GDT: Washington Capitals @ Ottawa Senators - 7:30 pm ET SUN Dec. 19th, 2010 (SNET)

Regin seriously has to change his number back to 43, 13 is not working for him....

at this point, our all-star game representative is going to be Erik Karlsson, hands down.

Ryan Shannon is outscoring Peter Regin. Our 3rd and 4th lines are playing very well yet our top 6 are letting us down so badly.

I want to give up and hope for a high draft pick (RNH or Landeskog), but I spent waaay too much time wishing for the season to come in the long summer only to stop caring after game 35. Call it die-hard fan syndrome or whatever, I know what the odds are and considering our recent play, there's no reason to believe it'll turn around, but I guess I gotta keep the faith. BUT.....time is nigh to bury kovalev in the minors if we can't trade him. I just can't stand him any longer, despite being one of his biggest supporters.

Michallica wrote:

Ryan Shannon is outscoring Peter Regin. Our 3rd and 4th lines are playing very well yet our top 6 are letting us down so badly.

We have anywhere between 2 and 4 Top 6 forwards. That's the problem. Has been for years.

I think the problem is that we just dont have any real forward prospects. Ideally we would not have had to sign Kovalev during the Heatley fiasco and just called up our most promising forward prospect instead.

Regin and Foligno are just not getting it done, Butler is very promising but he's not there yet.

Everyone else is years away (assuming they make it).

I think this team didn't change enough in the offseason. Look at Philly, they made the SCF and they still made a few changes. Murray did nothing except resign a few people, sign Gonchar and let A-train go. I think you need to make a few changes every year and try and get some youth into your lineup to energize your team, even if you're a contender.

If we made more changes, if we had a 1-2 more rookies who are hungry to make a name for themselves this team would have some fire. Who is our most exciting player ? Karlsson. He's young, he's skilled, he is cocky. Rest of our guys are just ... complacent, old, possibly injured.

I'd like to see Regin back up on the 1st line with Spezza, enough with playing Michalek with him, some of the worst chemistry I've ever seen.

Michallica wrote:at this point, our all-star game representative is going to be Erik Karlsson, hands down.

Ryan Shannon is outscoring Peter Regin. Our 3rd and 4th lines are playing very well yet our top 6 are letting us down so badly.

I want to give up and hope for a high draft pick (RNH or Landeskog), but I spent waaay too much time wishing for the season to come in the long summer only to stop caring after game 35. Call it die-hard fan syndrome or whatever, I know what the odds are and considering our recent play, there's no reason to believe it'll turn around, but I guess I gotta keep the faith. BUT.....time is nigh to bury kovalev in the minors if we can't trade him. I just can't stand him any longer, despite being one of his biggest supporters.

Shannon is matching the goal output of both Regin and Foligno. He *is* a sniper based on his shooting percentage as well. If you discount Zach Smith's unsustainable 28.6% (2 goals on 7 shots), the leader is Alfie at 16.2%, followed by (hang on to your socks) "Stone Hands" Kelly at 13.3% and Shannon at 12.1%. Michalek actually isn't far behind (next at 11.1%). Regin is actually last of any goal scorers at 1.9% -- that is worse than abysmal. He might as well stop shooting because he'd be better off with a 50-50 pass (i.e. bad percentage pass) to, say, Fisher, whose 10.6% will make the overall play a 5.3% -- which is nearly 3 times better than Regin's 1.9%.

Compare this to a team like the Rangers. Take out Boogard's 25%, your next 6 are a combined 15.2%, compared with 12.1% for the Sens top-six (now, it's not the "Top Six" but the best six shooting percentages).

If you shoot the puck 32-33 times, which is not unrealistic for a "decent game" that works out to one extra goal in that game.

A while back (perhaps last year) someone derisively suggested the Sens should bring out the Shooter-Tutor in practice. Maybe not such a bad idea.

Oh, and, P.S. Before you send Alexei down to bingo, he's leading the team in GWG.

wprager wrote:Oh, and, P.S. Before you send Alexei down to bingo, he's leading the team in GWG.

GWG is a flawed stat though. It's not like they're all goals that break a tie or OT goals.

The ONLY timely goal I've seen scored this season was Mike Fisher against Carolina and Chris Kelly against NYR....that's it! those are the ones I'd classify as clutch GWG goals

Remind me... why did we sign Gonchar?

Holy crap.

shabbs wrote:Remind me... why did we sign Gonchar?

Holy crap.

Because he's the elite PMD we've been yearning for for so many years.....but really, we just needed BRAINS for our veteran players.

Michallica wrote:

Because he's the elite PMD we've been yearning for for so many years.....but really, we just needed BRAINS for our veteran players.

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/sports/Frustration+mounts+Gonchar/4004741/story.html

"When he tries to do too many things, that's when the game starts to fall apart," Clouston says. "(Teams) force him too hard, too quick, they put pressure on him too much for him to think he can make those plays. Especially at the blueline, those are crucial plays.

"That's a game plan. You can tell teams put pressure on him to take his space and time away."

Interesting quote from CC.

Gonchar is probably struggling since he's not as sheltered as he was in Pittsburgh, where Crosby and Malkin are the big targets. Now that he's here he's one of the few big names on the Sens other teams focus on. As such, he's feeling the pressure big time.

Big Ev wrote:

wprager wrote:Oh, and, P.S. Before you send Alexei down to bingo, he's leading the team in GWG.

GWG is a flawed stat though. It's not like they're all goals that break a tie or OT goals.

The scary thing is he leads with 3. That means no one else has more than 2. Yes, it's a flawed stat but this is a flawed team.

Michallica wrote:

shabbs wrote:Remind me... why did we sign Gonchar?

Holy crap.

Because he's the elite PMD we've been yearning for for so many years.....but really, we just needed BRAINS for our veteran players.

He's teaching Karlsson how to slow down.

wprager wrote:

Big Ev wrote:

wprager wrote:Oh, and, P.S. Before you send Alexei down to bingo, he's leading the team in GWG.

GWG is a flawed stat though. It's not like they're all goals that break a tie or OT goals.

The scary thing is he leads with 3. That means no one else has more than 2. Yes, it's a flawed stat but this is a flawed team.

That's true LOL

shabbs wrote:Remind me... why did we sign Gonchar?

Holy crap.

See all the arguments I made when the signing was announced. There was but one other person who was against the signing at the time.

I welcome you all to the dark side.

hemlock wrote:

shabbs wrote:Remind me... why did we sign Gonchar?

Holy crap.

See all the arguments I made when the signing was announced. There was but one other person who was against the signing at the time.

I welcome you all to the dark side.

Heh. Don't like this side...