GAME DAY: Washington Capitals @ Ottawa Senators - 7:30pm EST - Mon. Nov. 23rd, 2009 PLUS post game thoughts

Urkie wrote:
If Cheechoo keeps it up he's going to be sitting in the press box and then bought out this summer I would think. You can't justify the salary he's making with his current play. He's been trying really hard all year but he needs to be scoring some goals and he's obviously not. I'd rather give the money he's making to a defensemen who can quarterback a power play.

I also wouldn't be surprised if Murray waives him at some point this season so that he has some cap space to acquire somebody for the stretch drive. No team would take his full salary but maybe at half the price, a team would be willing to see if he could find his magic again.

Yep, 100% on all points. And these are topics that are 'hot' in Ottawa, they won't go away. If we need to waive or sit Cheechoo, we will, end of story. Especially if we need to acquire someone to help this team.

I am not sure Melnyk will be throwing around money with the team attendance tanking. We might be stuck watching the most expensive fourth line in the history of the NHL.

When it is Kelly between Cheechoo and Neil, we are talking $7M+

yikes

MurderOnIce wrote:I am not sure Melnyk will be throwing around money with the team attendance tanking. We might be stuck watching the most expensive fourth line in the history of the NHL.

When it is Kelly between Cheechoo and Neil, we are talking $7M+

yikes

That's a really good point actually. Melnyk can't be happy with the attendance.

I can't believe there were only 16,000 people at the game. That's brutal! It's been a looooong time since it's been that bad. A little scary...

SensGirl11 wrote:I can't believe there were only 16,000 people at the game. That's brutal! It's been a looooong time since it's been that bad. A little scary...

Early in the season + long homestands when the casual fan doesn't really care = deep problems.

Were they charging a premium for last nights tickets.

i was just thinking of the game again, that pass from shannon to winchester that got in via michalek? man that was perfectly executed. i'll give most of the kudos on that one to shannon and winni. just beautiful

SpezDispenser wrote:

SensGirl11 wrote:What are we going to do with Cheechoo anyway? What a waste of 3M. It's starting to hurt more and more. The crappy part too is that he's pretty good, not 3M worth, but he has his moments. The thing I always notice with him though is that he's about 10 steps behind the play, ALL THE TIME! He can't skate at all. He's not cut out for the new NHL, he's waayyyy too slow now. He's slower than Richardson was if that's possible. It's really starting to get frustrating. And, what a horrendous giveaway yesterday. That, I thought, was the end of the game for us. He felt horrible about it, but he just can't afford to be doing stuff like that. If he had 10 goals by now it'd be different, but he doesn't.

I don't know. Buy him out in the summer? Problem again is: his work ethic is very good, he's been getting some bad luck. I don't know if he can snap out of it or not, but it doesn't look fantastic right now.

I don't get it...I get to see every game live, and the last 4 or 5 I've made a point of watching Cheechoo every time he's on the ice, and only him. Once I notice that he's on the ice, I shadow him with my eyes. With that said I don't see him being the pathetic brutal player most people do.

Yes he's not scoring, but in reality he's only played with either Spezza Michalek or Kovalev/Fisher 36% of the time. He's been bounced from one line to another constantly, and I find that brutal. Why is it ok to bounce a scorer like Cheechoo around from line to line constantly changing his line mates, but We allow Spezza to play with Michalek and Alfie all the time. Spezza has 3 times the points that Cheechoo has, but I'd argue that playing with Alfie and Michalek he's playing with more than 3 times the talent than what Cheechoo is playing with. Spezza is also averaging more then 5 min more of Time on Ice even strength and more than 2 minutes more of Power Play time each game. That in itself can account

True he's not producing offensively, but there is more to it than just scoring. He's on the 4th line, so his job is to punish teams offensively and be defensively responsible. He's got 11 give aways (which is only 2 more than Alfie and Kelly) but has 10 take aways which for me evens out and makes it a wash.

