Ottawa's 3-2 OT victory over St. Louis on Cody Ceci's first-career goal was far and away their most impressive performance of the season. This would've been true even if Ottawa had lost a heartbreaker in regulation. The dominant puck-possession stuff expected coming into this year (and rarely seen in the October and November months) was on full display tonight, as the Senators blitzed a Blues team that's looked the part of a Stanley Cup contender all season long.
I don't know of a game that even comes close to measuring up to Ottawa's Monday night performance, but here's what I do know: the Ottawa Senators have now out-attempted twelve-straight opponents at even-strength -- ten straight if you're just using score-close numbers.
That's led to this wild spike in production (noted below), something I've noted that, assuming the goaltending comes along, would equate to wins in the standings. And they're starting to trickle in.
Two things did not go unnoticed in tonight's performance against St. Louis.
One, it seems that Ottawa's coaching staff is coming around on the reality that Mika Zibanejad's one of the best forwards on the team. Tonight, they put him on the wing of Kyle Turris, creating an excellent top-line. This trio connected on the equalizer late in the third-period, after a pair of Chris Stewart goals in the second period gave the Blues a brief lead.
Two, Robin Lehner. Dean Brown was going on and on about that one double pad stack save by Lehner, and how it changed the momentum of the game. It was a cool save. He also had twenty-nine other cool saves, and a .938 SV% to show for it at the end of sixty-minutes and change.
Not to belabor a point I've drilled here for the last week or two, but at the end of the day, all you want from your starting goaltender is 92 saves out of 100. Anything more, fantastic -- beyond fantastic, I might add. Anything less, and you start to run the risk of losing games that your team maybe should have won, if outcomes were solely decided on the play of skaters and skaters alone.
That, to me, is what separates the likes of Craig Anderson and Robin Lehner right now. Lehner's let in a handful of stinker goals this year, but he's still towing one of the best save percentages in the league. A shot is a shot is a shot. Those same shots, mind you, are not being stopped by Craig Anderson, who is running below a replacement-level save percentage through the first third of the season.
Ottawa's going to have to use both in the back-to-back spot later in the week, but if I'm Paul MacLean, I'm throwing Robin Lehner out there against the better of the two. And, I'm strongly considering giving Lehner the reins and letting him operate down the stretch.
Thanks for reading!