GAME DAY:New York Rangers @ Ottawa Senators - 7:30pm ET - Fri. Mar. 4, 2011

Anderson probably could have used a night off... I guess the Sens are trying to get as many looks as possible.

we're basicaly playing with half an AHL team... what can we expect..? for one this won't be the team in come september. we'll take a few FA this summer and rid ourselves of Kuba. snap of the fingers

Flo The Action wrote:we're basicaly playing with half an AHL team... what can we expect..? for one this won't be the team in come september. we'll take a few FA this summer and rid ourselves of Kuba. snap of the fingers

Let's not kid ourselves. What will be different about the line up next year?

1. Alfie, hopefully fully recovered but, nevertheless, 39 years old.
2. A rookie forward who might pop a few to help our offense, but will also make lots of mistakes.
3. One or two rookie defensemen to make up for the miscues lost if we trade/waive/bury Kuba.
4. Those same AHLers but now here full-time. Maybe with just a smidgen of their urgency gone.

There are also a few things we are hoping for which may or may not come true:
1. Anderson re-signing.
2. Phillips re-gaining his form.
3. Gonchar regaining his form.
4. Regin recovering and regaining his form (? did he really have "form" before?)

asq2 wrote:

NEELY wrote:One thing was pretty obvious tonight and last night, The Sens as a team are not very good. There is not a whole lot of difference between what Florida is putting out there and what Ottawa is. The Sens may very well have that number 1 pick overall come June.

Not unless they win the lottery, IMO. Edmonton just lost Hall.

On another note, I'm (like others) a fan of this Greening guy. Not sure if he has the skill to be a top-6er long-term but his forechecking has been awesome.

Edmonton still has a better team than Ottawa does right now. Crazy to say but The Sens are just awful. They might as well not even be playing with a 4th line and Svatos is pretty close to useless. Teams can pretty much shut down Spezza's line without problems, then the 2nd line of Foligno/Smith/Neil isn't going to get a lot going at the best of times.

Seriously, Ottawa will be lucky to wi n 7 of their last 17.

shabbs wrote:Anderson probably could have used a night off... I guess the Sens are trying to get as many looks as possible.

If you check out the Sun, the fat man is already throwing Anderson under the bus. No wonder no one wants to play in Ottawa.

Number Twenty Nine wrote:

shabbs wrote:Anderson probably could have used a night off... I guess the Sens are trying to get as many looks as possible.

If you check out the Sun, the fat man is already throwing Anderson under the bus. No wonder no one wants to play in Ottawa.

I didn't get that sense at all. Just saying that Anderson isn't going to maintain a .970 save pourcentage forever, and when the defence is suspect in front of him, he's going to look less superhuman-ish, which will probably help him decide not to sign in Ottawa in the offseason

Number Twenty Nine wrote:

shabbs wrote:Anderson probably could have used a night off... I guess the Sens are trying to get as many looks as possible.

If you check out the Sun, the fat man is already throwing Anderson under the bus. No wonder no one wants to play in Ottawa.

The fans are never far behind.

The fans were throwng EK under the bus last night.

Top 6 forwards at the start of the year:
Michalek - Spezza - Alfie
Regin - Fisher - Kovalev

'Top' 6 last night:
Greening - Spezza - Butler
Svatos - Shannon - Condra

Don't expect a lot of wins in March. Just expect effort.

wprager wrote:

Flo The Action wrote:we're basicaly playing with half an AHL team... what can we expect..? for one this won't be the team in come september. we'll take a few FA this summer and rid ourselves of Kuba. snap of the fingers

Let's not kid ourselves. What will be different about the line up next year?

1. Alfie, hopefully fully recovered but, nevertheless, 39 years old.
2. A rookie forward who might pop a few to help our offense, but will also make lots of mistakes.
3. One or two rookie defensemen to make up for the miscues lost if we trade/waive/bury Kuba.
4. Those same AHLers but now here full-time. Maybe with just a smidgen of their urgency gone.

There are also a few things we are hoping for which may or may not come true:
1. Anderson re-signing.
2. Phillips re-gaining his form.
3. Gonchar regaining his form.
4. Regin recovering and regaining his form (? did he really have "form" before?)

We need to suck next year.

Why? They get the 1st or 2nd overall pick and they are well on their way again. They have built through the draft and will continue to do so. This year they may get 2 franchise forwards and with some luck a 3rd top 6 guy somewhere.

Not all of Ottawa's picks are going to turn out but it looks like a vast amount will. Ottawa doesn't need to "suck" next year. They have a ton of pieces already put in place.

Because if you can get a potential generational talent in Nail Yakupov, it would help the team out more than just barely missing the playoffs next year. At least finish bottom 5 next year, as there are a lot of high-end forwards in next year's draft, unlike this year's.

Even if we don't "need" to suck, we will most likely suck anyway so it won't matter haha.

Big Ev wrote:Even if we don't "need" to suck, we will most likely suck anyway so it won't matter haha.

We'll see, they could be bad, they could surprise. No one had any idea what the lineup will look like next year so at best it's speculation. They will be competitive.