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Message Sent?

November 2, 2013, 11:13 AM ET [56 Comments]
Travis Yost
Ottawa Senators Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
Paul MacLean's reshuffling of the lines on Wednesday was nothing short of a necessary step, but I think a lot of people were taken aback by the combinations he deployed in Friday night's game against New York.

Specifically, the assortment of Jason Spezza with the likes of Cory Conacher and Chris Neil.

At the time, I was curious to know whether the coach had insanely promoted Chris Neil to the team's top-line, or if there was a message being sent to the new captain that his play just wasn't good enough to start the year. Spezza, for how well he's produced offensively, has watched his line time and time again beaten in the defensive zone. Fifteen and counting, by the way.

Is some of it a linemate issue with Spezza? I don't think there's any question about it. But, to me, it was clear once I saw the allocation of ice-time last night -- Kyle Turris and Zack Smith both out-played Jason Spezza at even-strength, by quite the margin too -- that a message was being sent to #19.

This was something I was suspicious of in the early going. During one of MacLean's media scrums, I asked AJ Jakubec whether or not anyone had asked the coach if Jason Spezza had actually been tentatively demoted to the team's third-line. I ask Jakubec these things because he's one of the few guys that will find out these sorts of things. He added this:




Now, no quote or anything, but this sort of passes the smell test to me. Point-per-game centers don't generally like to play with fighting-specialists who are on pace for, uh, six points this year. In a full season.

The question, I think, is whether or not Spezza deserved this sort of treatment. To be honest, I'm sort of on the fence about it. His line's struggled so viciously off of the puck, you can't help but attribute some of it to the captain's play. And yet, there's no denying he's the team's most skilled forward -- even if Kyle Turris is, to me, the better center of the two right now.

Either way, the message was sent in both directions. Spezza didn't play a ton, and when he did, his line was awful. I mean historically awful -- as bad as you might see this entire season. I went ahead and culled the on-ice shots generated at even-strength for each forward. It is stunningly damning of the newly-minted Spezza line.



There's really no question anymore what the team's best or top line is at this point. It's not close. The Turris line started something like 11% of their total shifts in the offensive zone and played well last night. They are buried with tough starts, play tough competition, drive possession, out-shoot the competition, out-score the competition -- primarily because they give up nothing.

Hard not to notice the second and third-lines here, though, and that includes Spezza's grouping. What I think is interesting is that, partly the result of the Spezza line assembly, the Michalek-Smith-Zibanejad trio was cut through pretty mightily as well.

So, I'm sure the message was sent in the other direction -- the way of Paul MacLean. He got a point, but I hope he also got his point across. Otherwise, last night's record-setting performance of futility will go for naught.

As for what I'd dress in the coming games?

MacArthur-Turris-Ryan
Michalek-Spezza-Zibanejad
Conacher-Smith-Condra(?)
Greening-Grant-Kassian/Neil

I note the question mark because, unfortunately, we don't know if Erik Condra is healthy right now. The team just called back Mark Borowiecki, so I wonder if they plan on just dressing Matt Kassian in his role and running with eight defensemen in the mean-time.

Outside of the M-T-R, I think we're coming to a point where Mika Zibanejad's the most complete two-way player on this team. Pretty crazy for someone his age. I think, without question, he's one of the team's five or six best forwards. Playing him next to Jason Spezza only seems logical at this point.

Back with more tomorrow.

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