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Coming into the season, it was difficult to identify one area of the Senators that was a particular weakness, mainly because they looked poor in every single category. But after losing their top point scorer in Erik Karlsson and their top goal scorer in Mike Hoffman, it seemed reasonable to think that their offense would take a massive hit. Yet through the first seven games, they’ve actually been one of the league’s best.
Does that mean it will stay that way for the foreseeable future? Most likely not, but I’ve been impressed with many of the offensive performances so far.
In league-wide points per game, the Senators have eight players in the top 104, and ten in the top 134. Brady Tkachuk is 12th, Chris Tierney and Thomas Chabot are tied for 28th, Matt Duchene is 43rd, Max Lajoie is 58th, Mikkel Boedker is 89th, Mark Stone is 94th, Ryan Dzingel is 104th, Dylan DeMelo is 132nd, and Zack Smith is 134th. Theoretically, amongst the top 155 players in the league, each team should have five players if everything is equal, so to have
twice that amount is incredible.
Even having three on the top-31 is impressive because they’re only expected to have one there. As with any stat from early on in the season, one good or bad game can drastically change things, and certainly some of these Senators players will fall off, but there’s no denying that the team has vastly out-performed expectations in terms of goal scoring.
It is aesthetically pleasing to look at Ottawa’s point scorers and see that there are five players with at least a point per game, and three of their best forwards in Stone, Dzingel, and Boedker are just one point behind. Even outside of those top-10 players, Colin White and Bobby Ryan both have four points in seven games, which is nothing to scoff at either.
Ottawa’s best players like Stone, Duchene, Dzingel, Boedker, and Chabot are producing, but it’s encouraging that the others that I have mentioned are chipping in as well to make the offense that much more lethal. Furthermore, there has been talk about Stone and Duchene getting off to quiet starts, yet Duchene is now at eight points and Stone is at six. I'll take that kind of production every day of the week.
It is funny to see that the Senators very worst players are literally never scoring though. Tom Pyatt, Magnus Paajarvi, Paul Carey, Max McCormick, Cody Ceci, Ben Harpur, Mark Borowiecki, and Alex Formenton have combined for
zero points so far. The only player from that group who I have faith in is Formenton, but I couldn’t care less about the others being held scoreless so far.
Out of the 22 skaters that have played for them so far, only two (Chris Wideman and Christian Jaros) have between 1-3 points. Twelve skaters have four or more, and eight have zero, and I find that mix quite strange. Players are either doing really well for themselves offensively or literally getting nothing---it’s a feast or famine situation and I’m fine with that.
In terms of team scoring, Ottawa sits
second in the league in goals for per game at 4.00. Only the Washington Capitals have scored more, with 4.14 goals for per game. A lot of that has to do with the team’s league-leading 14.36 SH% in all situations, but I’d rather see them do something unsustainable like this than have no hope at all. Plus they need all the wins they can get to avoid giving up a lottery pick.
Players like Smith, Boedker, DeMelo, Tierney, and Lajoie will cool down eventually, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be excited about the start that many of these players have gotten off to. Either way, it’s been fun watching all of these games and actually feeling confident about the Senators ability to score a few quick goals because it seems like they have no trouble doing so.
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