GAME DAY: Ottawa Senators @ Washington Capitals - 7:00pm ET - Thu. Jan. 7th, 2010

Ugh - just caught the highlights. 2 big softies from Leclaire and one waaaaaaaaaaaaaay out of position. We looked pretty flat footed across the board. Brutal effort from the boys. Brutal.

SpezDispenser wrote:Geez, if Michalek is hurt badly we're just diddled. Get on the horn Murray. Or call up St.Pierre, I'm 100% confident you won't regret it.

Agreed, if a call up is needed, make it a 100% offensive guy and slot him into our top six right away. Seriously. After Kovalev's line, we looked like we had 3 3rd/4th lines.

asq2 wrote:Karlsson is so awesome.

Easily his best game so far this season. That's one bright patch in an otherwise cloudy day.

TheAvatar wrote:Does anybody else really, really, really dislike Ray Ferraro?

The whole TSN crew just lies in wait to rip the Sens at every opportunity. It's pretty sad, but predictable.

dennycrane wrote:ELI WILSON'S RESUME:

Ray Emery
Martin Gerber
Alex Auld
Brian Elliott
Pascale 'Lord Thunderin' I Suck' Leclair

How did this guy get a coaching job?

From a skill perspective, Leclaire might be the most talented goalie we've ever had in the organization. As frustrating as the past 2 weeks or so have been, let's not let 3-4 bad starts cloud our judgment too much here. This is the same Leclaire who single-handedly won us the game against Montreal just a few weeks ago.

All goalies get in ruts. Leclaire is not Gerber, nor is Elliott. I know it's hard to know and appreciate this today, but this is the best goalie tandem OTT has had since I don't know when. Don't let a few bad performances obscure that.

These past three games have been a bit concerning for us, especially in net with our tenders being pulled two games in a row... so it's no surprise people are pissed. Let's hope Michalek's injury is not bad and that the team bounces back. We got a 5-game road trip coming up after the Florida game at home on Saturday.

asq2 wrote:He was Gerberesque tonight, definitely.

Blasphemy.

He needs to be tethered to his net somehow.

Well Leclaire is starting to feel the wrath of the fans and media here. He's not as jovial as usual talking about his suckage factor.
“There were 40 other shots (Thursday night). F---, I’m going to make mistakes ... now it seems that every time I give up a goal, it’s scrutinized, and its always the story of the game. If you guys want to keep doing that ... I know I make mistakes. I made a mistake on the third goal, but at the same time I thought I did some good stuff.
“As long as we don’t win, there’s nothing else that matters. It’s 5-2, we’ve got to play smarter defensively, especially against a team like that. We gave them too many scoring chances.”

I don't know what we are going to do about our goaltending situation here but something has to give at some point. We can't keep getting mediocre goaltending, we're not going to go anywhere. It's getting so frustrating and I'm sick of being able to guess every game we lose now. There are teams we just can't win against.

Bye bye playoff spot. Here we go again!

Maybe he should go see the eye doctor Fleury saw 2 years ago. Maybe things will change then?

Positioning and other fundamentals are things that can be corrected, thankfully. I was one of the first to be critical of Leclaire, but I can see the pure talent is there.

SeawaySensFan wrote:

asq2 wrote:He was Gerberesque tonight, definitely.

Blasphemy.

He needs to be tethered to his net somehow.

Like a tie?

Could we get more bad luck with injuries? It's getting ridiculous. I'm sure by the end of today we hear that Fisher is hurt too. Kovalev fell awkwardly as well (near the end of the game) and didn't look great afterwards. Something's gotta give there too at some point. Is Murray finally going to pull the trigger on a deal? Or are we too dangerously close to the cap? What are we going to do? Our spot is gone if something isn't done soon.

On a more positive note Karlsson played lights out yesterday! He made some of the nicest plays of the night for our side. I'm getting more and more impressed with the young man.

SensGirl11 wrote:Well Leclaire is starting to feel the wrath of the fans and media here. He's not as jovial as usual talking about his suckage factor.
“There were 40 other shots (Thursday night). F---, I’m going to make mistakes ... now it seems that every time I give up a goal, it’s scrutinized, and its always the story of the game. If you guys want to keep doing that ... I know I make mistakes. I made a mistake on the third goal, but at the same time I thought I did some good stuff.
“As long as we don’t win, there’s nothing else that matters. It’s 5-2, we’ve got to play smarter defensively, especially against a team like that. We gave them too many scoring chances.”

I don't know what we are going to do about our goaltending situation here but something has to give at some point. We can't keep getting mediocre goaltending, we're not going to go anywhere. It's getting so frustrating and I'm sick of being able to guess every game we lose now. There are teams we just can't win against.

Bye bye playoff spot. Here we go again!

Yikes... let the frustration boil over... welcome to Ottawa Pascal.

SensGirl11 wrote:Could we get more bad luck with injuries? It's getting ridiculous. I'm sure by the end of today we hear that Fisher is hurt too. Kovalev fell awkwardly as well (near the end of the game) and didn't look great afterwards. Something's gotta give there too at some point. Is Murray finally going to pull the trigger on a deal? Or are we too dangerously close to the cap? What are we going to do? Our spot is gone if something isn't done soon.

On a more positive note Karlsson played lights out yesterday! He made some of the nicest plays of the night for our side. I'm getting more and more impressed with the young man.

Indeed. He even made the OV look a little silly.

I'm still working on getting more info on that Brunette deal. I read somewhere that it's imminent. Or maybe I wrote it.

SeawaySensFan wrote:Positioning and other fundamentals are things that can be corrected, thankfully. I was one of the first to be critical of Leclaire, but I can see the pure talent is there.

Hmmmm, I wonder who he's supposed to be getting those fundamentals from? A goalie coach, perhaps?

SeawaySensFan wrote:Positioning and other fundamentals are things that can be corrected, thankfully. I was one of the first to be critical of Leclaire, but I can see the pure talent is there.

I have seen some very good things in him but the bad outweigh the good IMO. He's waaaaaaaayyyy too inconsistent. I know our defense sucks too, but sometimes your goalie has to be the guy to give everyone a boost. He's done it quite a bit, don't get me wrong, but with the issues we're having he should do it more. You can't let in 2 goals to start the game against a team like Washington and expect to come back. Instead of giving your team confidence you've given it to them. It's impossible to win games like that.

I blame Murray for this. He shouldn't have gone to get another unproven goalie to replace Gerbage. We have had too many serious problems with goaltending in the past he needed to get a rock in there. Who you ask? I have no idea but there are a few great goalies that will be UFAs at the end of this season and next. We could've made a deal with someone else I'm sure.

ddt wrote:

SeawaySensFan wrote:Positioning and other fundamentals are things that can be corrected, thankfully. I was one of the first to be critical of Leclaire, but I can see the pure talent is there.

Hmmmm, I wonder who he's supposed to be getting those fundamentals from? A goalie coach, perhaps?

I just picked up a brochure from the former Jackets goalie coach. He's back to running his goalie school full-time. Maybe he could help out his buddy Pascal?

I'm not convinced that our defense "sucks".