Break’s almost over — Sens back to work Sunday against Bruins
Considering this is the time of year to give thanks for small mercies, the Ottawa Senators were grateful for the Christmas break.
Never mind that it was barely long enough to let a guy digest his holiday turkey dinner.
The Senators last played on Tuesday in Florida, a 2-1 shootout loss to the Panthers in which Ottawa featured a makeshift lineup due to injuries. They had just three full days off before they return to the practice ice Saturday afternoon.
It could be worse. The Senators’ 5 p.m. opponent Sunday evening, the Boston Bruins, play a game on Boxing Day (at home to the Buffalo Sabres), and return home to face the Senators again on Dec. 29, their third game in four nights.
The Senators do their three-infour act from Dec. 27-30, as they play the Devils in New Jersey on Dec. 30 before their annual skills competition on New Year’s Eve.
It could be better. The Buffalo Sabres were off for a full week at Christmas, from Dec. 19 to Dec. 26. Must have been nice, having all that time to be healing and carolling at the same time.
Teams take their breaks when they can. For the Senators, there are rest days ahead, including no games Dec. 31, New Year’s Day or Jan. 2. (They resume play Jan. 3 in Chicago).
In fact, January is the Senators’ lightest month of the season, discounting the partial NHL monthly schedules of October and April.
For the most part, Ottawa will be resting, relaxing (and to a coach’s heart — practising) in the relative warmth of California. From Jan. 11 to Jan. 20, the Senators play three games (Anaheim Ducks, Los Angeles Kings, San Jose Sharks) over a span of 10 days. No jet leg excuses on this trip.
The schedule allows plenty of opportunity for the Senators to repeat their magic of last season, when they swept the California teams. Andrew Hammond pitched back-to-back shutouts against the Ducks and Kings, punctuating a life-giving fivegame winning streak, en route to a nine-game stretch without a loss in regulation time (8-0-1). Thus, was the Hamburglar phenomenon born.
It remains to be seen whether the Senators’ playoff aspirations for 2016 will have to rely on miracles once again.
AHEAD OF PACE
At the Christmas juncture, the Senators were 17-12-6 for 40 points, not bad considering where the team was situated a year ago at this time; but not as good as the Senators were feeling about themselves at the end of November. Remember? A month ago, Ottawa was sitting pretty, in second place in the Atlantic Division, behind the one team that could do no wrong (until it could) — the Montreal Canadiens.
On Nov. 30, the Senators had a tidy 12-6-5 record, good for 29 points. Even games that they lost tended be games in which they gained a single point, by virtue of being involved in overtime or shootout games in nine of their first 18 games.
Unfortunately, the trend in December has been to lose games in regulation. The overall record since Nov. 30: 5-6-1, a “meh” kind of pattern that has been hurtful to Ottawa’s position in the standings.
If we’ve learned anything about life in the Eastern Conference in 2015-16, it is this: The slope is slippery.
A mere patch of mediocrity — not a disastrous stretch, but close to .500, (albeit with a five-game road losing string) and instead of second place in the Atlantic,
THE SERIES
The Bruins are the only Eastern Conference team the Senators have yet to play this season, but they’ll make up for that by taking on Boston in a home-and-away series on Sunday and Tuesday. The clubs met five times in 2014-15, with Ottawa winning three times, once in overtime and another time in the shootout. Boston came into the week with just one regulation-time loss in its past 10 and had been one of the very best in the NHL on the road, going 11-2-2 . The Senators, meanwhile, have turned it around at the Canadian Tire Centre, and now have four straight wins there and are 9-4-4 overall after starting the season with one victory in their first six at the CTC.
PLAYERS TO WATCH
Bruins’ Ryan Spooner: He enjoyed his two games against the hometown Senators last season, scoring four goals. It’s taken the 23-year-old — a second-round pick in 2010 (45th overall) — a little time to stick with the Senators are clinging to the second wild card berth in the Eastern Conference.
BEASTS OF EAST
By the way, whatever happened to the concept of western superiority? Granted, the Western Conference has won the Stanley Cup in five of the past six years. A tip of the cap to that.
But the notion that the depth of strength is stronger in the West has been turned on its head. Check the standings — there is a significant drop-off from the top eight teams to the rest of the pack trying to make a race of it.
In contrast, the east is the Gardiner Expressway at rush hour, a logjam of teams above and below the wild-card cutoff mark. Four trailing teams are within five points of Ottawa.
Intriguingly below the top eight in the East are clubs that expected the Bruins, but he’d already played a career-high 32 games coming into the week and had a season-high 17:04 in ice time in his most recent outing. He had eight goals and 22 points, including a four-assist game against Pittsburgh last week. Perhaps more important than his four assists in that game was the fact that he stuck up for a teammate who had been flattened and was ready to fight, earning kudos from coach Claude Julien.
Bruins’ Patrice Bergeron: The 30-year-old has won the Frank J. Selke Trophy as top defensive forward three of the past four years, was No. 1 in the faceoff circle last season (60.2 per cent) and just might be on his way to a career year offensively. Bergeron had 11 goals and 32 points in 32 games at the start of the week, tying him for 11th in league scoring. His best stats season was his second, back in ’05-’06, when he had 31 goals and 73 points.
Senators’ offence: Coming into the week, Ottawa was tied for fourth in the league with 101 goals and was the only NHL team with five players — Erik Karlsson (37), Bobby Ryan (32), Mike Hoffman (32), Mark Stone (28) and Kyle Turris (26) — among the NHL’s top 38 scorers. to be playoff teams, including the Tampa Bay Lightning, the 2015 Cup finalists, and the Pittsburgh Penguins. The surprising Devils are knocking at the door, a point behind the Senators. The improved Philadelphia Flyers are three back.
With two games with Boston, and one with New Jersey, on the horizon, all three loom large.
Add it all up. Although the Senators are five points better than last year’s team at Christmas time, in eighth place instead of 11th in the conference, and fifth in the division compared to seventh in the division last year, the path to the post-season is not a slam dunk.
For the Senators, a wish for health and prosperity for 2016 is going to be more than a token New Year’s toast.