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Dell suspended 3 games/DJ fails once again as head coach! |
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As the Ottawa Senators prepare to host the Carolina Hurricanes tomorrow night, all of the talk surrounding the team relates to the Aaron Dell ridiculous hit on Drake Batherson. The NHL handed down a 3 game suspension to Dell, while Batherson is expected to miss 6 weeks. A journeyman goaltender misses three games, while the Sens leading scorer is out for an extended period, that's quite the trade-off Buffalo! Let's face it, with the number of goalies on the injured list in Buffalo, at some point they will get healthy and by the time Ottawa visits Buffalo on February 17th, there is a strong chance Dell won't even be dressing as the backup goalie with the likes of Subban, Luukkonen, Tokarski, and Anderson slated to return at some point in February. Naturally, fans and media will be looking to that date in February to see if Ottawa looks for retribution.
Sadly, they passed up the opportunity last night and for head coach DJ Smith, all his talk about protecting his younger players by dressing the likes of Scott Sabourin and even Michael Haley last season, makes you wonder why this coach decided to ignore his own mantra that he has repeatedly told fans and media about why he chooses to dress toughness over skill on the 3rd an 4th line. How can any Sens fan believe anything that comes out of this man's mouth when for two and half seasons he justifies playing toughness when questioned by the sports media in this town?!
Let's go back to March, 2nd, 2021 when DJ himself was quoted as saying, "in the games, we played without him, they targeted our younger players", in reference to the Montreal Canadiens. At that point last season, Haley had played in 3 games and was dressed each time to bring a physical presence both on the ice and on the bench. Just two weeks ago in Calgary, DJ dressed Scott Sabourin for the same reasons as the Flames play heavy hockey he said and Sabourin fought Milan Lucic that night. Austen Watson and Josh Brown are in the lineup to bring that same element. In fact, this head coach justifies to the media weekly, why Josh Brown is in the lineup, to protect his goalie and provide a physical presence for his younger players. Yet, last night our wonderful head coach had the opportunity to finally justify his words and all we saw was a silent DJ behind the bench with his hands in his pockets, while his leading scorer and top young player on his roster, was targeted and there was no response but a few words from Tkachuk and Watson, that's it!
What if the script was flipped and Matt Murray did the same thing to Rasmus Dahlin? How would Buffalo Sabres fans react?
I would love to hear from both fan bases on my take and what they would think if the roles were reversed? Sorry for the short blog but I wanted to get up something for discussion with news of the suspension.
Thanks for reading
Kevin
Ottawa Senators Blogger • 
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