Ottawa Senators TIDBITS & QUICK HITS!

SpezDispenser wrote:He'll be a decent utility guy for the next few years. It's Lundin I don't really care for.

Considering how little Lundin has played due to injuries I don't think it's fair to call him out on anything. He's been solid most of his career from what I've read. Maybe he's a bad fit, maybe he hasn't had time to settle in due to how little he's player.

I do want him back, the amount of rookies (and rookie mistakes) on our blueline is scary.

It's pretty amazing. The Sens are 5-3-2 in their last 10, goof for 12 points. Of the 8 teams out of a playoff spot (let's face it -- that's our competition right now) only two have matched the 12 points: Rangers (with an identical 5-3-2) and Capitals (6-4). Additionally, both the Leafs and the Flyers (two of the three playoff-bound teams below us) are 6-4-0, meaning they haven't gained a point in the standings. And New Jersey are unraveling, going 3-5-2 and actually dropping 4 points further behind us.

Gotta love those loser points. Michalek should be ready pretty soon, and Stone has now played two games since his injury. I think it's pretty amazing that I didn't even have to mention Anderson.

Still sucks losing 3 in a row but, hey, we're still in 5th and getting some welcomed relief soon.

Hoags wrote:

SpezDispenser wrote:He'll be a decent utility guy for the next few years. It's Lundin I don't really care for.

Considering how little Lundin has played due to injuries I don't think it's fair to call him out on anything. He's been solid most of his career from what I've read. Maybe he's a bad fit, maybe he hasn't had time to settle in due to how little he's player.

I do want him back, the amount of rookies (and rookie mistakes) on our blueline is scary.

He's okay, but the point is he's nothing that we need IMO. I'd still rather Boroweicki.

SpezDispenser wrote:

Hoags wrote:

SpezDispenser wrote:He'll be a decent utility guy for the next few years. It's Lundin I don't really care for.

Considering how little Lundin has played due to injuries I don't think it's fair to call him out on anything. He's been solid most of his career from what I've read. Maybe he's a bad fit, maybe he hasn't had time to settle in due to how little he's player.

I do want him back, the amount of rookies (and rookie mistakes) on our blueline is scary.

He's okay, but the point is he's nothing that we need IMO. I'd still rather Boroweicki.

Ultimately, it's not rookie mistakes that are killing us but lack of scoring, and neither one of them will help us in that regard. However it would have been good to see BoroCop in that Flyers game, and I suspect the Leafs will try to play tough, also. Borowiecki should get the call up.

As Prags says, we have way too many rookies, playing too many minutes.

Lundin's best asset is he is not a rookie.

Borowiecki is a good callup against the Leafs but he's just a thug. Handles the puck like a grenade.

Now on the lighter side of things...

An advanced stats article showing how good Karlsson is:

Taking a closer look at zone exits can give us an idea of just how effective these "puck-moving defensemen" and how much they are relied on. Dave Tippett's quote about certain types of defensemen he coached sums up what I have been trying to accomplish by tracking zone exits:

"I'll give you an example. We had a player that was supposed to be a great, shutdown defenseman. He was supposedly the be-all, end-all of defensemen. But when you did a 10-game analysis of him, you found out he was defending all the time because he can't move the puck. Then we had another guy, who supposedly couldn't defend a lick. Well, he was defending only 20 percent of the time because he's making good plays out of our end. He may not be the strongest defender, but he's only doing it 20 percent of the time. So the equation works out better the other way. I ended up trading the other defenseman."

http://www.puckprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=1467

For reference, the average success rate I had for defensemen in this study so far is 22.5%, so these 20 players have been well exceeding that limit. Most of them are conventionally considered good puck-movers, so there aren't many surprises here. That said, I didn't expect to see Toni Lydman, Mark Fayne, and Grant Clitsome to rank this highly, but they have been very good at exiting the zone in the games I have tracked. Clearly, it's not a surprise to see Ottawa's Erik Karlsson and Phoenix's Keith Yandle lead the pack here by a mile.

The majority are defensive defensemen similar to what Tippett described, or third pairing guys who aren't being relied on to do much. The one exception here is Mark Giordano of the Calgary Flames. It is actually kind of surprising that he struggled so much to exit the zone because his offensive skill set isn't bad and he played considerable minutes on both Calgary's power play and penalty killing units. Again, this is still a very small sample in the grand scheme of things, so I'm interested to see how he looks once I have more games tracked.

