A few thoughts after Ottawa's 5-3victory over Chicago.
(1) Any time you can take care of business against the defending Stanley Cup winner, it's a good thing. Any time you can score five goals against the same team, it's a good thing.
Ottawa and Chicago have now played two wild games this year, splitting the decisions. Friday's victory was sort of an odd one -- territorially, the run of play was sort of close, but the shots-on-goal numbers were comically disparate.
It's hard to find negatives when you do beat the league's best -- and for my money, they still are; neck-and-neck with San Jose -- but conceding forty-nine shots-on-goal would be so ridiculous if it wasn't the norm this season. Paul MacLean talked in the post-game about how the team did a good job letting the goaltender see the pucks, all while knowing they were going to concede a lot of the "puck possession" time over the course of a game.
His words, not mine.
I don't know that this is a recipe for success, but I think Ottawa did apply some real pressure to Chicago in their defensive-third, and forced them to play off the puck enough to ensure victory.
(2) How fun were the Ottawa forwards last night?
I mean, run down the list. I thought Clarke MacArthur was excellent. I thought Kyle Turris was excellent. Erik Condra was vintage Erik Condra and the Jason Spezza line played to evens in a tough draw against the Toews line and Keith pairing.
In fact, just about everyone was pretty great, save the Greening-Smith-Neil trio. Stop me if you've heard this one. Shot-attempts were 46-38 Ottawa with that line off of the ice, and 18-5 Chicago with that line on the ice. Chris Neil's individual numbers were even worse at 16-2 Chicago.
That is just horrifyingly bad. And, there aren't any competition excuses here. Their common opponents were Ben Smith, Marcus Kruger, and Brandon Bollig.
(3) Another game in the book where I'm left wondering why the Ottawa Senators coaching staff doesn't seem to like Patrick Wiercioch very much.
I had the same objections to his game (and other defenseman; basically everyone) as everyone else in October and November. Since then, I haven't seen these alleged flaws. It's kind of unfortunate that they've burned a non-playoff year of his contract without developing much, if at all, by healthy scratching him with regularity. And worst of all, I'm not sure he ever deserved it.
(4) I had a chat about this on Twitter yesterday, but the NHL really needs to investigate ways of eliminating the many, many back-to-back situations they create for every single team with their current scheduling. They've got a lot of smart guys bringing that number as low as possible already, but I wonder if expanding the length of the schedule in terms of days or simply reducing the games played by a bit in the season would help.
We have years and years of data now, and everything about back-to-backs suggest the team that played the night before (especially against a rested team) is up the paddle without a creek. Territorial play decisively tails off, even for the elite clubs. Goaltending numbers do, too.
The fact that everyone has to deal with them right now makes it sort of fair, but 'fair' doesn't have to mean 'good'. And, considering every team's playing something in the teens (or more) in terms of back-to-backs per season -- well, that's a lot of games you can start chalking up as schedule losses before the year even begins.
Thanks for reading!