Why does it seem like the Ottawa Senators suddenly get to their best when their backs are against the wall and they are injury riddled? Two seasons ago was the Pesky Sens era when injuries to Erik Karlsson, Jason Spezza and Craig Anderson couldn't derail a playoff appearance and first round win over the Habs. Now, with both of their top 2 goalies out as well as one of their top 6 forwards (I won't include Chris Phillips in this discussion) on the shelf, the Sens have put together back to back wins for the first time since early January, and Andrew Hammond has done something in his first two career starts that Robin Lehner wasn't able to do since his first two starts of the season way back in October. Hammond wasn't as busy against the Panthers as he was against the Habs, only facing 22 shots this time around, but he did his job once again.
Once again Ottawa got behind first on a goalmouth scramble that Aleksander Barkov tapped home, but the Senators came back with 4 unanswered goals. Once again it was the strategy of going to the net that paid off in three of the four goals, as Kyle Turris, Bobby Ryan and Curtis Lazar's efforts were all rewarded from in close. The lone exception was Erik Karlsson's rocket from the top of the faceoff circle that got over Roberto Luongo's glove.
Matt Puempel's NHL debut was pretty anonymous, playing a team-low 8:41 and didn't nearly stand out as much as Shane Prince did in his 2 game audition earlier in the week while playing in the same spot in the lineup.
Draft slot be damned, it is nice to see this team playing well and putting some wins together. The real test will come as they embark on a 5 game road trip that starts in Anahiem on Wednesday and goes through all 3 California-based teams before hitting Minnesota and Winnipeg on the way back home.
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As I discussed yesterday, the Sportsnet intermission crew basically confirmed what the TSN guys said on Thursday about the potential of Peter Chiarelli and Claude Julien being on the hot seat. I stated that I think the Senators would be foolish not to pursue them if they became available (or at least Chiarelli). At least one commenter to my post indicated the number of bad contracts the Bruins have had as a reason to avoid Chiarellin, but I would stipulate that that is a natural by-product of winning. When you raise the Stanley Cup as the Bruins did (under the direction of Chiarelli and Julien mind you) players get rewarded. This isn't a Boston thing, it is a winning thing. Do they often get overpaid as a result?, Of course, but winning means your core players benefit from that success. It happened in Chicago, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh and Boston, all of whom won and then found themselves over-rewarding players (the best example of this would be Bryan Bickell in Chicago.)
Chiarelli took over a non-playoff team in 2006 and within 3 years had built a team that was at the top of the Eastern Conference with 116 points. His team showed improval increments of 2 points, 18 points and 22 points year to year in those three seasons, and a playoff team every year since his first. If that isn't a solid track record I don't know what is. Obviously this all still hinges on the factors I talked about yesterday.