Senators bench enjoys a golden touch
Chiasson the latest Senator to step up when it counts on club’s incredible run
The Ottawa Senators remarkable month-long run wouldn’t be possible without the key characters: The Hamburglar, the Captain, Centres 1A and 1B (Kyle Turris and Mika Zibanejad).
At the same time, no team can go 17-2-2 without others emerging from the shadows, filling in the potholes when the stars hit their dips in the road.
“Honestly, I think, everyone is just going, you couldn’t ask for better production,” says defenceman Marc Methot, asked to explain the team’s transformation. “I could name drop everybody. It has been nice to see.”
In Monday’s 5-2 win over the San Jose Sharks, it was Alex Chiasson’s turn to take his role on the stage, deflecting Mark Stone’s shot past San Jose goaltender Antti Niemi for the game winning goal.
For those just catching up, it’s largely been a season to forget for Chiasson, who was acquired from Dallas in the Jason Spezza trade last summer. He has battled scoring droughts and self-doubts, slipping further and further down the roster. If the Senators are at full forward health, Chiasson could be a regular healthy scratch.
Yet with Milan Michalek out of the lineup due to “headaches” Monday, Chiasson was promoted to play alongside Turris and Stone, understanding both the opportunity and pressure which came with the move.
“You don’t want to say it, but facts are facts,” says Chiasson. “You play with two guys like that and their role on the team is produce offence and score some goals and create momentum for the team. As much as you say you don’t want to change your game, you know there are expectations. That’s just part of the game. That’s pro sports.”
Before the game winner, he had countless chances. Twice the puck had trickled within inches of the goal line after his shots bounced off Niemi.
“That’s the beauty of the game, you never know what can happen,” he says. “It’s funny, hard to explain. Sometimes, you get the Grade A opportunities where it seems like you have a soccer net to shoot at, and you can’t put it in. And then other times, somebody shoots it, you get your stick on it and it just finds a way in.”
When Chiasson began his career with Dallas, he had a rookie’s Midas touch, everything turning to goal. Playing alongside Ray Whitney and Jamie Benn, he scored nine goals in his first 10 NHL games at the end of the 2012-13 season and the start of the 2013-14 season.
As a team, the Senators have that magic touch going right now, everything turning in their favour and everyone getting involved. When the Mike Hoffman-Zibanejad-Bobby Ryan line slumped, the Erik Condra-Jean-Gabriel Pageau-Curtis Lazar line picked up the slack.
On Monday, that line was its usual energetic self, with Pageau scoring his sixth of the season, while Zibanejad broke out of eight-game goalless drought with two goals.
The Senators are also not getting rattled. They’ve come from behind in six of their past 11 wins.
While Hammond continues to find ways to win, Methot raves about the play of the defence corps. And he’s not just talking about Erik Karlsson, who has seven goals and 17 assists in 24 games, the most points of any player in the NHL since Feb. 10.
“You couldn’t ask for better production, with all the young defence we have. With (assistant captain Chris) Phillips out, we have an extremely young defence corps. The guys are contributing, with all the responsibility they have.”
For weeks now, hockey observers have been waiting for the bubble to burst, the general consensus being that it’s all too good to last, that something has to give.
“There is a sense of that,” acknowledges Ryan, who had three assists against San Jose. “You read articles or whatnot that say that everybody is positive right now, but if we lose one game, people will start to say is it going to go the other way now. That’s the nature of the business, but I think this group has done a pretty good job of tuning that out.
“With the streak we’re on, if we lose a game, it’s not end of the world. We have a lot of confidence in tight games.”