The Ottawa Senators passed the ten game mark with last Thursday's win over the Vancouver Canucks.
While there are a lot of differences, such as strength of schedule, roster makeup as well as outside factors and issues such as the Craig Anderson situation. Lets take a quick look at how the Senators compare to where they were a year ago and what effect, if any, Guy Boucher has had so far on the issues that he was brought in to fix.
THE RECORD
Through ten games, the Senators have a record of 7-3-0 for 14 points, two ahead of last season's pace of 12 (5-3-2). Ottawa had a good start to last season and it was after Kyle Turris got injured and tried to play through it that resulted in slumps to key players and a slide in the standings.
The difference is essentially that the Senators won a couple of the OT games that they might have lost last season.
THE SHOTS ON GOAL
Giving up too many shots on goal has been one of the banes of the Senators existence for a few years now. Through 10 games last season Ottawa allowed 330 shots, or since I am a math wizard, 33 per game. This year, 295 shots in their first 10 games, or 29.5 per game. That is a cut of 3.5 shots per game, a pretty significant drop although a limited sample size. The biggest difference is that while they blocked just over 14 shots per game last season, they have been credited with and average of just 18 blocked shots per game this year. The insistence from Boucher that his players block shots has made a difference in that stat but that also doesn't necessarily mean they have had better puck possession numbers.
In terms of the always useful shot attempts at 5 on 5 stat, the Senators are actually allowing two more shot attempts per game and their -55 rating in terms of shots for/against at 5 vs 5 leaves some work to do in terms of the possession game.
THE SPECIAL TEAMS
While the penalty kill has improved by about 3.1% from last year (now at 81.8%), largely to the addition of Chris Kelly and Tom Pyatt, who have been great additions to that sector of the game, it is still in the lower half of the league and when combined with a power play that is clicking at just 11.1% (25th in the league) the Senators are far below the almost essential 100.0+ rating that you want to have when you add up your power play and penalty kill percentages.
This is still a work in progress, and it won't take much to bring that percentage up this early in the season. As they continue to learn Boucher's system they should score more with the man advantage, as Mike Hoffman did against Buffalo on Saturday in the team's 11th game of the season.
OVERALL
It is still way too early to tell, with not even 15% of the season gone. The bottom line is, a team needs to average about 12 points per 10 game segment to assure themselves of a playoff spot. The Senators are two points ahead of that pace and also two points ahead of their pace from last year. As the season goes on, turning benefit of the doubt in to results on a consistent basis will tell the tale on whether or not Boucher's system will work with this group of players. But so far, the factors that are immediately fixable seem to be trending in a good direction, and the other factors that will take time are still taking a bit of time. The key indicators will be how he can hold things together with a relatively thin roster if and when injuries hit.