GAME DAY: Preseason - Boston @ Ottawa - 7:00pm ET - Fri. Sep. 25th, 2009--PLUS afterthoughts...

SeawaySensFan wrote:

Cap'n Clutch wrote:Carkner

Let's just say that Brian Lee is no Carkner so if I had to choose it would be Carkner. To summarize, I would pick Carkner.

Brian Lee is no Carkner.

Sorry, I'll stop now. I must be tired because I find this funny. I just couldn't resist is all.

Cap'n Clutch wrote:

SeawaySensFan wrote:

Cap'n Clutch wrote:Carkner

Let's just say that Brian Lee is no Carkner so if I had to choose it would be Carkner. To summarize, I would pick Carkner.

Brian Lee is no Carkner.

Sorry, I'll stop now. I must be tired because I find this funny. I just couldn't resist is all.

No. You caught on to my insane "humour". I need help. Or sleep...

I've had two coffees already this morning and I'm contemplating a third.

N4L wrote:

CCgotITcovered wrote:Wprager - Look, this isn't that hard to understand: Kovalev holds on to the puck WAY too long and is playing an aggravating game to watch. He has done some interesting things offensively and I'm excited to see him when the games matter, but he'd better step it up or he's going to wear VERY thin with fans like the people on this site who actually know how to watch hockey.

Alfie hadn't looked good to me in either of the games I've seen him in, prior to watching the Boston game. After watching that, however, it became quite clear to me that the captain is back. He played a much better game that night, regardless of his empty stats column.

As Clouston said, having Alfie around is like having a coach on the ice. Clearly his head wasn't in the game earlier in the pre-season, but now he's starting to come back into his own skin---I guess. I've been worried about his eventual decline beginning this season, but that Boston game went a long way to dissuading those concerns. Thats all I was saying.

You write for me from now on, I just dont care enough.

yes, my king!! Your pawn is ready.

MurderOnIce wrote:

asq2 wrote:

40 points for Cheechoo?

I thought Lee was OK. He had to cover for Karlsson, who wanders around the ice a lot. As he gets more accustomed to NHL systems, hopefully Erik will make it easier on his defensive partner.

I would agree with you. I really like Karlsson but he does wander a lot and his confidence is on the verge of cocky. He is often down in the faceoff circle. Not that it is bad, in fact it is refreshing but it is never good for the defense partner, who turns out to be the bridesmaid. Lee wasn't bad at all so far. He needs to be more physical but he has been pretty good positionally and isn't making mistakes.

You're one of the guys defending Lee last year and I was actually impressed overall by his play this preseason. And yes, he played well considering he was paired with Karlsson, fully agree there. Unfortunately for Lee, he's got that two way contract and he still has aspects to improve IMO before he's up here full time.

wprager wrote:

N4L wrote:Ya, again, you look at the stats column far too much.

OK, big shot, to borrow a phrase from Jerry Maguire -- "Help me help you".

Tell me what I should look at to understand "Alfie's back" versus "Kovalev better step it up".

Isn't Kovalev exactly what we all expected? We are not expecting an Alfie effort, but we are expecting some secondary scoring. After Fisher, Regin and Foligno (who are 1-2-3 in scoring, and have played great but, let's face it, the bulk of their scoring came from one game), Kovalev is tied with Spezza with 3 points in 4 games. He's doing exactly what we expected, no?

Spezza is also doing exactly what we expected, plus he had that one back-check where he took the puck away from someone. And because of that we are piling praises on him. Look, I'm not suggesting he hasn't improved his speed/quickness and dedication to defense, but we are holding up that one example of a takeaway on a backcheck like it's a baby taking his first steps, yet Spezza is a veteran player making $7M a season. We should be expecting one such play at least once in every game, and then the praises should start when he's doing it on every 3-4 shifts.

So we are praising Spezza, we are praising Alfie, yet Kovalev better step it up?

Sorry, I guess I'm one of those people you alluded to earlier that will *never get it*.

Yes that's how I see it. Alfie sets the bar super high with his all around game. Kovalev gets something magical going when there's a full moon. Kovalev being invisible for long stretches yet getting points along the way is par for the course IMO.

CCgotITcovered wrote:Wprager - Look, this isn't that hard to understand: Kovalev holds on to the puck WAY too long and is playing an aggravating game to watch. He has done some interesting things offensively and I'm excited to see him when the games matter, but he'd better step it up or he's going to wear VERY thin with fans like the people on this site who actually know how to watch hockey.

Alfie hadn't looked good to me in either of the games I've seen him in, prior to watching the Boston game. After watching that, however, it became quite clear to me that the captain is back. He played a much better game that night, regardless of his empty stats column.