I could throw stats out all night, but I'll be honest, given who his line mates are and how much ice time he gets I'm happy with the way he is performing. I don't blame him that coaches don't give me a real shot to play with good players. I would give him 5 games up with Fisher and Foligno (it would have started when Kovalev left) to see how he performs. If he plays well then I look at bumping Foligno down when kovalev returns.

He contract is far from dead weight.

N4L wrote:Shannon didnt shut me up, haha, he's had 2 good games this year, that's it. It was great to see him get going a little but he didnt shut me up or a lot of people up.

As for Kovalev, Fisher wouldnt be firing like he is right now without him. The guy who can sit for all I care is Spezza, The team would have the exact same record without him if you want to go down this little path of not needing players.

Well of course. I mean, he's only got one goal and that was, umm, ... an OT winner

SeawaySensFan wrote:

SpezDispenser wrote:It's official, Brodeur has been called up from Bingo to replace Leclaire.

Might the Brodeur brothers face each other? Will it be awkward since each brother married each others ex-wife (or something like that)? Is it delivery?

He cheated on his wife with her sister. No brothers involved -- now that would have been a story. And Mike Brodeur is not Martin's brother, although they are distant relatives:
http://senators.nhl.com/club/news.htm?id=503106

PKC wrote:

SensGirl11 wrote:We should have a poll of how many games Leclaire will actually play for us during his 2 year contract.

This isn't even his fault. This is just stupid.

Should have been paying attention to the game instead of talking to the trainer. I guess he's not used to being a backup.

Devo wrote:
I don't get it...I get to see every game live, and the last 4 or 5 I've made a point of watching Cheechoo every time he's on the ice, and only him. Once I notice that he's on the ice, I shadow him with my eyes. With that said I don't see him being the pathetic brutal player most people do.

Yes he's not scoring, but in reality he's only played with either Spezza Michalek or Kovalev/Fisher 36% of the time. He's been bounced from one line to another constantly, and I find that brutal. Why is it ok to bounce a scorer like Cheechoo around from line to line constantly changing his line mates, but We allow Spezza to play with Michalek and Alfie all the time. Spezza has 3 times the points that Cheechoo has, but I'd argue that playing with Alfie and Michalek he's playing with more than 3 times the talent than what Cheechoo is playing with. Spezza is also averaging more then 5 min more of Time on Ice even strength and more than 2 minutes more of Power Play time each game. That in itself can account

True he's not producing offensively, but there is more to it than just scoring. He's on the 4th line, so his job is to punish teams offensively and be defensively responsible. He's got 11 give aways (which is only 2 more than Alfie and Kelly) but has 10 take aways which for me evens out and makes it a wash.

I could throw stats out all night, but I'll be honest, given who his line mates are and how much ice time he gets I'm happy with the way he is performing. I don't blame him that coaches don't give me a real shot to play with good players. I would give him 5 games up with Fisher and Foligno (it would have started when Kovalev left) to see how he performs. If he plays well then I look at bumping Foligno down when kovalev returns.

He contract is far from dead weight.

You raise a really interesting point in terms of him being bounced from line to line. I will admit that I have been a huge fan of putting Cheechoo and Spezza together and waiting as long as it takes for something to click, but I guess there comes a point when you can't wait too much longer.

I really want him to succeed, obviously, it would be such a load off if he would suddenly find his stride. It would make things a lot easier, deeper, more dangerous in our forward ranks.

Let's cross fingers that he's on the ice at the same time when Spezza erupts and begins feeding assists like they're going out of style.

Devo wrote:

SpezDispenser wrote:

SensGirl11 wrote:What are we going to do with Cheechoo anyway? What a waste of 3M. It's starting to hurt more and more. The crappy part too is that he's pretty good, not 3M worth, but he has his moments. The thing I always notice with him though is that he's about 10 steps behind the play, ALL THE TIME! He can't skate at all. He's not cut out for the new NHL, he's waayyyy too slow now. He's slower than Richardson was if that's possible. It's really starting to get frustrating. And, what a horrendous giveaway yesterday. That, I thought, was the end of the game for us. He felt horrible about it, but he just can't afford to be doing stuff like that. If he had 10 goals by now it'd be different, but he doesn't.

