One of the points I tried to make in Wednesday's post was that the 2013-2014 Ottawa Senators aren't really unlucky; they're just not very good. This is, I think, a pretty important thing for the organization to remember as they approach the off-season.
There's truth to the fact that Ottawa's goaltending has predictably regressed from last year's numbers. This is something I think just about everyone knew was coming, though I guess there were questions as to how fall the numbers would actually fall.
What's concerning to me is that this is no longer the dominant possession team at even-strength we saw last year, where Ottawa was controlling about 53% of the game. Ottawa's below the 50% cut-line for the entire season and things are beginning to spiral a bit out of control.
Today's 3-1 loss to Dallas was Ottawa's sixth straight defeat, but again, more concerning stuff with the underlying numbers and general defensive disasters than not. Dallas out-attempted Ottawa 61-45 (58% possession) at even-strength; shots on goal were 44-27. This is almost cartoonishly bad, and if you're not getting all of the favorable bounces and riding the percentages, it's fairly frequently going to end up in a loss.
Away from Dallas' territorial domination, the same defensive zone disasters that we've grown accustomed to all season long. I think this will be a frequent thing in the post-game entries until the season concludes. It's masochistic but, I'm honestly running out of ways to say "this team, both off the puck and on the puck, is a tire fire in the back end".
Here's Jared Cowen and the rest of the Ottawa defense on Dallas' first goal.
We are now seventy games into the season. I am at a loss to describe the decisions Jared Cowen makes sometimes. And, for record, Dallas had 77% of the possession when he was out there.
Here's a circus set of defensive work from the Gryba-Cowen pairing and Condra/Smith (I believe).
Robin Lehner's been pretty bad of late, but I'm not sure he was all that poor tonight. The first two goals, captured above, were defensive trainwrecks. The third shot by Jamie Benn was about as good as it gets -- absolute missile, corner.
So, small victory, I guess. Lehner can't afford to be terrible much longer, so maybe he's righting the ship a bit.
Thanks for reading!