GAME DAY: Ottawa Senators @ Atlanta Thrashers – 7:00PM EST, Thursday, March 18, 2010

Dash wrote:My biggest complaint is that Clouston seems to have an serous hard-on for Elliott which shows a clear lack of respect for Leclaire. You want to question confidence, well it's hard to have any when your team doesn't have any in you. Leclaire gets hung out to dry much like Elliott, or Elliott just has a bad game, and yet Elliott seems to rarely if ever get pulled, yet Leclaire gets yanked almost immediately. So inconsistent, the coaching is. CC says he pulls Leclaire to wake the team u - well pull Elliott then.

Looking elsewhere, the defence has just been awful. Last game Sutton misses a huge check (if he's not missing them he's getting Dung calls on them), Phillips turns the puck over; or they let the offence waltz right in.

And the offence cannot be excused. The guys that are paid to score are not scoring. Spezza's been playing well, so I will let him off - cause of those guys I refer to, he's been the best.

Just hard to be a Sens fan at this point. I'd rather be in the Leafs position (with the pick). At least there'd be something to look forward to instead of watching the playoffs slip away. I do think they will somehow still make it and get swept in the first round. Hope Melnyk will be happy with that.

Agree 100%, serious double standard.

Replacing Volchenkov would be a good start. No way we can keep him for more than 3 MIllion a year. Ottawa's D is awful with him making 2.5. Imagine when he'll make 4.
I can't believe how 2 weeks of vacation has taken this team's chemistry away. It's really unbelievable.
And WTF with nobody wanting to shoot? I nearly threw my glass on the screen when Shannon didn't the shoot that puck. STOP THINKING goddammit.

Keep on overrating Washington like everybody else does. It happened last year and it will happen again. If the Rangers had ANYBODY who could score last season, the Caps would have been ousted in the 1st round.

You really think there is NO chance that Philly or Ottawa or even the Habs can push the Caps to the limit? There's a reason why the games are played.

Washington is no more than the Phoenix Suns of the NHL. Best offensive team in the regular season, but they ultimately lose when the games are tighter and actually matter.

SDH89 wrote:

Dash wrote:My biggest complaint is that Clouston seems to have an serous hard-on for Elliott which shows a clear lack of respect for Leclaire. You want to question confidence, well it's hard to have any when your team doesn't have any in you. Leclaire gets hung out to dry much like Elliott, or Elliott just has a bad game, and yet Elliott seems to rarely if ever get pulled, yet Leclaire gets yanked almost immediately. So inconsistent, the coaching is. CC says he pulls Leclaire to wake the team u - well pull Elliott then.

Looking elsewhere, the defence has just been awful. Last game Sutton misses a huge check (if he's not missing them he's getting Dung calls on them), Phillips turns the puck over; or they let the offence waltz right in.

And the offence cannot be excused. The guys that are paid to score are not scoring. Spezza's been playing well, so I will let him off - cause of those guys I refer to, he's been the best.

Just hard to be a Sens fan at this point. I'd rather be in the Leafs position (with the pick). At least there'd be something to look forward to instead of watching the playoffs slip away. I do think they will somehow still make it and get swept in the first round. Hope Melnyk will be happy with that.

Agree 100%, serious double standard.

EXPLAIN the double standard. Elliott earned and deserved every inch of rope he got. Tonight it ended. There is no way people can actually sit there with a straight face and say Elliott didnt deserve to try and get things sorted out when the results with Leclaire have, for the most part, been worse.

Big Ev wrote:Keep on overrating Washington like everybody else does. It happened last year and it will happen again. If the Rangers had ANYBODY who could score last season, the Caps would have been ousted in the 1st round.

You really think there is NO chance that Philly or Ottawa or even the Habs can push the Caps to the limit? There's a reason why the games are played.

Washington is no more than the Phoenix Suns of the NHL. Best offensive team in the regular season, but they ultimately lose when the games are tighter and actually matter.

Your opinion is actually based on nothing but illogical guessing. The Caps lost to The Pens in 7 last year, they came back from a 3-1 and beat The Rangers. They are The best team in The East, just in front of Pitts, and everyone else is a distant 3-15.