I don't know. Buy him out in the summer? Problem again is: his work ethic is very good, he's been getting some bad luck. I don't know if he can snap out of it or not, but it doesn't look fantastic right now.

I don't get it...I get to see every game live, and the last 4 or 5 I've made a point of watching Cheechoo every time he's on the ice, and only him. Once I notice that he's on the ice, I shadow him with my eyes. With that said I don't see him being the pathetic brutal player most people do.

Yes he's not scoring, but in reality he's only played with either Spezza Michalek or Kovalev/Fisher 36% of the time. He's been bounced from one line to another constantly, and I find that brutal. Why is it ok to bounce a scorer like Cheechoo around from line to line constantly changing his line mates, but We allow Spezza to play with Michalek and Alfie all the time. Spezza has 3 times the points that Cheechoo has, but I'd argue that playing with Alfie and Michalek he's playing with more than 3 times the talent than what Cheechoo is playing with. Spezza is also averaging more then 5 min more of Time on Ice even strength and more than 2 minutes more of Power Play time each game. That in itself can account

True he's not producing offensively, but there is more to it than just scoring. He's on the 4th line, so his job is to punish teams offensively and be defensively responsible. He's got 11 give aways (which is only 2 more than Alfie and Kelly) but has 10 take aways which for me evens out and makes it a wash.

I could throw stats out all night, but I'll be honest, given who his line mates are and how much ice time he gets I'm happy with the way he is performing. I don't blame him that coaches don't give me a real shot to play with good players. I would give him 5 games up with Fisher and Foligno (it would have started when Kovalev left) to see how he performs. If he plays well then I look at bumping Foligno down when kovalev returns.

He contract is far from dead weight.

I love his work ethic. Don't get me wrong, I think in the right setting he's a useful guy. But the bottom line for me is this: If a guy is being paid $3 million per, I need one of two things, at least, from him. 1) Scoring (I'd settle for reliable secondary scoring from Cheechoo) or 2) Penalty killing (and a good one at that). We are getting neither from him. Otherwise, he'd just a guy who's being paid $3 million per to occupy a spot that could be occupied by a guy being paid a sixth of what Cheechoo is.

I think that pairing him with Fisher and Foligno might be a good idea, as I think his strong work ethic and work on the boards would really compliment the other two, but the problem is that Fisher is our N1 centre atm. I'd be more inclined to try that once Spezza is going.

All good points. I was simply trying to point out that he's not been given a fair chance to play with decent players for any length of time. Like I said if it were me, I would have put him with Foligno and Fisher for the Buffalo, Washington, New Jersey and Columbus games. He stays on that line (at least with Foligno should you have to double shift centers), but the end result is you give him 5 games. Having Kovalev in Russia gives you the perfect time to try it and give him the full 5 games to get going. If it doesn't work after 5 solid games then I'll agree to push him down, but my god you have to give him some time to develop chemistry.

Even Michalek didn't click right off the bat but you didn't see him getting demoted.

Devo wrote:All good points. I was simply trying to point out that he's not been given a fair chance to play with decent players for any length of time. Like I said if it were me, I would have put him with Foligno and Fisher for the Buffalo, Washington, New Jersey and Columbus games. He stays on that line (at least with Foligno should you have to double shift centers), but the end result is you give him 5 games. Having Kovalev in Russia gives you the perfect time to try it and give him the full 5 games to get going. If it doesn't work after 5 solid games then I'll agree to push him down, but my god you have to give him some time to develop chemistry.

Even Michalek didn't click right off the bat but you didn't see him getting demoted.

I agree that he was quick to be demoted. It's probably due to the fact that he's come over here with a certain tag if you will attached to him. It's apparent to me that he had a short leash from the get go.

In my opinion though, like you are saying, he needs to be put in the best possible situation to succeed in order to maximize the value from his contract. The problem lies in that we've got other guys who can't or shouldn't have to sacrifice for Cheechoo to succeed.

It's frustrating because he's the type of player a fan really wants to root for.