Mike Fisher finally broke out of his shell last night with a goal and an assist and a big freakin’ smile on the bench. Honestly, when was the last time you saw anyone so happy about an assist? It was like in that one quick pass (which was a very nice pass) he managed to completely shrug off nine games of total lack of offensive production. I think Fisher will be ok now. He’s too good of a player to be down forever and I don’t think he’ll be gripping his stick nearly as tight now that he’s reminded himself he knows how to score. Someone get that man a Cold one. No, not a beer, I meant a Coldplay album.
The Sens are now 3-0-1 in their last four and are sitting a mere two points out of eighth in the East, with a game in hand. Not only that but they defeated the Capitals, which for the Sens is a more difficult task than it is for most for some odd reason. Things are not so bad as they seemed a mere two weeks ago and while there will be ups and downs in the season, I think the team is coming together a little bit now.
While the team is still a work in progress, they’re doing a better job at picking up opposing forwards and staying with them defensively than they were at the start. Part of this is the d-men seem to have stopped trying to keep up with opposing forwards and have concentrated more on staying between the forward and the net and holding body position. This isn’t always the case and lots of breakdowns are still occurring but overall it has been looking less grim back there.
On the offensive side of things, the Sens forwards played a great puck possession game last night. They had trouble actually scoring though. I think this is because of two reasons. Firstly, you have to give a hand to Brent Johnson for playing a solid game. Secondly, I think the Sens are still being too fancy on offense. Vermette - who was one player I thought played a very lively game last night but didn’t show up on the scoreboard - had the Caps in some sticky situations in the first but instead of just trying to take the puck to the net, he kept going for passes through traffic or no look passes that caused a turnover of the puck. I don’t mean to rag on Vermette in particular since he’s definitely not the only guy on the team that does stuff like that and I do think he played a good game last night overall. The team did a great job of protecting the puck and getting set up in the offensive zone last night but when it came time to try to strike with the puck, I found that not enough simple mayhem was being caused in front of Johnson who was clearly not going to let in a softie. Of course the Sens did register 44 shots on goal so it can’t be said that they were totally ineffective.
The big story of this game, no matter which way you slice it, was mental lapses. Chris Neil’s terrible turnover in his own zone caused the Fleischmann goal and the Caps did a bad job of keeping track of when Heatley was coming out of the box, setting up his goal. There were also several other bad giveaways - one in particular by Phillips who is still struggling to find his game, in my opinion – and I think without Auld’s solid goaltending, this game probably would’ve turned out differently for the Sens, despite the lopsided shots numbers.
So Is Alex Auld the real deal or is the bottom going to fall out on him? I think he’s going to keep playing well for the rest of the year. He looks like he has picked up exactly where he left off for the Bruins last year and I can’t see any reason why he would all of a sudden stink things up. Unless Gerber really gets things going or some ridiculous trade happens, I think Auld is going to be the number one goalie for the Sens this season.
The last observation I would make about yesterday’s game is that while supposedly 47 hits were thrown (both teams combined) I really didn’t think it was a very physical contest. There was a lot of positional play and skating and the Sens blocked a lot of shots but they weren’t very physical. Physicality has been one department the Sens have been good with all year and I’m wondering if Hartsburg reigned his players in a little.
I’ve got a little bit of an inner-dilemma I’m trying to settle. Was Jason Smith a good pickup for the Sens? He is 11th overall in blocked shots but he’s a minus 2 overall and he plays about 15 minutes a game. I haven’t found him to be that big of a physical presence out there. What do you guys think? Is Jason Smith worth the $2.6 million or would you prefer to see a young d-man in that spot? I’m leaning towards the pro-Smith side but I’m curious about what Sens fans think about this in general so I would love to get some e-mails about it (
[email protected]) and I’ll post the best responses here on Hockeybuzz.
Up next are the Flyers on Thursday, another team playing far below what one would expect from their roster.
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Remember the contest ends this Friday!
And finally, I thought I would get this blog started the right way: WITH A CONTEST!!!
That’s right, it’s time for another “win something decent and also an item from Gerz’s basement” contest. The rules are simple. This time around, I want people to come up with original hockey related jokes. It could be about a team you like, a team you hate, the sport in general, whatever. When you come up with your joke, post it on the forum here or e-mail it to me (
[email protected]) and when I feel like I have enough, I’ll take the ones I consider to be the funniest and post them in a blog. Once I do that, we will get the readers to vote (again by forum posts or e-mail) on which joke is the best.
The winner will receive some paraphernalia related to their favourite team (mug, t-shirt, key chain), a copy of Sonny Chiba’s classic film “Samurai” on DVD, a tweety-bird PEZ dispenser and more (will be announced as the contest continues). Also, as a bonus, if you live in the Ottawa area and win this contest, I will deliver the prize to your house/apartment/box along with some piping hot, that’s right – piping hot, take-out food (your choice of location).
The contest is open to everyone and I will ship the prize anywhere within Canada or the US (including the freak states).
-Gerz
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