There was some good, some bad and some very ugly moments in Saturday night's Ottawa Senators' loss to the Buffalo Sabres.
The good included Mark Stone making his preseason debut and making a great pass on his first shift to create a scoring chance for Kyle Turris, and then making a nice deflection a few minutes later to open the scoring off a point shot/pass from Erik Karlsson. Nick Paul and Bobby Ryan scored by driving the net and picking up rebounds.
The bad included an uneven performance from the top line and top defense pair, who were on for a majority of the goals (for and against) in the game and the 5some ended up a combined -12.
There were a couple of ugly moments, and most of them involved turnovers in their own end that resulted in goals against.
Shane Prince continues to impress me with his work ethic and ability to create scoring chances. Hopefully if and when he makes the team and that pressure is off somewhat he will be able to relax a bit and be able to bury more of those chances, but right now there isn't much he is doing wrong.
Jared Cowen had another pretty good game, although he was absolutely pyloned and looked bad on a rush by the speedy Nick Baptiste. Cowen got caught flat footed and seeing him try to back up at the speed Baptiste went around him was almost comical.
I haven't been overly impressed with Freddie Claesson having watched one game on TV and one in person in the exhibition season.
The Sabres top line of Jack Eichel, Evander Kane and most of all Tyler Ennis were a thorn in the side of the Senators all night, with Ennis having a hat trick and 4 point night.
Ennis left his mark on the game as the Senators took exception to a hit he made on Stone late in the second period. It was a bit low, but honestly Ennis hit Stone in the upper thigh/hip area, and considering the size difference between the two there wasn't much more Ennis could do. Stone went down awkwardly but was none the worse for wear, and I think the right decision was made to not call a penalty despite the reaction. In fact, in the last 3 minutes of the third period, Zack Smith was taken down twice with more blatant knees, first by Kane that went uncalled, and then by Jamie McGinn that resulted in a final minute power play and gave Ottawa a great chance to find the equalizer.
Craig Anderson played the full 60 minutes and aside from the wraparound goal that looked a little but too deja vu from the beginning of last season. But he was left on an island for most of the goals allowed, with turnovers and quick chances that resulted from them beating him.
It is still the preseason and performances like that are expected and not to be too deeply critiqued. There are certainly some things to work on, including an inconsistent power play and defensive zone coverage.
There is not much time to rest as the Senators are in St. John's, Newfoundland this afternoon to face the Carolina Hurricanes, and it looks like a lot of the players battling for positioning will get the chance in back to back games. The 24 man roster includes a lot of guys who played against Buffalo and the coaching staff and management will get another chance to evaluate them before making decisions that will be coming soon.
Karlsson and Methot will come out and Ceci and Wiercioch will go in, with Thomas Chabot also going along and he could spell one of the other 4 who played last night (Cowen, Wideman, Claesson and Kostka)
It is the same story up front, with the Pageau, Lazar, Michalek trio going in place of Turris, MacArthur and Stone, with guys like Neil, Prince, Chiasson, Smith and Hoffman look to be getting back to back assignments. Three guys will sit, but I don't see the point in taking bodies that played last night on the trip just to have them sit in the press box when there are other players around who are rested.
It looks like Andrew Hammond will get the start and probably play the full game like Anderson did last night.
It s a 3:30 pm (Eastern) start and looks like it's a radio only game as I couldn't find a listing for it on TV anywhere. So you will have to let Dean Brown create theatre of the mind.