"Mama said there would be days like this, there would be days like this Mama said"

Replace "Mama" with "Guy Boucher" and it sums up the Senators. Detroit on Monday night was pretty much a debacle. "Messy" would be the best adjective I could find while watching the game. Penalties caused lineup shuffles and nothing really seemed to click. Add in a hat trick from Mike Green as he led the Wings to a 5-1 win. It was the first loss in the Boucher era and although he isn't solely to blame for the loss, a disappointing first start of the season for Andrew Hammond.

Ottawa was scoreless on 3 power play opportunities and allowed 2 goals on 4 Detroit man advantages, adding a shorthanded marker of their own by Ryan Dzingel, who was probably Ottawa's best player on the night. Matrt Puempel made his season debut and didn't get a whole lot accomplished in his 9 minutes of action.

Ottawa did achieve one goal, holding the Red Wings to under 30 shots (they had 25), yet when you allow the opposition a 20% shooting percentage, no matter how few shots you allow you probably aren't going to win many games.


COYOTES WAITING

All of which opens the door for a change in strategy and bringing Thomas Chabot into the lineup. Not because he will be the saviour, but because he either needs to play or go back the the Quebec league to play, and while he can learn certain things from being around the team and practicing, he needs game action before he gets stale.

It also limits the exposure of the bottom 2 defenseman by adding a third player to that rotation, not that the top 4 was anything to write home about in Detroit.

The young Arizona coyotes were in Ottawa waiting for the Senators, in an ambush situation but the key for the home side tonight will to be to stop the bleeding at 1 game and avoid the multi-game skids that result in a team going from playoff contender to being on the outside looking in. Losses are going to happen, but it is how you recover from them and keep it at 1 instead of a 4 or 5 game losing streak that will keep them in contention even as they continue to learn the system and what each individual's responsibilities are in said system.

There will not be a practice today, so we won't know until after the coach's availability if Chabot will indeed get to make his debut as we were promised last week.

The Coyotes have played just once so far this season, a 4-3 OT home ice win over the Flyers on Saturday night. This is the first game of a 6 game road trip for Arizona, who could dress as many as 6 rookies in their lineup.

Expect the goaltending matchup to be Mike Smith vs Craig Anderson for the 7:30 puck drop on TSN5.

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