First off, congratulations to Team Canada, including Senators prospects Drake Batherson and Alex Formenton, who captured the Gold in the World Juniors with a 3-1 win over Sweden. Senators fans got a brief look at Formenton during exhibition and one regular season game, but Batherson (the Senators 4th round pick last June) turned a lot of heads and might end up being one of those diamonds in the rough a la Mark Stone. He had seven goals in the tournament and his first assist was on the goal that turned out to be the Gold Medal winner.
Now, on to the Senators.
I get that many of the fan base is now wishing for the Senators to complete their free-fall and to put themselves in the best position to get the #1 pick, but holy cow was the comeback against San Jose exciting.
Ottawa's best players were finally their best players, with Mike Hoffman (4), Mark Stone (3), Matt Duchene (3), Bobby Ryan, Erik Karlsson and Derick Brassard all putting up multiple points. But the fact that it took every one of them to excel with multiple points highlights why they are near the bottom of the standings.
While the comeback capped off by Duchene's winner 7 seconds into overtime was exciting and buzz-worthy, the fact that they allowed 5 goals (again) isn't a good trend and they were playing against a team that in the third period looked like it had played an overtime game the night before.
But, for one night at least, you can savour the team actually putting up some offense and showing some heart, because both have been lacking for the last couple of months.
And it could all take a 180 tonight as they play host to the league leading Tampa Bay Lightning, who were watching the Sens-Sharks from their comfy Ottawa hotel room and are set for the ambush game.
This will be the second meeting of the season, and the second time the Senators catch the Bolts off a loss. Tampa fell 2-1 to Montreal in a shootout on Thursday night, and have only lost consecutive games once this season, in late November to Pittsburgh and Washington.
For the Senators to have success, they will need to contain a lethal Lightning power play that is clicking at just under 25%, and might be due because they haven't clicked in their last two games. It might be better to not tempt fate and just stay out of the box.
That is easier said than done to the top offensive team in the league but like they showed last night, anything can happen.