The Boston Bruins lead the National Hockey League standings for a reason. Even so, the lowly Ottawa Senators made the visiting Bruins looks absolutely silly for vast stretches of Wednesday’s game at the Canadian Tire Centre. Dominant through the first two periods of play, it was the Senators that looked like an all-world team rather than Boston. Incredibly strong goaltending from Tuukka Rask is all that stood between the Senators and a victory.
Here are last night’s thumbs:
Thumbs Up: The Perfect Loss I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: This is an easy team to cheer for. Last night was a great example of DJ Smith’s system helping the Senators play a game that works. The Senators were downright effective against the league’s leading team. Usually open to playing a high-flying style, the Sens locked things down and limited opportunities with ease. It was a textbook defensive performance against a team that has been tearing up textbooks all season.
While this group still lacks the elite offensive finishing talent needed to compete (thankfully June’s draft is right around the corner…), so many of the fundamentals that will make this team competitive down the road are already showing signs of being in place.
The impact of that is twofold: First, it’s really good for player development. If the rebuild can occur in a space where the team is losing, but still hanging around in most games, young players will be better off down the road. Secondly, the Senators are doing a lot to build goodwill with the fan base right now, something that they’ve struggled with for the last few seasons.
The bottom line here is that the Senators could lose every game for the rest of the season exactly like they lost this one, and most fans would walk away happy.
Thumbs Up: The Brannstrom-DeMelo Experiment As discussed in the pre-game blog yesterday, Dylan DeMelo can seemingly fix anything. His ability to provide a steady presence for young defense partners is something that DJ Smith needs to be taking advantage of on a nightly basis, simply because it works.
In more than 10 minutes of five-on-five action together, Brannstrom and DeMelo looked fantastic. Per Natural Stat Trick, they controlled or generated more than 70% of the shot attempts, shots on goal, and expected goals in that time. While they weren’t going up against the top Bruins, it was still a wonderful performance, and one that was as good as Brannstrom has delivered this year. If Chabot-DeMelo isn’t going to be a thing, Brannstrom-DeMelo absolutely should be.
Thumbs Up: The Shutdown Squad Keeping David Pastrnak, Brad Marchand, and David Krejci to a combined single point is basically the modern day equivalent of a Mona Lisa. The Senators accomplished that feat last night, largely on the backs of Connor Borwn, Nick Paul, JG Pageau, Nikita Zaitsev, and Mark Borowiecki at five-on-five.
While the shot attempts don’t suggest that they were all that effective, the expected goal numbers tell a different story. Not a single one of those Senator players fell below 50% of the expected five-on-five goals, per Natural Stat Trick. They allowed a bit of quantity, but were really good at limiting quality. Job well done.
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The Senators are back at it tomorrow, taking to the ice for an afternoon road game against the Minnesota Wild. Having lost a rather boring one to the Wild on Canadian Thanksgiving, tomorrow provides a great opportunity for the Sens to get their revenge.
As always, thanks for reading.