If the Ottawa Senators are serious about hanging around in the Eastern Conference playoff picture, their play on both ends of the ice better improve, and fast.
Tonight's drubbing from the hands of the Vancouver Canucks wasn't a completely unexpected defeat. The Canucks were coming into Scotiabank Place riding an impressive winning streak, and the Senators had hit the skids in a tough losing stretch where almost no break went their way.
The difference? Good teams make their breaks, and good teams don't lose their focus. Many - including myself - might not enjoy the way Vancouver plays the game from time to time, but their talent level and ability to kill off inferior teams is downright impressive, and a 4-1 road victory is nothing to marginalize.
For whatever reason, the Ottawa Senators - a team that's really prided itself on focus, drive, and energy this season - went out of their way to try and take Vancouver out of their element. As Boston provided last year, the best way to beat Vancouver is to throw them off of their game, and get physical with those who truly want no part of it.
Does it sound like a decent strategy? Sure. The only issue is that Ottawa really only tried to dial up the hitting and physicality after two early goals by Alexander Edler and Ryan Kesler in the first period. The local media praised Ottawa for trying to rattle the cages of Vancouver skaters, but it looked more like of a defeatist mentality than anything else. Sorry, but that's the truth.
Can't skate with 'em? Might as well hit 'em.
And, if this was truly a strategy employed by Paul MacLean, you'd think that the team would've brought it in the opening minutes. They probably would've dressed Zenon Konopka, too.
After all of the antics, little really changed. Vancouver continued skating and played along with the antics, eventually moving their lead to three courtesy of Ryan Kesler - his second of the night. Colin Greening moved the game to respectability late in the second at 3-1 after some brilliant work by Jason Spezza, but Dale Wiese would eventually deliver the dagger in the waning moments, beating Craig Anderson for the final goal of the night.
So, far all of the pushing, shoving, and scrapping, Ottawa heads back to the locker room with another regulation loss, and Vancouver points to the decrepit scoreboard hanging in the rafters. Wins talk louder than anything else in sports at the end of the day.
I'll give Ottawa credit for really turning up the compete level after a pair of early goals killed spirits at Scotiabank Place, though. Even though the game was a bit bizarre and slow at times, they did fight - in both the figurative and literal sense.
Still, the same problems continue to plague this team. There's too many mental mistakes on the defensive end, a majority of which come from the stick of David Rundblad and Erik Karlsson. I love what both of these kids do in terms of the offensive zone, but they really need to simplify their game on the back-end. It's getting a bit ridiculous.
And, offensively? Boy - the same forwards continue to struggle. At this point, I'm wondering if Nikita Filatov is awaiting trial on murder one charges. Bryan Murray could justify giving me top-six minutes at this point with the way some of the alleged goal scorers are playing.
The lone bright note might've been Craig Anderson, which probably sounds ridiculous looking at the box score. Yet, I thought Anderson had a pretty good game, and turned away a number of quality scoring opportunities.
Props to Zack Smith, too - the guy was one of the few players committed to playing two-way hockey tonight. He didn't get on the stat sheet offensively, but worked his behind off in front of the Ottawa crease.
My guess was that Vancouver fans were thrilled with Roberto Luongo's performance, who is slowly coming around after a bad start to the season. Goalie controversy? Not if he keeps playing like this.
Henrik Sedin? Eh - not so much. A hat trick of penalties doesn't do much to silence the argument that some of the forwards on this team can be taken completely out of their zone.
Both sides will probably appreciate the scrap between Dale Weise and Nick Foligno. A spirited bout - no question about it. It came a few minutes after Foligno's hit on Cody Hodgson, which knocked the youngster out of the game.
Quick note: Speaking of Hodgson, Alain Vigneault claims he's fine, and was only held out of the game after the hit for precautionary reasons.
Through thirty games, Ottawa's now 13-13-4 - a decent start all things considered, but tough to swallow after where this team sat a couple of weeks ago. They'll head up to Buffalo for a Tuesday night tilt at First Niagara.
Back with more later - I'm still waiting for Ryan Kesler's head to hit the boards. Allegedly.
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