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Coming in a bit late today, but here is the newest Think Tank:
Canucks Atmosphere
As a Senators fan living in Vancouver, I make the trip out to see the Senators play whenever they come to town. The last time they were here was in October 2017, and that was when fans were still riding the high of their previous playoff run and right before everything with the organization changed. A year and a half later, it was quite the different experience. With their star players being traded, plus Thomas Chabot and Colin White being hurt, Ottawa’s lineup was atrocious. Before the game, I make sure to watch the warmup right by the Senators bench, and there was probably about half the Senators fans that are normally there because why would they want to come and watch this team play?
I brought in a sign that was much different than in years past too...
That is a real Melnyk quote right after the Matt Duchene trade, which was infuriating to hear at the time, and hilarious to look back on in retrospect. For what it’s worth, some team staff members on the bench had a chuckle when they read my sign. It was such a strange atmosphere during warmup because there was much less hoopla and fewer people. There were plenty of #MelnykOut fans in the stands, and my favourite fan was friend from Twitter @RyanClassic:
Now that’s dedication.
Despite the angst from some fans at the game, there wasn’t as much hatred as I thought there would be. Perhaps there was a lot of apathy, and also those who would have been more vocal probably did not show up.
Going from 0-100
As for the game itself, it was a complete dud for the first 40 minutes and change. It was 5-0 57 seconds into the third period, and the shots after two periods were 33-13. I am not lying when I say that the Senators did not have a single scoring chance in those two periods where you could have even slightly gotten up in your seat to get excited. Hell, I even tweeted that people in the east should go to bed and not finish the game. I predicted the score to be 4-1 for Vancouver, but I at least wanted the Senators to have
some chances.
Then almost nine minutes into the final period, Max Veronneau got it started with his first career goal. When Brady Tkachuk scored just a minute later, all of a sudden there was a tiny glimmer of hope. Oscar Lindberg’s goal with 6:16 left made me believe that they could actually come all the way back, especially when Tyler Motte took a slashing penalty with 3:45 to go in the game. Then Anthony Duclair’s shot on the powerplay barely trickled over the line, and it seemed like the worst team in the league was going to somehow pull off a 5-0 comeback.
It’s too bad that Bo Horvat took the wind out of their sails less than a minute later, because it would have been a frantice final two minutes being down just one goal. With the final score being 7-4, the third period certainly made up for the rest of the game being a snoozefest, and it was easily the weirdest NHL game I’ve witnessed in person. The fact that Ottawa made it interesting is all that I can ask for at this stage. It’s just too bad that I was not able to see these next three players though...
Brannstrom, Abramov, and Chlapik called up
With Ottawa playing Calgary tonight and some questions regarding who will be in the lineup, the Senators have called up three players from Belleville:
The B-Sens are also playing tomorrow night, so it’s unlikely that they will be playing in that game because that would mean three games in as many days. It will be nice to watch whoever of these three play, as Brannstrom has played just one game, Abramov could be making his NHL debut, and Chlapik has only gotten into four games this season. We’ll see how Marc Crawford deploys these three, although we know they won’t be up in Ottawa for very long.
Melnyk on the radio
After 6:30 EST should be an interesting time on Twitter, as Eugene Melnyk is once again going on Toronto radio for some reason:
Melnyk seems to always go on Toronto radio stations for some reason, and any time he has spoken in public over the past few years, there will be something he says that upsets the fanbase. He can’t help himself, so it’ll be quite intriguing to see what he talks about. I’d be shocked if there isn’t anything newsworthy, even if it is just his opinion on something and not any actual news. Keep an eye out for that later tonight.
Belleville looking good
The Senators and Canucks teams played each other at both the NHL and AHL levels last night, but the B-Sens were able to beat the Utica Comets 3-1. The Comets were once quite far ahead of the Senators but they have completely fallen off, and now the closer team to worry about in the playoff race is the Cleveland Monsters. Belleville currently has 74 points and Cleveland has 68, but the Monsters have two games in hand and could make things interesting. The Comets are also six points back but have only ten games left, which is very difficult to overcome.
I don’t understand how, but Belleville is now looking very good in terms of making the playoffs, which seemed crazy even just a month ago. They will most likely face the first place Syracuse Crunch in the first round and will be massive underdogs, but making it to the playoffs will be a big accomplishment after not making it for four seasons in a row.
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