Sens spiraling downward
Dysfunction strikes again for Senators
A long time has passed since Boston has seen a team in any sport as laughably dysfunctional as the Ottawa Senators. There were the chicken-and-beer Red Sox of 2011, but that team nearly won its division before imploding on arrogance and gluttony. You probably have to go back to the pre-Bill Parcells Patriots to find a team that was as comically inept as the Senators appear right now. Every time you think they’ve hit rock bottom, the Sens just keep digging. A goal away from the Stanley Cup Finals less than two years ago, the Sens have spiraled downward in spectacular fashion. It started with the ill-fated trade that brought Matt Duchene to town in a three-way deal that saw Kyle Turris go to Nashville and their first round pick to Colorado. Then came the bizarre Erik Karlsson-Mike Hoffman cyber-beef that involved those players’ significant others and precipitated both players’ trades out of town, for pennies on the dollar. The latest embarrassment came last week with the surfacing of a video from an Uber driver in Arizona that had several Sens, including Duchene, putting some of their internal beefs with the coaching staff out in the open. The main target was assistant coach Marty Raymond and his work on Ottawa’s penalty kill. It was nothing short of cringe-inducing. At least with this latest fiasco, the Sens players are receiving at least some deserved sympathy around the league for being victimized by an underhanded driver, including from the Bruins’ dressing room. “Obviously, it’s something they didn’t expect and I don’t think anyone should expect to be taped in that situation,” said Jake DeBrusk. “There’s players that vent all the time. There are some guys who, if they had everything they said recorded, they wouldn’t still be in the league. It happens naturally in the workplace, whether you’re playing hockey or just someone working a regular job. I think it’s something that probably shouldn’t have come out. I don’t know what that Uber driver got out of it, but I hope he has to pay a lot of money to those guys.” Grousing among the players happens all the time. “I don’t know what the device looked like that recorded it, but it’s not uncommon to be discussing things,” said David Backes. “I’d say it’s usually done more in private, discussing what’s going on at the rink. While the tone may have been one of pointing fingers, I think those would agree it’s an opportunity to fix something that’s broken and try to to get better. The fact that it’s released, it does look really bad. It’s obviously something you don’t want out there. But I’d say discussing team concepts in the interest of getting better is not unusual. There’s just maybe a little better time and place for it.” As much as the Sens players were victimized, those bells that went off in the video cannot be unrung. The most damning part of it was that most of the griping came from Duchene, who is supposed to be a leader on the team, and he’s telling young players like Colin White, Thomas Chabot and Alex Formenton he hasn’t “listened in three weeks.” Maybe he’s going for an easy laugh and it’s all part of the bonding process, but it certainly doesn’t reflect well. Duchene is a pending UFA this summer and it will be fascinating to see what hap- pens there. The Sens still have talent and, with no first round pick, there is no incentive for them to lose. They might as well try to sneak into the playoffs, as unlikely as that looks right now. But when the firesale does happen, I’m hounding Ottawa GM Pierre Dorion for Mark Stone if I’m Don Sweeney. Stone, a pending UFA, has both the skill and competitiveness that any contender would desire. He showed it when, in the Sens’ first game after the video debacle, Stone notched a five-point night in a rout of the Devils. He’d fit very nicely on David Krejci’s right wing. It’s understandable that Artemi Panarin is 1A on most Bruins’ wish list, but Stone would be a decent 1B.
O’Ree gets his due
One of the truly good guys in the sport will receive his just honors when Willie O’Ree will be inducted into the Hall of Fame as builder on Monday night in Toronto along with Martin Brodeur, Martin St. Louis, Alexander Yakushev, Jayna Hefford and Gary Bettman. O’Ree, of course, broke the color barrier in he NHL with the Bruins in 1958, but it’s his work for the league over the last 20 years in diversifying the game. “I’m excited. Overwhelmed,” said O’Ree in a recent visit to Boston at the dedication of a street hockey rink in his name. “When I got the initial call from the Hall, I was in my hometown in San Diego and Lanny McDonald and John Davidson called me. I spoke with Lanny on the phone. I said ‘Lanny, what’s going on?’ He sad ‘Well, I’ve got some news for you.’ He said ‘How you feeling?’ I said ‘I’ll be feeling a lot better if the news is good.’ But he said, yeah, you’re going to be inducted and at that point I was at a loss for words. “I had set two goals for myself when I was 14. To play professional hockey, and to one day play in the NHL. Well I accomplished those. But I never dreamed I’d be going into the Hall, and it’s due to the work that I’ve been doing over the 20 years with the Hockey is for Everyone program. I’m honored and thrilled.”
Safe decisions
The Department of Player Safety has made some questionable decisions recently in the last couple of years, but I’d say it had a pretty good week. First there was the Milan Lucic-Matheiu Joseph incident. Lucic, angered over a Joseph’s dangerous but unpenalized hit on Oilers defenseman Kris Russell, first whacked the Lightning defenseman on the back of the legs and, when Joseph didn’t acknowledge that, Lucic chased him half the length of the rink before blasting him in the corner. But after Lucic jumped on Joseph, he pulled his punches, instead just giving the kid what amounted to a lecture, menacing though it may have been. Lucic got a double minor and 10-minute misconduct. There were, of course, the howls for Lucic to be suspended, but the 14 minutes he received was both just and enough. In his younger days, Lucic might have started swinging away once he got on top of Joseph but he didn’t. He did receive a hearing and a $10,000 fine. A suspension wasn’t necessary, and it correctly was not administered. Then there was Evgeni Malkin. Late in the Penguins’ 2-1 loss to the Capitals on Wednesday, Malkin carried the puck into the offensive zone and just after he gave up the puck, he raised his shoulder ever so slightly and hit T.J. Oshie in the head. Though it looked like there might have been some bad intent, there was plenty of plausible deniability on Malkin’s part. He could have simply been bracing for the hit. The lunging Oshie probably would have hit his head even if Malkin hadn’t raised the shoulder. Malkin got kicked out of the game, but wasn’t suspended. The expulsion from the contest was plenty, especially when you consider it may have cost the Pens the game. And to boot, Oshie was well enough to return and score the game-winner.
On the road again
The B’s this week embark on a four-game, four-time zone road trip that has them zigzagging from Denver to Dallas to Arizona and finally Detroit on Thanksgiving Eve. If you can stay up for the 10 p.m. start on Wednesday, the matchup will pit two of the best lines in the game today, the Brad Marchand-Patrice Bergeron-David Pastrnak unit going against Gabriel Landeskog-Nathan MacKinnon-Mikko Rantanen. The Avalanche’s top line notched a combined 64 points in 15 games going into the weekend’s games while the B’s first unit, cooling off a bit lately, had 55 in 15 contests.