The Senators came back after a week and a half off, and I’m not sure why I thought I missed watching these games. They went into the break with back-to-back losses against the Blues and Coyotes, and they added to that losing streak tonight with a 5-3 loss to the Evgeni Malkin-less Pittsburgh Penguins.
Here are some thoughts from the game:
---The Penguins made an interesting trade earlier today by shipping out Derick Brassard, Riley Sheahan, a 2nd round pick, and two 4th round picks in exchange for Nick Bjugstad and Jared McCann. Brassard seemed likely to be moved, and he has so much less value than he did just one year ago. Pierre Dorion hasn’t done many things right, but selling Brassard before he tanked this year with Pittsburgh is probably his best move. Now Ottawa has Filip Gustavsson, JBD, Jonny Tychonick, and another 3rd round pick to show for him.
---This was an insanely high-event hockey game. In all situations, the shots on goal were 40-40, which is almost unheard of. The 5-3 final score makes total sense considering the workload that Anders Nilsson and Casey DeSmith had. The Senators did a much better job at actually hitting the net though, as the Penguins had more shot attempts with 66 (compared to 50 for Ottawa).
---Rudolfs Balcers' countrymate, Teddy Blueger, scored his first career goal for the Penguins, continuing the tradition for the Senators always allowing first career goals.
---I’m not sure what the Penguins defensemen were doing on Matt Duchene’s goal, but seeing him fly into the zone was something else. Just for that goal, Dorion’s asking price should go up. First it was a 1st, 2nd, and a good prospect, but now it’s TWO first rounders and a good prospect.
---Mark Stone’s takeaway right before Mikkel Boedker’s goal was another example amongst thousands of why he is such an amazing player. We take for granted how good he is at it, and if he does get traded, that aspect of his game will be sorely missed.
Colin provided a mind-blowing stat regarding his takeaways:
Since entering the league full-time in 2014-15, Stone has 457 takeaways. Second best? Jeff Skinner, with *over 100 less* at 339. The guy is insane.
— Colin Cudmore (@CudmoreColin) February 2, 2019
---It feels like I mention this after every game now, but Bobby Ryan extended his stretch of solid production, with his fifth goal in his past eight games. He also has 13 points in his past 16 games.
---Nick Paul played 5:16 tonight, more than five minutes fewer than anyone else. What is the point of him playing if he isn’t even going to get a real chance to prove himself? He’s gotten more than 10 minutes of ice-time in just five of his twenty games so far this season, and on ten occasions he has had less than eight minutes of ice-time. It’s almost pointless having him here.
---Christian Jaros had just 35 shots in 37 games coming into tonight, but he led the team with six shots on goal this game. That’s a bit strange to see from such a defensive-minded defenseman.
---Jean-Gabriel Pageau has been awfully quiet since his first game coming back from injury. He went pointless again tonight and just has that one goal from a month ago to show for his efforts so far. He led the team with four individual scoring chances, but he’ll have to finish his chances if he doesn’t want to get leap-frogged by other centres in the organization.
---Max Lajoie was last on the team in corsi with 11 shots for and 27 against. It seems like every game he is near the bottom, although how much of that is due to Cody Ceci is unclear. The fact that he has been given a free pass most of the season and the Senators second best defenseman, Christian Wolanin, is still in Belleville is mildly infuriating.
The next game for the Senators is tomorrow (tonight?) at home against the Detroit Red Wings at 7:00 EST.