GAME DAY: Nashville @ Ottawa, 7:30PM, Thursday, February 9, 2012

Anderson will start Sat. imo and yeah great game by BB.

That was a fun game. I wasn't planning on going, but ended up buying tickets at school. It was Subway night, so they gave us $5 Subway cards. I imagine I'll get a $5 footlong.

TheAvatar wrote:oh ... and will somebody do something about that frickin jerk, stat padding spezza

^ This is, once again, that stupid Richard move that I'm talking about.

Watch: Amazing game by Phillips. Clearly, anyone who ever said anything negative whatsoever about him ever at any point in his 1000-game career is wrong and stupid and challenged. 'Nuff said.

Not very convincing, is it? Rather opportunistic commentary, mmm?

Anyway, great game by Spezza. Thought he had a great last 2-3 games, actually. Putting Auld in net was key -- not because he's great, but because he forces us to play a harder game, to get more aggressive, and not to get complaisant that Andy will bail them out. Great game by MacLean, too -- loved how he constantly got that Neil/O'Brien/Folingo line out against Josi & Ellis, really exposing them.

Honourable mentions to Michalek & Butler (although every forward looked energized, to be honest), & a very steady game from the entire D corps. Phillips, no doubt, stole the show, tho'.

I was just kidding Dr.RP ... hence the icon at the end of my sentence ... no harm intended

TheAvatar wrote:I was just kidding Dr.RP ... hence the icon at the end of my sentence ... no harm intended

I kinda figured, but I wanted to nip that nonsense in the bud before anyone jumped on it as if it had any shred of truth. Spezza had a great game, but he also went silent for 7 straight games with the rest of the team. Consistency has long been, and continues to be, a problem for him. Liking the effort levels right now, tho'.

Nice to see big rig having a great game for his 1000th. Wish I could have watched it.

shabbs wrote:

Riprock wrote:

shabbs wrote:Hat trick for BigRig tonight. Book it.

If you mean he is on the ice for and directly responsible for allowing 3 goals against then I agree

Say what now?

2 goals so far...

Man you were so close to calling that. I didn't see that coming, only because you rarely expect a shutdown defeneman to score. They were trying really hard to get him the empty net and I was hoping he would find it. Would have been sweet.

What a game for him to have on game 1000 infront of his family.

Well, that was awesome. Hopefully they keep up this momentum Saturday afternoon.

It was nice to see Spezza actually hit the net. He had fired many shots wide lately, and it was getting really frustrating. Michalek looked more confident out there and was getting to the net quicker. It was also nice to see us draw some penalties. Everyone seemed intent on moving their feet and getting to the front of the net in any way possible, and that forced Nashville to take penalties. Great game. That's no easy team to beat.

I don't know if this has been mentioned but it's kinda neat.

Chris Phillips #4
Scores 4th goal of the game in his 1000th game (Also the game winner)
This was also the 4th time in his career that he had a 2 goal game.

Another neat one was Jason Spezza #19 scored on the 19th shot by the Sens.

SeawaySensFan wrote:Nice to see a guy that so many "fans" would like to see gone have a such a huge game. Shame about the win though, because of the rebuild I mean.

Well I was at the game and the highlight for me you ask? Isn't it obvious? Getting to see that new scoreboard of course.

A couple of other few things to note:

-- Jim O'Brien. Lots of zip and pop to him, and has clearly earned his coach's trust. He's not doing anything incredibly remarkable, but he's playing hard and helping turning over pucks, and that whole line was very effective last night.

-- The new lines. Obviously, getting something out of Butler is huge, because it allows us to ice a very strong bottom six. Those lines of Foligno/O'Brien/Neil and Daugavins/Smith/Condra were pretty effective, and legitimate scoring threats. They both look like lines that you can comfortably play for 10+ minutes a night, at this point anyway.

O'Brien is making a statement that he is a capable 4th line center next season, if not for the rest of this season.

Lee looked good coming back form injury, another guy that might be able to cheaply fill out the bottom pairing.

Going to need to rely on these young, cheap guys to hopefully allow the Sens to load up on some expensive FA's.

Edit:

Oh and does anyone think that Foligno's making too much to be a 4th liner? If he's not going to crack the top 6, where do you draw the line for how much to pay him?

Carks and Konopka better get used to watching games...

Both are UFAs and are replaceable. Evan is ecstatic.

shabbs wrote:Carks and Konopka better get used to watching games...

"Big Mouth" Konopka can focus on being quotable. Carkner is a 7th D so it'll take probably a couple of losses or a couple of bad games from Lee to get back in, but Lee looked good.

Only a few guys got on the scoresheet but that was a solid "team" win. O'Brien is my "4th Star" or whatever you want to call him. He looks exactly the way he did when I saw the Bingo/Hamilton game only with less minutes. But his game looks to translate well from AHL to NHL.

Riprock wrote:
Oh and does anyone think that Foligno's making too much to be a 4th liner? If he's not going to crack the top 6, where do you draw the line for how much to pay him?

Foligno's a real interesting case. Remember how hot he was earlier, scoring highlight-reel goals at will? It seems like we will constantly be flip-flopping on whether or not to get rid of him or keep him. Last year he had 34 pts in 82 games, this year he already has 32 pts in 57 games. He seems like he's a good checking 3rd line winger capable of putting up 40ish pts per year. He's also still young, and will be a RFA this summer, so I'm betting that he's resigned.

I think he's a guy that will always leave us expecting more, since he has shown flashes of brilliance.

I'm personally quite surprised at the demotion of Foligno when Butler gets as much leash as he does. Granted he's finally sitting out games and this most recent game shows why he needs to be top 6 to be effective but seriously I think Foligno should be given more opportunity to get out of his funk given his fast start.

Am I wrong?

tim1_2 wrote:

Riprock wrote:
Oh and does anyone think that Foligno's making too much to be a 4th liner? If he's not going to crack the top 6, where do you draw the line for how much to pay him?

Foligno's a real interesting case. Remember how hot he was earlier, scoring highlight-reel goals at will? It seems like we will constantly be flip-flopping on whether or not to get rid of him or keep him. Last year he had 34 pts in 82 games, this year he already has 32 pts in 57 games. He seems like he's a good checking 3rd line winger capable of putting up 40ish pts per year. He's also still young, and will be a RFA this summer, so I'm betting that he's resigned.

I think he's a guy that will always leave us expecting more, since he has shown flashes of brilliance.

He's had those early hot streaks for the past couple of years and I've said "sell high" on this player a few times. He's exactly the kind of player that could go on to bigger and better things elsewhere but sometimes you gotta roll the bones.

Your last point sums things up nicely and makes it really tough to consider moving him.