesz. We also had Comrie. And we're set. The players we would get to replace them would be much better.

We already have one in Kuba and Campoli is close to Mesz...better,IMO.

Oh, and with the addition of Leclaire, we should be really good in goaltending with him and Elliott as a strong tandem.

As well as the addition of Shannon this year, who, IMO is already better than Vermette in many aspects of the game.

Then bring in Zubov *possibly* and Regin *when healthy* and we got much stronger on our 3rd and 4th lines.

....AND we might even draft an NHL ready plaer in the draft this year. So, another added bonus!

how could I forget Clouston! HUGE bonus there!

I wanted to vote twice -- one or two players away from contention, and middle-of-the pack next year. Obviously if we play 82 games like we played the last 20 we're back among the top-four (at least in the East); That should make Melnyk happy. But there are many unknowns, which could pull the totals up or down:
- will Leclaire remain healthy and, if so, will he be a singnificant upgrade over Elliott?
- if Leclaire is not healthy, can Elliott comntinue to impress?
- will Clouston be able to keep it up over an 82 game schedule (or, even better, over 100 or so games)?
- will Fish get back to being a 25-goal scorer?
- will Foligno continue to progress and take over from Fish as #4?
- can Shanno continue at a .5 PPG pace over a full season (or even improve)?
- what can the callups do?
- will we get another puck mover (Karlsson? trade?)

Many, many questions that will be answered starting October.

IMHO too early to tell...how the Sens play to the end of the season will reveal much about where they really are as a unit. This the first time for most of them to experience the disappointment of missing the playoffs...how one reacts to failure shows one the depth of one's committment to success.

I am sure that no one will be surprised with my take on this situation. I voted for 1 major contract being moved in order to a) move some money out to soften our cap situation and b) free up much needed dollars to sign a #1 d and 2nd line scorer, to give us a balanced attack

beedub wrote:I am sure that no one will be surprised with my take on this situation. I voted for 1 major contract being moved in order to a) move some money out to soften our cap situation and b) free up much needed dollars to sign a #1 d and 2nd line scorer, to give us a balanced attack

I agree that a contract needs to go but I am thinking along the lines of Kelly and his 2.2 for the next 3 years could address the only a player or two away from being contenders again. Kelly's contract is a small amount to move but it allows younger players to come up and play.

davetherave wrote:IMHO too early to tell...how the Sens play to the end of the season will reveal much about where they really are as a unit. This the first time for most of them to experience the disappointment of missing the playoffs...how one reacts to failure shows one the depth of one's committment to success.

I think most of them experienced failure last year, wouldn't you say? The firing of a coach, buying out of a contract, letting Redden walk away and moving Meszaros and Grats. With the exception of Mezaros, perhaps, all those moves were directly related to the team's performance.

So I'm not really sure what happened at the start of this season, except that, as you sort-of said, none of them had ever had to deal with failure and really did not know what to do about it. Now they've seen that they can overcome failure and -- even without that stud-D or stud-goalie -- and play at a 109-point clip for a significant stretch of games.

I suppose experiencing failure is not enough; you have to experience that failure does not have to be a permanent thing -- it can be overcome, and unless you luck into it you have to be taught that.

wprager wrote:

davetherave wrote:IMHO too early to tell...how the Sens play to the end of the season will reveal much about where they really are as a unit. This the first time for most of them to experience the disappointment of missing the playoffs...how one reacts to failure shows one the depth of one's committment to success.

I think most of them experienced failure last year, wouldn't you say? The firing of a coach, buying out of a contract, letting Redden walk away and moving Meszaros and Grats. With the exception of Mezaros, perhaps, all those moves were directly related to the team's performance.

So I'm not really sure what happened at the start of this season, except that, as you sort-of said, none of them had ever had to deal with failure and really did not know what to do about it. Now they've seen that they can overcome failure and -- even without that stud-D or stud-goalie -- and play at a 109-point clip for a significant stretch of games.

I suppose experiencing failure is not enough; you have to experience that failure does not have to be a permanent thing -- it can be overcome, and unless you luck into it you have to be taught that.

IMHO the Senators may have begun to believe that a playoff spot was a given rather than something to be fought for from Game One through Game Eighty Two.

Every time you hear or read the sayings 'the regular season doesn't matter', 'they'll turn it on in January', etc etc, just remember those early season miscues--or worse, sloppy and sub par performances over extended periods--can mean the difference between being in it or out of it when the last horn sounds.

There is a fine line between confidence and arrogance, and Cory Clouston knows this. I imagine Clouston also knows that knowing how and why you fail means you can understand and appreciate what it takes to be successful.

One can compare and cite statistics as the day is long, but the 'intangible' of understanding the Zen of Hockey is at the core of becoming a champion.

I believe Sensei Cory can teach that...as we have seen, his students like young Foligno, know the lessons well and apply them. If the Senators are willing to learn, they will taste success again.

davetherave wrote:
IMHO the Senators may have begun to believe that a playoff spot was a given rather than something to be fought for from Game One through Game Eighty Two.

So true.

Hey, Dave, I've got a site for you:

SenSay

wprager wrote:Hey, Dave, I've got a site for you:

SenSay

Very cool site...thanks!