No team playing The Caps in the first round has a shot. Playing the games is a formality. In a 7 game series there is no shot Philly or Ottawa with their goaltending will probably even win a game let alone a 7 game series.

The Caps dominate and are built to compete against The Eastern Conferance. The defense is weak, the goaltending worse, and The Caps feed on teams with no defense and no goaltending. The East is full of that. Ottawa's defense will get worked in a 7 game series vs Washington, it would be humiliating and will cost one of Spezza or Fisher their career in Ottawa.

marakh wrote:Replacing Volchenkov would be a good start. No way we can keep him for more than 3 MIllion a year. Ottawa's D is awful with him making 2.5. Imagine when he'll make 4.
I can't believe how 2 weeks of vacation has taken this team's chemistry away. It's really unbelievable.
And WTF with nobody wanting to shoot? I nearly threw my glass on the screen when Shannon didn't the shoot that puck. STOP THINKING goddammit.

A Train should just leave, he is useless unless this team is playing a team with a top offensive threat. Like I said in August, he is a player a contender needs, not a border line playoff team. He doesnt make a team better but he will put one over the top.

Well, the Caps do play in the worst division in hockey, so their point total is probably much higher than if they were playing in the Atlantic division. One thing is certain: there will be no other Southleast division team in the playoffs, so the Caps will have a much tougher time.

I can't wait until the playoffs!

The Sens have been destroyed by that division all year.

Atlanta 3 loses
Carolina 3 loses
Tampa 1 loss
Wash 1 loss (will be 2)
Florida 2 losses

I think the Sens just aren't motivated as much when they play weak teams. They seem to always beat great teams and then play a stinker against Toronto or Atlanta like tonight.

Haha, k.

I havent seen the game and have no idea who started or how well they played but if the teams falls out of the race or bows out early in the playoffs, one would have to think that Murrays 1st priority is finding a bonafide #1 goalie.

That being said now with the way the guys have not responded well and this current stretch of loses does Brodeur get called up again to cause a shake and see how things go.

Big Ev wrote:I think the Sens just aren't motivated as much when they play weak teams. They seem to always beat great teams and then play a stinker against Toronto or Atlanta like tonight.

Yeah, like when they trounced Vancouver a week ago

The Montagoose wrote:I havent seen the game and have no idea who started or how well they played but if the teams falls out of the race or bows out early in the playoffs, one would have to think that Murrays 1st priority is finding a bonafide #1 goalie.

That being said now with the way the guys have not responded well and this current stretch of loses does Brodeur get called up again to cause a shake and see how things go.

Didn't he do that at the deadline last year?

this team is just a mess. too many streaky players up front, the lack of top end sniper(kovalev 15 years ago but not now) and the biggest surprise to me is that after 3 years of this we still have 2 shutdown defence man playing the top pairing... come on! phillips is a number 2 D-man and vochie a number 4.... sure karlsson might be a number 1 in the making (or number 3) but the fact that this hasn't been adressed by the organisation is ridiculous.... i dream of dan boyle.

The Montagoose wrote:I havent seen the game and have no idea who started or how well they played but if the teams falls out of the race or bows out early in the playoffs, one would have to think that Murrays 1st priority is finding a bonafide #1 goalie.

That being said now with the way the guys have not responded well and this current stretch of loses does Brodeur get called up again to cause a shake and see how things go.

I think if the Sens fall out of the playoffs Murray's first priority will be finding a new job. There's a reason he only got a 1 year extension.

We now have 8 goals in 7 losses. We cracked the 1 goal per loss mark!! Baby steps right?

Hey, Clutch, make sure, when you're writing the next GDT, to say the Sens are not in 6th place in the Eastern Conference.

And after Saturday night I would not be at all surprised if they are in 7th. Forget about catching Buffalo unless the loss to Atlanta propels us to another 11 game winning streak (with no Olympic break to cool us off this time -- would be nice).

Who knows, maybe they just wanted to slip to 6th so they can play Buffalo in the first round.

I fully expect the Sens to lose tomorrow afternoon and then it's pretty much a given that the Habs will beat us on Monday. I won't be expecting a win vs. the Flyers either.