For those who live and die by analytics, this was a perfect example of what the fuss is all about. For the first 8 games the Senators were pretty good despite having one of the lowest Corsi ratings as a club, and were buoyed by stellar goaltending. The basis of advanced stats is that essentially that can't last forever and will trend toward the middle. The last two games have been a prime example of that happening for the Senators.
Matt Fraser had goals 1:28 apart in the second period to break open a 1-1 tie and the Bruins never looked back, adding one more early in the third before Ottawa got one back on a nice dangle by Mika Zibanejad made it a 4-2 final for the Bruins.
Here are some random thoughts on the game:
*This one will not go on Erik Karlsson's personal highlight reel. He was a turnover machine, made questionable pinches and just plain didn't get the job done. He ended up -4 on the night, with a personal Corsi rating of just over 40% at 5 on 5. Karlsson's defensive deficiencies are well known, but that is usually accepted because he creates offensively. That didn't happen much against the Bruins, and it was a very off night for the captain.
* Speaking of Karlsson, and I don't want to get too far ahead of things, but games like that (although they don't happen too often) are what turned the Senators fan base against a guy named Spezza. It is quite striking the similarities between their games, although one was a forward and one a defenseman. Spezza was never really given enough credit for the offense he created in exchange for his sometimes lacking play in his own end.
*Karlsson has gotten a pass for his lacklustre defensive play and given the way this fan base sometimes eats its young I fear it might be just a matter of time before the tables turn and the errors are magnified. Karlsson has shown he can play in his own end, but the -4 on Saturday moved him to -7 on the year, 215th out of 225 defensemen in the league. I know that stat is sometimes misleading, but it is also concerning. Often you can look at a game and say that +/- stat wasn't earned (heck, Eric Gryba was +2) and a player is a victim of circumstances, but looking at the 4 goals, Karlsson's -4 was pretty well earned based on his play.
*Karlsson's -7 is by far the worst on the Senators, a team that has scored two more goals than it has allowed.
* Not to dump on Karlsson entirely, because he had lots of company in wearing the goat horns. You would be hard pressed to look at any single player's overall performance and say that they were a difference maker in a positive way against Boston. There were flashes of good, but on the whole it wasn't a great team effort, which makes the 4-2 score pretty flattering.
*Fellow Swede and new dad Robin Lehner would also prefer to forget this game. After Craig Anderson's so-so game against Chicago on Thursday, this was a chance for Lehner to cement his spot as the go-to guy. Well, you could argue that he probably should have had 3 of the goals with proper positioning. Marchands opener trickled through his legs, Fraser's second goal was a nice shot but still a stoppable one, and Seidenberg's third period marker was screened but found a way through. When you live by the goaltending you die by the goaltending.
* It was shades of last season for the Senators and their complete inability as a team to move the puck out of their end with a completed pass. I lost count of the number of times passes were either behind the intended target, into a group where the number of black jerseys outnumbered the white ones, or simply fanned on. It seems like the decision making is a split second behind almost all the time. That would result in the passing where they are and not where they are going to be, and also why the player that was open half a second ago end up completely covered by the time the pass is actually made.
*While they spend so much time in their own end, the Senators need to find a way to spend more time in the opposition end when they finally get there. Too many Ottawa rushes end in "one and done" chances, and then they are back defensively. Boston had 3 rookie defensemen in their lineup and the Senators didn't make them pay the price or even really test them on the forecheck or the cycle game.
*It is kind of funny where some of the things the Senators needed to improve upon, like penalties (only 3 Boston power plays), shots against (just 10 in each period, for 30 total) were there, but the overall feel of the game wasn't in the Senators' favor and I never got the impression that a win was in the cards for the Senators from pretty early on until the end.
The Senators have a couple of days off to search for some answers before they host another divisional rival that they are now looking up at, the Detroit Red Wings. At 5-3-2 the sky is not yet falling, and you can hopefully chalk that loss up to a game against a Stanley Cup contending group, even if they are injury ravaged at the moment. The Sens aren't trending very positively at the moment, but there is still plenty of time to turn things around and these back to back losses could be just a blip in the season.
The effort seems to be there in most cases, but the execution simply isn't.
Those are my impressions, what are yours? Agree or disagree?