As a side note, I should mention that any defenseman who fails to advance at least 10% of his breakout attempts is a member of what I am dubbing "The Gill Club." The chart above should tell you why.

I agree with that aspect for sure, especially the disgusting speed Karlsson had where he didn't even need to pass.

Unfortunately we're slightly Cussed two fold. 1.We lose his amazing passes. 2.We lose his blazing speed that can act as an outlet on its own.

My initial comment was that I thought the zone coverage was good - both from our D and from the support from the forwards, but we're having issues getting the puck into the offensive zone so badly. So many plays died on sticks tonight...

Plays are going to die on sticks for a long time at this point... the Sens are still missing the majority of their offense and will be for a while yet. That's the way it is and Murray making any kind of move at this point short of bringing in a long term fix (ie Brassard) is probably not the best idea.

Maybe making a move for Ballard is something that can be looked at. He's being healthy scratched again but is an NHL D man and wouldn't cost a ton. But do you want to commit 2 years at 4.2 mil to him? Questionable. Is he any worse than Gonchar at this point? Probably not, no. Maybe when Spezza is close to returning or Zibanejad proves a little more you can flip a guy like Regin for him but until then offense is thin as it is.

Ballard got scratched? I'm pretty sure I saw an A on his jersey last week

We just don't need another left handed shot who is 'ok' on the right side. I like Ballard and think he's actually a perfect fit in Mac's system, but do we risk another guy whose not really comfortable?

Ballard would have been perfect if we didn't have Methot already.

Again, at this point the best thing to do is for the Sens to hold on to dear life... nice thing is every game means something at this point so I am not too sure what else you can do.

Short of someone offering up something crazy for Bishop when Anderson is back and playing they really have no body body and nothing to trade.

Sucks as a fan because you want to see the team improve and make moves that help the future and current roster but everyone knows the best move right now is to do nothing and just hope you have banked enough points and you can grind out a few more until Spezza is back.

No there really isn't anything Murray can do, unless someone offers him a crazy overpayment or a dirt cheap deal.
Michalek will be back soon, maybe they will call up Stone if he continues to play well(he just got back from injury so I think they'll let him get his legs back first).
After that hope that Spezza is back sooner than later.

NEELY wrote:Again, at this point the best thing to do is for the Sens to hold on to dear life... nice thing is every game means something at this point so I am not too sure what else you can do.

Short of someone offering up something crazy for Bishop when Anderson is back and playing they really have no body body and nothing to trade.

Sucks as a fan because you want to see the team improve and make moves that help the future and current roster but everyone knows the best move right now is to do nothing and just hope you have banked enough points and you can grind out a few more until Spezza is back.

Yep, pretty much. It sucks for now, but there isn't much to do. No trade in the world would help us right now, unless it's somehow bringing in Boyle and Perry...but for that, you'd have to gut our prospects and picks, which obviously ain't going to happen.

So we banked a few points earlier, and now it'll be tooth and nail every game. We're still 6 points clear of 9th. Couple that with the fact that the East is an absolute dog's breakfast right now (other than Montreal and Boston), and there's still a good shot to make the playoffs.

The thing that might end up Cussing a team over is the SouthLeast division. Carolina is currently leading that division, which automatically slots them 3rd in the East. They have 25 pts, which should put them tied for 7th. They just lost Ward, which means their stock is falling. There might very well wind up being ZERO SouthLeast teams with enough points to make the playoffs, but one will end up getting that 3rd seed, because the NHL is stupid.

Our best hope is other teams suffering injuries as crippling as ours. Carolina just lost Ward, who is next ?

That would even the playing field somewhat.

Hoags wrote:Our best hope is other teams suffering injuries as crippling as ours. Carolina just lost Ward, who is next ?

That would even the playing field somewhat.

Sens just have to grind it out... at worst this is great experience going forward and they can build on this. You just hope the guys who got extended for 4 and 5 years in Turris and Smith find a way to be effective out on the ice. Turris is getting some points and some chances but Smith (at least this weekend) was just awful. He needs to be a guy that gets involved physically and drop the gloves... but can he right now? Can the Sens afford to have him in the box 5 mins or more at a time? I doubt it.

First year after signing a contract can be tough on a player, no question.

Arnott getting a try out of sorts with the Blues:

http://kuklaskorner.com/hockey/comments/arnott-getting-another-shot-with-the-blues?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter