A four day All-Star break didn't change much for the fortunes of the Ottawa Senators, who dropped a sixth straight contest in regulation for the first time in over 20 years.
It wasn't their worst performance of late by any means, but they still couldn't manage to score more than one goal, and despite a pretty solid 37 save performance, the goal Craig Anderson allowed midway through the third period was a bad angle, no screen goal that should have and would have been stopped by a good pee-wee goalie. That is a trend that I have brought up often , but one that still haunts both Ottawa netminders and has to be deflating to the team.
That doesn't give them an excuse for lackadaisical play, because the skaters in front of Anderson looked disjointed, disinterested and just plain out of synch for much of the night. You could blame rust, but the Hurricanes had the same break and although they didn't look in mid-season form, they found a way to win even after falling behind 1-0.
It was a disappointing 21st birthday for both Thomas Chabot and Colin White, the latter of whom is still looking for his first NHL point. Even Curtis Lazar had four points in his first 10 NHL games, and White hasn't done much as of to show that he is ready to live up to the expectations he carried with him heading into his rookie season. Part of that could be playing on a line with Alex Burrows and Chris DiDomenico, part of it could be the training camp injury that put him behind schedule, and maybe Guy Boucher needs to give him more time among the top 6, but he needs to either play in Ottawa or go down and play in Belleville before a repeat of the Lazar fiasco becomes reality, which is something the Senators can't afford in the long run.