As Clouston said, having Alfie around is like having a coach on the ice. Clearly his head wasn't in the game earlier in the pre-season, but now he's starting to come back into his own skin---I guess. I've been worried about his eventual decline beginning this season, but that Boston game went a long way to dissuading those concerns. Thats all I was saying.

I agree it's annoying to watch, but isn't that Kovalev's game? I thought I watched him do that with the Habs over and over again.

CCgotITcovered wrote:Wprager - Look, this isn't that hard to understand: Kovalev holds on to the puck WAY too long and is playing an aggravating game to watch. He has done some interesting things offensively and I'm excited to see him when the games matter, but he'd better step it up or he's going to wear VERY thin with fans like the people on this site who actually know how to watch hockey.

Alfie hadn't looked good to me in either of the games I've seen him in, prior to watching the Boston game. After watching that, however, it became quite clear to me that the captain is back. He played a much better game that night, regardless of his empty stats column.

As Clouston said, having Alfie around is like having a coach on the ice. Clearly his head wasn't in the game earlier in the pre-season, but now he's starting to come back into his own skin---I guess. I've been worried about his eventual decline beginning this season, but that Boston game went a long way to dissuading those concerns. Thats all I was saying.

I take great offense at the two bolded parts.

wprager wrote:

marakh wrote:

wprager wrote:Kovalev has 2 goals and an assist in 4 games. He's shooting at 50% and you say he'd better step it up? I guess with that shooting percentage, yeah, pile on the shots, man.

Alfie has 8 shots and nothing else in 3 games, and you say he's back.

I don't want to make this sound like an anti-Alfie rant, but of those two I'd say it's #11 that has to step it up, which I fully believe he will do.

CCgotITcovered wrote:Final thoughts before I

-Brian Lee doesn't have a shot in hell of being a regular this season.
-Carkner will get cut by November---still looks great. Nice surprise...
-Karlsson is better than I even imagined.
-Not sold on Leclaire. Still looking forward to the Lehner era...
-Phillips looks in mid-season form---Volchenkov, not so much.
-Definitely not sold on Campoli.
-Shannon (love him) will be replaced on the 1st unit by E.K. within weeks.
-Kovalev better pick it up.
-Cheechoo is good for 40 this year. Book it.
-Foligno too.
-Neil still has to prove he can play. He's part of the glue, but thats a lot of money to pay a 4th liner that can't PK. Keep in mind: Detroit doesn't have one...
-Schubert...well...good luck to him wherever he goes.
-Kelly looks like the odd-man out. We'll see how that works when Winchester is back. Dollar savings makes sense...
-Spezza still has to prove he can do it for a full year (hopefully a few...)

-Alfie is back!

Did you actually watch the games? He wasn't exactly focused...
Alfie played way better than Kovalev man. Stats won't change anything about that.

Read my previous post. Did anyone here ever expect Kovalev to play like Alfie? If you did, give your head a shake. We expected someone to come in, play great some times, play indifferent a lot, but overall provide us with secondary scoring. He has done *EXACTLY THAT*.

Naturally, it's just the pre-season so we should all (myself, first and foremost) take a stress pill.

I expect Kovalev to be a game changer during some games (let's say 10), be very good at times (let's say 40 games), and be average the rest of the time.

The games I saw him play during the preseason, he was worse than all those 3 likely scenarios. So yes, I think he needs to step up.

Why are you "not sold" on leclaire? He seemed pretty solid to me.

SeawaySensFan wrote:

Cap'n Clutch wrote:I was pretty happy with Schubert's game as well. I think it's a case of too little too late at this point I think. I'm really dissappointed with how Schubert's career has gone. If he had just embraced his swing man roll and continued to excel at it he would have been an invaluable member of the Sens. I had hopes, for his sake, that he could have become a steady 5/6 D man with second unit PP time but even if he just performed his dual role at the 2007 playoff levels he would have been a great asset to hang onto.

That was blown out of proportion by the lynch mob at the Sun. He was asked a direct question and gave a direct answer, once. And it was dragged out for weeks. I still contend that at 883,000 bucks, he's still an asset and if you go back to last year, since Clouston's arrival, he's coming around.

We've totally misused Schubert (by simply using him, if that makes sense). The guy had a tonne of potential with his size strength, speed, shot, etc. Yeah, it often looks on the ice like he's got no brain, but that's because of how criminal his ice-time at the defensive position was been. He gets almost no playing time, and then half the time he is playing he's up at forward. The only way he was going to become smarter as a defenceman was by playing defence.

We should have reacted long ago to the fact that he wasn't good enough to be a regular on our roster and sent him to Bingo where he could have played prime minutes and learned to play the defensive game.

