SENS ACCENTUATE THE POSITIVES AS CAPS INFLICT ANOTHER LOSS
Rest, relax and reload.
The Ottawa Senators could have skated Sunday before starting the NHL’s mandated threeday holiday break, but after a 4-0 loss to the Washington Capitals Saturday night at home general manager Pierre Dorion and coach Guy Boucher opted for an extra day.
Coming off a 5-2 loss Friday to the New Jersey Devils, the Senators’ effort against the Capitals was certainly a step in the right direction, but the reality is if this was a measuring-stick game against the defending Stanley Cup champions, Ottawa didn’t measure up.
“Weird game. Weird feel,” said centre Matt Duchene after the loss Saturday. “They showed why they’re the Cup champs. They’re playing really good hockey right now. It feels like there’s about seven or eight of them on the ice right now. They do a really good job.
“At the same time, I thought we generated some good offence and (Mike McKenna) was good in the net for us. We had a tough bounce or two and our work ethic was there. It wasn’t for lack of effort. I guess sometimes you come up short.”
When the Senators entered this rebuild, they knew there were going to be nights like the losses to the Caps and the Devils. These are growing pains and if you’re going to give young players a chance to play bigger roles, then this kind of thing is going to happen.
Struggling to find their way this season, the Senators have to take whatever small victories they can. The fact they outshot the Caps by a 35-32 margin is a piece they can use as a building block when they return to work next week.
Yes, the Senators got an extra 24 hours for their break, but they will resume the schedule with three games in four days as they face the New York Islanders Friday in Brooklyn, the Caps here Saturday and the Columbus Blue Jackets on the road New Year’s Eve.
“I don’t think it was 4-0. We generated some chances and it seemed like we were in their zone a lot,” said alternate captain Mark Borowiecki. “That’s a highend team. We gave them some great chances and they buried them. They made us pay.
“We showed, thankfully, a little bit of life after a pretty poor effort in New Jersey. You have to call a spade a spade. That wasn’t good enough and it wasn’t acceptable. We pushed a little bit (Saturday), but unfortunately we couldn’t come up with the two points.”
What the Senators need to find the rest of the season is consistency because they haven’t had it all year and they’ve been plagued by that issue.
“It’s got to be a hard reset,” said Borowiecki. “We’ve learned from this before. We learned from that effort in New Jersey. That wasn’t acceptable and we made that clear to ourselves. Now it’s important to flush (what’s happened).
“People might not like that and they might not want to hear that, but you have to. You have to go into this new year and this new segment of your season with some positivity. You’ve got to go out there and a play a little bit pissed off with a chip on your shoulder and remember the mistakes you made, but don’t dwell on them.
“If we can string something together.”
Duchene, who returned from a groin injury Friday, said consistency is an issue for teams trying to develop their players.
“We’re a young team, we’re inexperienced and we’re still learning to get better. Consistency is going to be something we’re going to battle with,” Duchene said after the loss to the Caps. “But it’s the challenge and it’s the thing we should be shooting for with consistency in our effort and how we’re playing.
“That’s a veteran team over there. They won the Stanley Cup for a reason and you can see how mature they are. It’s a good thing for us to see and see where we need to get to.”
THE LAST WORDS
Former Senators captain Erik Karlsson had never been suspended in his career until he got a two-game ban Sunday for a head shot Saturday on the Los Angeles Kings’ Chris Wagner. While Karlsson maintained he wasn’t trying to make contact with the head, he did and the department of player safety threw the book at the San Jose Sharks defenceman. During his career with the Senators, Karlsson got a $2,500 fine for a high stick on Florida’s Sean Bergenheim in March 2014. It was the right call by player safety head George Parros because many felt Karlsson wouldn’t get anything ... This break comes at a good time because Ottawa has lost seven of 10. “It’s good. We’re a young group, we’re inexperienced and we’ve had some definite ups and downs,” Borowiecki said. “A chance to take that collective breath is important. You get a chance to mentally shut down a little bit and take the pressure off you. It’s a tough league to play in. It’s hard for young and old alike. To have a chance to kind of reset to spend some quality time with family is huge.”