CONSISTENCY ALL SEASON MAIN GOAL FOR SENATORS
Team doesn’t want to make regular habit of having to execute ‘bounce-back games’
The Ottawa Senators did what they had to do this week in preventing the pothole from growing into a sinkhole.
Yet if Mark Stone has it his way, there should be no need for major recovery projects at all.
“To be relied upon to be a top line, you have to consistently produce and play the right way every night,” Stone said of Thursday’s 3-1 win over Detroit, which came on the heels of Monday’s 8-3 loss to Montreal.
“Every night after those tough games, I go home and think about it and try and bounce back as best I can. But I don’t want to have bounce-back games. I think as a team, especially, we want to have just good, consistent hockey throughout the whole year. We don’t want to be talking about bouncing back all the time.”
Accordingly, Stone says there should be no reason why the Senators aren’t fully prepared to face the expansion Vegas Golden Knights on Saturday.
After facing Vegas, the Senators won’t play again until next weekend, for consecutive games against the Colorado Avalanche in Sweden. A loss against Vegas would make for a long week.
“We have a really good Vegas team coming in,” he said.
“They work extremely hard. I think they caught everybody by surprise and we don’t want them to catch us by surprise. We want to control the play and really pound them.”
For the most part, Senators coach Guy Boucher has been impressed by the way the team’s leaders have handled the opening 13 games, en route to the 6-2-5 record which has Ottawa sitting second in the Atlantic Division behind Tampa Bay.
Stone, who is now wearing an “A” as an alternate captain, talked in the pre-season about wanting to be a more consistent player game after game. So far, so good. Stone leads the Senators with eight goals and 14 points and he hit the 200 and 201-point mark in his career with a goal and an assist against Detroit.
But if he has been subject to prolonged slumps in the past, he has been a steady performer in the first month of the season — carrying negative plus/minus in only three of the club’s first 13 games.
“I’m a little bit better than I was at the start of last year, but I still have some room to grow,” he said. “There are still some games where I don’t feel like I’ve contributed enough.”
In Stone’s view, contributing doesn’t always mean sporting flashy goal and assist totals.
The end goal is simply to have more goals than opposition every night.
Stone is, in many ways, the poster boy for Boucher, capable of translating sound defence into offence in a hurry by capitalizing on turnovers.
“Some nights, you’re going head to head against some of the top guys in the league,” he said.
“That night against Toronto (a 6-3 win on Oct. 21), I was able to get two goals, but at the same time, when you’re going up against (Auston) Matthews, you’re just looking for 50/50. If you can get out of that match up 50/50, it allows other guys to play well.”
Stone and centre Derick Brassard, who has six goals and five assists, have had a strong early season connection while playing together.
Before coming to the Senators in July 2016, centre Brassard had some idea of what Stone was all about because the two played together on a Canadian world championship team.
After playing with him on a consistent basis, Brassard — who has six goals and five assists — has a greater understanding of the nuances of his game.
“He’s an elite player and pretty unique the way he plays,” said Brassard. “He’s tall and lanky, with that great reach. He has such a great hockey sense. And he shows up every night. He enjoys stealing pucks. He wants it all the time. If you’re a player who plays 18 minutes plus (per night), you’ve got to bring something all the time.”
Like Stone, Brassard is striving for consistency following his down and up 2016-17 season.
He says there should be no reason for taking the Golden Knights lightly.
“There is no doubt in our minds that they are a very good team,” said Brassard.
“We’re watching highlights. We’re watching scores. They’re beating a lot of good teams. They’re well coached. Knowing (Vegas coach Gerard) Gallant, he’s going to have those guys ready. They have a lot of good players. It’s not like the expansion with Columbus. They have some premier players.”
Boucher is giving all the credit in the world to the Golden Knights, who are proving a point with their 8-4-0 start.
“They are absolutely relentless,” Boucher said. “That’s it. That’s how they get their success. This is probably the hardest working team in the league. Period.” kwarren@postmedia.com Twitter.com/ Citizenkwarren