If I was Schubert, I'd be pretty irked that my chances of having a good NHL career were significantly decreased by preventing me from learning to play defence at an NHL level.

Anyway, I'm not a Schubert basher for that reason. He wouldn't be on the ice for me if every player was healthy and I was the coach, but he's not of any use to the organization in the press-box either. I would have sent him to the AHL a while ago, but now it may be too late and if he gets sent down, he may go back to Europe.

N4L wrote:I dont know how you go on, and on, and on about things like this. I lost intrest a while back.

It's because no one's admitting he's right.

I see what you're saying, Prags.

marakh wrote:
I expect Kovalev to be a game changer during some games (let's say 10), be very good at times (let's say 40 games), and be average the rest of the time.

The games I saw him play during the preseason, he was worse than all those 3 likely scenarios. So yes, I think he needs to step up.

I've already said that I wanted more from Kovalev, but to say that he wasn't even good enough to be average? Wow, you're harsh. We should totally buy him out then. Totally!

CCgotITcovered wrote:Wprager - Look, this isn't that hard to understand: Kovalev holds on to the puck WAY too long and is playing an aggravating game to watch. He has done some interesting things offensively and I'm excited to see him when the games matter, but he'd better step it up or he's going to wear VERY thin with fans like the people on this site who actually know how to watch hockey.

Alfie hadn't looked good to me in either of the games I've seen him in, prior to watching the Boston game. After watching that, however, it became quite clear to me that the captain is back. He played a much better game that night, regardless of his empty stats column.

As Clouston said, having Alfie around is like having a coach on the ice. Clearly his head wasn't in the game earlier in the pre-season, but now he's starting to come back into his own skin---I guess. I've been worried about his eventual decline beginning this season, but that Boston game went a long way to dissuading those concerns. Thats all I was saying.

I don't get peoples frustration in Kovalev, he has been in the league for what 16-17 seasons everyone knew what they were getting. The man is inconsistent, he will drive us nuts on somedays and other look like a world beater.

Some people on this board were ready to pencil us in for a top spot in the EC when Kovalev was signed...buyer beware!!!

asq2 wrote:

SeawaySensFan wrote:

Cap'n Clutch wrote:I was pretty happy with Schubert's game as well. I think it's a case of too little too late at this point I think. I'm really dissappointed with how Schubert's career has gone. If he had just embraced his swing man roll and continued to excel at it he would have been an invaluable member of the Sens. I had hopes, for his sake, that he could have become a steady 5/6 D man with second unit PP time but even if he just performed his dual role at the 2007 playoff levels he would have been a great asset to hang onto.

That was blown out of proportion by the lynch mob at the Sun. He was asked a direct question and gave a direct answer, once. And it was dragged out for weeks. I still contend that at 883,000 bucks, he's still an asset and if you go back to last year, since Clouston's arrival, he's coming around.

We've totally misused Schubert (by simply using him, if that makes sense). The guy had a tonne of potential with his size strength, speed, shot, etc. Yeah, it often looks on the ice like he's got no brain, but that's because of how criminal his ice-time at the defensive position was been. He gets almost no playing time, and then half the time he is playing he's up at forward. The only way he was going to become smarter as a defenceman was by playing defence.

We should have reacted long ago to the fact that he wasn't good enough to be a regular on our roster and sent him to Bingo where he could have played prime minutes and learned to play the defensive game.

If I was Schubert, I'd be pretty irked that my chances of having a good NHL career were significantly decreased by preventing me from learning to play defence at an NHL level.

Anyway, I'm not a Schubert basher for that reason. He wouldn't be on the ice for me if every player was healthy and I was the coach, but he's not of any use to the organization in the press-box either. I would have sent him to the AHL a while ago, but now it may be too late and if he gets sent down, he may go back to Europe.

Thank Muckler for that one too, he forced him down Murray's throat that one year and he has been a tweener ever since.

Here's my take on Kovalev - You'll get the effort out of him that we got out of Heatley only we'll get more dazzling stick handling and less goals. Keep in mind we're also paying less for him than Heatley so I'm OK with it.

Kovalev doesnt have an NTC either, only signed for two years, and 2.5 mil less. Ill take him in Ottawa's current state.

wprager wrote:

marakh wrote:
I expect Kovalev to be a game changer during some games (let's say 10), be very good at times (let's say 40 games), and be average the rest of the time.

The games I saw him play during the preseason, he was worse than all those 3 likely scenarios. So yes, I think he needs to step up.

I've already said that I wanted more from Kovalev, but to say that he wasn't even good enough to be average? Wow, you're harsh. We should totally buy him out then. Totally!

Well, it was 2 preseason games (that I saw), so actually I don't really give a damn about it prediction wise TBH