Ottawa Senators- 3, Buffalo Sabres- 2, Shootout
The Ottawa Senators shootout win on Saturday night continued their recent dominance over the Buffalo Sabres. Coming into last night’s game, the Senators had won six straight games against the Sabres. Make it seven. Last night’s Senators win was pretty big for a struggling Ottawa club who were missing Jason Spezza and captain Daniel Alfredsson with long term injuries. Earlier on Saturday, the club announced Alfredsson having a separated left shoulder and could be sidelined for up to six weeks.
While the Senators outshot the Sabres 40-22, this wasn’t a runaway game. Sure, the Sabres registered only one shot on goal in the first period, but this wasn’t a pretty performance from the Senators. This was one of those games many would describe as gritty and “blue collared”. The Senators understood that they’d need to get into the tough areas and win one-on-one battles without their top two stars.
Without further delay, here are the Classy, Non-Classy, and Could-Have-Been-Classier moments of last night’s Senators-Sabres game.
The Classy
Last night’s classy player of the game was Chris Neil. Neil made the most of his 16:44 of ice time, proving to be a thorn in the Sabres side and even contributing on the scoreboard (Neil scored the Senators second goal). Neil played the ‘love him on your team, hate him against your team‘ role perfectly while agitating most of the Sabres roster, most notably Adam Mair. This was exactly what Ottawa missed when Neil was out of the line up for most of December. It was nice to see Neil find his groove after running around a little too much in Wednesday’s disastrous loss to Pittsburgh.
Non-Classy
Coming into Saturday night’s game, the Senators hadn’t scored a goal in their last 18 powerplays. You can make it 0-21. To say Ottawa’s powerplay is scoring as much as Tiger Woods is with his wife, Elin Nordegren is probably accurate. In the Senators final powerplay of the game – with three minutes remaining – there seemed to be little urgency or puck pressure. Long gone are the days of the Senators sending a defenseman down for the back door play (a throwback to the Redden or Chara’s hay days). Those plays are all I could think of watching Kovalev handle the puck on the half wall, looking for a pass – not seeing a pass – and ultimately taking a weak shot on the NHL’s hottest goalie Ryan Miller.
Could-Have-Been-Classier
In what seems to be a troubling pattern, the Senators came out very strong in the first period and died off as the game wore on. By the time the Senators got into overtime, it seemed apparent they weren’t trying to win the game, but rather, trying to ‘not lose the game’. A perfect example came off the opening faceoff in overtime. Buffalo won the faceoff and immediately sent both forwards and defenseman Tyler Myers into Ottawa’s zone. Moments later, after finally breaking out of their zone without a turnover (yeah, it took a while), the Senators offensive rush featured Milan Michalek on a 1-on-3. I saw this same sequence happen over and over again during the quick overtime period. It’s not like the Senators were playing for the shootout (the Senators are a miserable 13-26 all time in shootouts prior to Saturday’s game). It can’t be…
An honourable mention for Could-Have-Been-Classier goes to Alex Kovalev. While he registered an assist and scored the winning shootout goal, he was invisible throughout most of the game. In a time where the Senators need him most (I know, it’s becoming as cliche as calling every December game a “must win game”, but still…), he barely showed up. Talking with friends on Twitter, it was agreed he showed some signs of life. While true, he’s got to show much more than that if the Senators hope to survive the next month without Spezza and Alfredsson.
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Up next for the Senators is a game on Monday night against the Montreal Canadiens at Scotibank Place. This game is the first of a five game home stand for the Senators – a critical stretch of the season to distance themselves away other teams trying to sneak into the playoffs. Ottawa’s December slump finds them with only two points more than the 9th place New York Rangers. With their big OT win over the Maple Leafs on Saturday, the Montreal Canadiens are one point back of the Senators for 6th in the Eastern Conference.
Stay classy, Ottawa Senators.
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Another Tiger dig but at least it’s in the right category (Non-Classy). ;-)
The Sens seem to have Buffalo’s number so far this year. Hope they can keep that up. Although the Habs are only 1 point behind the Sens do have 2 games in-hand on them.
Hey, any Tiger dig is a good dig. Right?
For whatever reason, the Sens do have the Sabres number. I can’t explain it, nor can I find reason with it.
Monday’s game is huge for the reasons you point out. They are playing much better since Markov’s return. Oh, and that Plekanec guy is playing pretty good too.
Ok so here comes my explanation for praising Kovalev after the game. My expectations for him have sunk to an all time low that now Im impressed when he skates further than the blue line. Saturday night he skated well and had great puck possession. He somehow made Shannon look better (which can’t be easy at all). He had some drive in him, and Im hoping he gets that same drive against the Habs because last game he seemed to be grieving not playing against the Habs urghh
Something else that bothered me about Kovalev though, is that even though my expectations for him have been low I at least thought not making the Russian Olympic team would hurt a bit to the point where it would light a fire under his ass. The slight drive I referred to in the Sabres game is not what I anticipated. I don’t like this guy, even in his hattrick game and I probably won’t until he leaves back to his dear Montréal but I need to give him some credit every once in a while to overshadow all the other stuff (def not good) I have and will say about him ;)
Love that Neil gets the Classy honours, he is a $2 million deserving player whether people like it or not
Yeah, maybe the Olympic thing will light a fire under his ass, but frankly, not being asked to the Russian orientation camp didn’t seem to do much good. I’m not getting my hopes up, although I understand where you are coming from.
Shannon… I really don’t get his fall off this year. Last year he was great. This year… I don’t even notice him.