by Ken Hawkins (a.k.a. khawk)
Monday afternoon’s game vs. the L.A. Kings was for all intents and purposes a live action reenactment of the NHL Open Ice Challenge arcade game… to the extent that it’s almost surprising that the net didn’t burst into flames after Josh Norris’ GWG. This was definitely not a game anyone saw coming, as both teams started the season scoring at a rate of 2.0G/GP, and were coming off road losses where they managed to score just 1 goal. Even the odds-makers must have been shaking their heads, given the over/under of just 5.5… which was the lowest of any of Monday’s NHL games.
Then this happened…
OTT 8 - LAK 7 (OT) (NHL Game Highlights)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fICCeZfbZJQ/
Entertaining as this kind of high-scoring back-and-forth game may be, it no doubt gave peptic ulcers to 80% of the coaches involved. It’s not even clear what value would be gained from reviewing the game tape, unless you added the Benny Hill theme to highlight the sheer magnitude of the defensive breakdowns on both sides. In fairness to the Senators, they were resting Ullmark for this game and lost Zub early in the game to a pretty dangerous hit. So they were playing the majority of this game with just 5 D-men and an AHL goaltender, due to a very Korpisalo-like performance from Forsberg. It was good to see them keep fighting to come back from multiple deficits, and improving to 2-1 on the season is positive… but there was an awful lot in this game to just move on from, and get back to trying to play “the right way”.
The Good - Senators fans were no doubt pleased to see Norris have a big game offensively with 2G-1A including the OT game-winner. It was equally impressive to see him lead the team with 5 hits, and going a team-best 10/19 in the faceoff circle. Chabot/Jensen deserve a lot of praise for absorbing a ton of extra ice time, and Chabot's 29min+ was a game-high for either team. Another well-deserved shout-out goes to MacEwan, who somehow managed to fit in 2G, a fight, 2 hits, and a team-best +2 rating into just 5:14 of ice time. The game also provided first goals on the year for all of Giroux, Batherson, Chabot, and Sanderson, and the PP went 4-for-6, which should help build some offensive confidence.
The Bad - It’s hard to know where to start from a defensive perspective when a team gives up 7 goals in regulation time, but it certainly wasn’t good to watch them go down 2-0 in the first period for the 2nd game in a row. This is a team trying to change a reputation for letting in too many goals early in games, and to see that already creeping into this season is more than a bit problematic. Good teams make a habit of scoring first, and they need to figure out how to make that happen more often.
The Ugly - It seems to have taken all of 26 minutes for Travis Green to lose patience with Anton Forsberg. In the post-game interview Green claimed the move to pull Forsberg was just because there were 3 goals on 9 shots and he felt like putting a new goalie in, but if you read between the lines there’s a lot of professional courtesy being shown there. Mads Sogaard was an emergency AHL call-up for this game, and in the majority of cases should never have been called into action… let alone a game where they’re already down to 5 D-men. Forsberg needs to be a lot better, and it will be interesting to see how short the leash is next time.
Next up will be the second game of the home stand vs. NJD on Thursday night. They’re a playoff-quality team from the Metropolitan Division that’s off to a fast 4-1 start, led by… a pair of third-line forwards (including a former Senators draft pick), and a 5’9 rookie third-pairing D-man? Jack Hughes might also show up, so hopefully they come up some kind of actual plan for that. The fans were promised something different this year, but if they were confused by the Jekyll and Hyde performances in the first two games, can anyone even begin to speculate on what version of this team will take the ice on Thursday vs. NJD? If nothing else, the over-under probably won’t be 5.5.
What are your thoughts on what was easily the craziest game of the NHL season so far? Please leave your comments below, and as always thanks for reading!
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