First off, for the latest Sens updates, please follow me on Twitter at Follow @KevinFr65525204 Give me a Twitter follow, I will give you a follow too!
The Ottawa Senators played a very good road game tonight in a tough environment against Nashville but it was the Predators taking advantage of their chances en route to a 4-1 win. Ottawa really missed Thomas Chabot on a night like this going 1 for 6 on the powerplay. If the Sens could've capitalized on special teams' play, the result would've been far different. Mind you it didn't help that Anton Forsberg got caught out of his goal on a terrible bounce off the boards late in the first period, with the Preds scoring a shorthanded goal at a tough time, giving Nashville momentum heading into the first intermission with the score tied at one.
Tim Stutzle and Connor Brown stood out the most amongst the forward group. With these two players, you know what you're going to get each game out. Now many fans will point to their plus/minus stats tonight but one of them was on an empty goal. It'll be interesting to see what Sens GM Pierre Dorion does to upgrade the top six forward group this summer.
When looking at the bottom six forwards, one has to wonder why Tyler Ennis is a healthy scratch when Dylan Gambrell has 2 goals all season, scoring his first in 31 games against Florida this past Saturday night. Gambrell has been invisible with this team for months now, yet somehow Ennis who is 8th on the team in scoring finds himself a healthy scratch. With Ennis, you pretty much notice him every shift as you know what you're going to get with him every game out, something you can't say for Gambrell or for that matter Chris Tierney. Tierney scored 5 goals in the first 3 weeks of the season and has scored one since way back on Feb. 8th.
The Sens' third line is pretty ineffective with Tierney centering that line with Colin White and Mathieu Joseph and yet we hear DJ Smith say in his postgame presser tonight that the team needs to score more goals. It would help if you removed players from the lineup that offer absolutely nothing for this team. There is far too much of a drop off from the top 6 forwards to the bottom 6 forwards. I had a source within the Sens organization tell me a few days that Tierney looks like he has aged 5 years this season and that he has lost many physical tools to be effective at the NHL level. The source went on to say, why not play Victor Mete in place of him? Mete has speed that Tierney only wishes he had at this point of his career plus Mete is an offensive defenseman so why not insert a player that can't do any worse than Tierney.
The old saying goes, you put the best players on the ice to give yourself the best chance to win every night. But when you scratch a player like Ennis or keep dressing an extremely ineffective player like Tierney, once again it goes to show you how DJ Smith is in over his head as coach at the NHL level. The Sens are 7-18-1 against non-playoff teams this year which is a very telling stat about this coaching staff. Anyone can motivate an athlete to get up for the better teams but it shows you how effective a team is when they can earn the points in the standings that they should attain. This type of coaching and performance can't happen next season or the last few months of the season will have no meaning like the last few years.
Defensively Nikita Zaitsev continues to demonstrate why there's no way Ottawa can have any sustained success next season if he's in the lineup. It seems any mistake he makes ends up in the Ottawa goal which is what happened on the Pred's 2nd goal. His mistakes always seem to be at the worst times when Ottawa has momentum and then the opposition capitalizes tilting the ice back in their favour.
With only a 3 game sample size, Travis Hamonic certainly doesn't look like he can be a top 4 defenseman on this team when Thomas Chabot and Jake Sanderson will be in the lineup. One would expect Artem Zub will be paired with Chabot but Hamonic looks to be a step behind at times and would be better suited in the bottom pair with Nick Holden leaving a spot open in the top 4. Could Lassi Thomson or Jacob Bernard-Docker fill that void come the beginning of the season? As many have stated here and on local sports radio, MDZ and Zaitsev need to be traded at all costs this summer for this team to move forward and start to fulfill the success this franchise has promised with their nucleus.
Ottawa now visits the Detroit Red Wings on Friday night and many feel Mads Sogaard will get his first ever NHL start in goal.
Comments and thoughts regarding the game tonight? Thanks for reading.
Kevin