Coming off of the Christmas break, the Senators were looking to get off to a good start after back-to-back losses the week prior. The break must have been a nice time for players and coaches to hit the reset button and spend some time with family and friends. For most of the game, it looked like the break was paying dividends, but the Islanders ended up scoring five unanswered goals to win 6-3.
Here are some quick thoughts from tonight’s game:
---With Craig Anderson out indefinitely with a concussion, Mike McKenna had to start tonight, and will actually start tomorrow as well. Under those circumstances, it would be hard to expect a win on the road. However, Ottawa was up 3-1 almost halfway through the game, so they certainly had a chance to win but they blew it.
---The most important news from tonight is that Thomas Chabot left the game with an upper-body injury. It’s unclear what exactly happened to him, but here is the play in question:
#Sens Thomas Chabot injury pic.twitter.com/kkxojNAvcS
— Deidre Matthews (@ddmatthews) December 29, 2018
The team hasn’t given an update on him just yet, but it could be a shoulder injury. It doesn’t look like a dirty hit or anything, and I hope that it is nothing more than a day-to-day minor injury. Anything long-term would make Ottawa have legitiamtely one of the worst defense corps in the past decade.
(UPDATE from Guy Boucher):
It's one of those hits. It's a borderline one there...Upper body, not to the head."
— Murray Pam (@Pammerhockey) December 29, 2018
---Mark Borowiecki stood up for his teammate by fighting Matt Martin in the final minute of the game, and I respect that. At the same time though, the hit wasn’t vicious or anything, so Martin had no reason to have to answer the call. He knew a fight was coming, meaning there was no instigator penalty on the play at least. In this instance, I don’t mind the fight at all, plus Borowiecki presumably wasn’t going to do it if the game was still within reach.
--Immediately after the Borowiecki/Martin fight, Christian Jaros took on tough guy Ross Johnston after what seemed like a fairly innocent encounter. Considering how well Johnston is known as a pure fighter, Jaros held his own quite well. Then there were a few more skirmishes as the buzzer went at the end of the game, although those appeared to be more for show than anything.
---Cody Ceci actually chipped in tonight with a goal of his own and led the team with seven shot attempts in all situations. His goal was finally an instance where he had a quality chance and actually took advantage of it, because anecdotally it seems like he can hardly ever hit the net with a big opportunity in front of him:
Snipe. pic.twitter.com/xCCCPuEDNY
— Ottawa Senators (@Senators) December 29, 2018
Tonight was also his 400th game, which is insane because there are still some people out there who think that he is going to turn a corner at some point. Nevertheless, he at least provided some offense tonight.
---Mat Barzal is just too good. He ended up with two goals and one assist, and against Senators defensemen, it’s laughably easy for him to score.
---Matt Duchene’s goal to put the Senators up 2-0 was something else. That will get lost in the shuffle after blowing the 3-1 lead, but this goal is probably in the top-5 for goals amongst Ottawa players this season:
In full gear, @Matt9Duchene is something else. pic.twitter.com/KcTL5NGRTV
— NHL (@NHL) December 29, 2018
---Every NHL team is going to go through score effects, and Ottawa is probably more susceptible to that because of the lack of talent on their roster. Still though, it’s embarrassing seeing that after the goal from Ceci to give them the 3-1 lead, the Islanders out-attempted the Senators by 16 the rest of the game:
That’s simply not going to cut it if they want to protect any sort of lead.
The next game for Ottawa comes tomorrow at 7:30 against the Washington Capitals at home.