Pittsburgh Penguins- 8, Ottawa Senators- 2

Let’s not pull any punches – last night’s game was one of the worst performances from the Ottawa Senators in a long time. I know we said the same about a Sens loss to the Montreal Canadiens earlier this month, but this game was that bad. Last night’s game looked like men against boys and to make matters worse, the Senators lost captain Daniel Alfredsson with a suspected shoulder injury. TSN reported on Wednesday night that Alfredsson is expected to miss “a few weeks” with the injury.

Here are the Classy, Non-Classy, and Could-Have-Been-Classier moments of last night’s one-sided Senators-Penguins game.

The Classy

Nothing. I shouldn’t saying nothing. The first period featured some class. Especially the last 12 or so minutes. The Senators did all the things they needed to do in order to give themselves a chance against one of the NHL’s best teams. They cycled the puck well, they moved their feet, and they drove hard to the net. For most of the first period, Marc-Andre Fleury had to be very good, facing terrific screens and solid Senators net presence. And once the first period buzzer sounded, that was it for the night. (From a Senators-pressure perspective).

Non-Classy

The collapse the Senators displayed between the first and second period was something fierce. The most notable aspect of this collapse was the terrible defensive coverage. For those of you who didn’t catch the game, I can’t tell you how many 2 on 1′s were given up to the Penguins… maybe 8-10. To take this a step further, I’m going to outline which defenceman’s fault each goal was. It was that bad.

Goal 1: Filip Kuba wasn’t paying attention to the back door-cross ice pass to Evgeni Malkin. How was Malkin left wide open like that? It doesn’t make sense to play a tight box against such a star-studded powerplay like Pittsburgh’s.

Goal 2: Bill Guerrin walked out from the corner, took a shot and scored on his own rebound. He literally walked through or around Anton Volchenkov to do this. Why didn’t A-Train body check Guerrin, or at least get in his way?

Goal 3: First Erik Karlsson made a bad read on the 3 on 2, playing the puck and not the pass. He missed and the rush turned into a 2 on 1. Then Kuba does the exact same thing. He didn’t take away the pass like they teach in minor hockey, goes for the shooter and suddenly Ruslan Fedotenko was left with the puck and an open net.

Goal 4: Matt Carkner and Jonathan Cheechoo combined for the world’s worst breakout, ever. The result was a clean turnover (which looked more like a pass) to Guerrin who made a great tip-pass to Chris Kunitz, who’s left wide open as Alexandre Picard was nowhere to be found in the slot. Generally, when your defensive partner is behind the net making a breakout pass, the other defenceman stands in front of their net guarding the slot. Clearly this didn’t happen.

Goal 5: This was a 3 on 1 goal that made Carkner look ridiculous. Ottawa took a chance going for a shorthanded 3 on 2 rush and got burned. I don’t mind the risk – at this point it was 4-1 for the Penguins – but having Mike Fisher on that rush with Kuba and Jarrko Ruutu isn’t the most dangerous looking rush from a Penguins perspective. I wouldn’t take it seriously either.

Goal 6: Chris Phillips chased a Penguin all the way up to the blue line and Chris Neil dropped back for support. So far so good. Then, knowing he’s covering for a defenceman, Chris Neil delivered a soft pass right up the middle of the high slot (another no-no lesson from minor hockey) right on Kunitz’ stick, setting up for a 2 on 1 for Kunitz and Malkin. Of course, Picard being the lone defenceman doesn’t take away the pass hanging Leclaire out to dry.

Goal 7: Sergei Gonchar snuck into the slot and scored on a one timer, right in front of Kuba. No slot coverage at all. Nice.

Goal 8:  Ryan Shannon is the lone Senator playing defence in the offensive zone. Chris Phillips saw this from the half-boards, sends a bad pass to Shannon (that he had to receive on his backhand), setting up for 2 on 0 with Malkin and Sidney Crosby. Result: Malkin hat-trick.

Yes, Pascal Leclaire didn’t look good in his Senators return, but he wasn’t given any help whatsoever. I find it hard to blame Leclaire when the defence played this poorly.

Could-Have-Been-Classier

One area (of many) the Ottawa Senators could have been classier in was discipline. For a team who publicly complained about the lack of powerplays they’d been receiving, they didn’t help themselves last night. The Pittsburgh Penguins scored on 3 of their 8 powerplays… and they have the league’s worst powerplay. I found a lot of the penalties taken were unnecessary – Jonathan Cheechoo’s back-to-back penalties come to mind, especially given the timing of the penalties. The Senators were tied at 1 at that point. Basically, this was a pretty big fail by the Sens. “Penalty-Fail”.

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Luckily for Alfredsson and the Senators, they’ll have a few days off between games. In fact, their next game is on Saturday night in Buffalo against Ryan Miller and the Sabres. I don’t even know what else to say. Hopefully for Senators fans, there’s a much better effort from the club.

Stay classy, Ottawa Senators.

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