If the games are meaningless, let them all be victories. Partly because, well, winning is always a good thing. Partly because Ottawa's draft pick sits over in Anaheim.
Ottawa's 4-1 victory over an injury-depleted New York Islanders team was all about the Jason Spezza and Ales Hemsky trio. Spezza opened the scoring with a pair of goals, Hemsky assisting on both. Ottawa's third-goal came on an unbelievable rush and dangle in on Anders Nilsson from ... Ales Hemsky, of course -- his third-point on the night.
The empty-netter was an amusing one. Jason Spezza deferred after Ottawa cleared, and passed the puck over to Matt Kassian, who was amusingly on to protect the two-goal lead. Kassian's goal was his first of the season.
I was trying to pay attention to Ottawa's defensive zone play (jumping off of this post) with respect to their shot-blocking aversion at even-strength. I'm not sure I picked up all that much -- Ottawa does seem to let Craig Anderson 'see' the initial shot when it's from a distance, but there were plenty of times where Ottawa just wasn't ever in position to block the shot, either.
All in all, Ottawa gave up forty-six shots on goal (!) to a team that was mostly comprised of minor leaguers and call-ups and rookies and the like.
So, a win is cool. But there's something, I think, sort of broken back there. Hopefully the off-season sorts a lot of it out.
Thanks for reading!