Guy Boucher had a mild meltdown at Senators practice, the first one since returning home from a disappointing four game road trip where the team brought back only two of a possible eight points.
He stopped practice multiple times, and had one epic, expletive deleted rant while slamming his stick on the ice a couple of times in an attempt to get his players to focus and pay attention to detail.
Regardless of the system, it only works as well as they players buy in, pay attention, and are all on the same page. Ottawa certainly isn't the most talent-laden nor the deepest team in the league, but they are skilled enough that there shouldn't be as many letdowns as there is. It hasn't always been that they have been out-skilled, but more often than not it has been long periods of lack of percieved effort that has them sliding against teams that you would have to consider better.
Anyway, at risk of turning it into another state of the team address like I posted yesterday, lets look ahead to tonight's game. It is a rematch of last Wednesday's tilt in San Jose, which saw the Senators come away with a 4-2 win, giving up a 2 goal first period lead and winning it with just over a minute left on Chris Kelly's goal and then adding an empty netter.
The Senators were fortunate to come away with the win, having been outshot 37-17 and the Sharks had 78 shot attempts to Ottawa's 36. Mike Condon stole the show in that one to give the Senators their only win on the road trip.
San Jose will no doubt be looking for revenge on that one, feeling robbed of two points that they feel they deserved. However, the Sharks are playing the second half of a back to back, defeating Toronto in a shootout last night. They had to do it the hard way, once again having to come back from being down 2-0 and score twice in the third period to force overtime.
The Leafs might have done the Senators a favor, putting 31 shots on Martin Jones so we might get to see backup Aaaron Dell in the net. Or maybe not, because rookie Dell has a record of 3-1 in his 4 career starts, with a 2.17 GAA and .926 save percentage, so even with the lack of experience he hasn't shown to be much of a dropoff from Jones this season.
Mike Condon will return to the Senators net after being pulled in Anaheim, the second of back to back starts. Condon allowed 3 goals in the first period before being replaced by Andrew Hammond.
Ben Harpur was called up and practiced yesterday, and will play in Mark Borowiecki's spot. Chris Wideman practiced with a cage after taking a puck in the face in Anaheim and is questionable, with Andreas Englund ready to step in to his place if he can't go.
It also looks like Curtis Lazar is ready to go after leaving the Pittsburgh game with an injury and returning to Ottawa before the team headed to California. Buddy Robinson and Phil Varone were both returned to Binghamton upon return to make room for Harpur.
There will be a pre-game ceremony to honor Chris Neil, who played his 1,000th game on Saturday in Los Angeles. The festivities will start around 6:30, so if you are going to the game, get there early to pay respects to a player who would have been considered a longshot to make that milestone, especially with one team.