Senators ups and downs: Week Ten

by Mark Parisi on Dec 12, 2011 7:00 AM EST in Ottawa Senators ups and downs

Ups and downs is a feature that looks at the individual performances of the Ottawa Senators' players for the past week.

It was an ugly week for the Senators. A quality win over Tampa Bay was followed with three straight losses to Washington, New Jersey, and Vancouver. The first time the Sens played the Canucks this year, it was a 2-1 loss in a tightly-checked game. This time, it was a 4-1 drubbing in a chippy game.

Are the Senators regressing? Maybe. But it's important to remember that this is a young team and there are going to be some growing pains. The avalanche of red arrows we're about to see doesn't mean it's time to give up on anyone.

Except Spezza.

(Just kidding.)

Biggest gains: Nick Foligno

Foligno owned an impressive six-game point streak that was snapped in the loss to Vancouver. More importantly, he had been playing at an impressively physical level. That might have been taken too far in the loss to the Canucks, as Foligno delivered two different head shots. We don't believe either one was intentional, so we'd like to see the physicality continue, and we loved that he was man enough to answer the bell and defend himself after the second hit.

Biggest losses: Erik Karlsson

What a difference a week makes. Ottawa's best defenseman was anything but this week. Karlsson piled up bad passes and defensive mis-reads like he got points for them. Of course, that is not the case. Consider it a learning week for the young player, who learned the hard way that the same moves he used to contain Alex Ovechkin last week wouldn't work quite as well a second time.

(read on for the full rundown...)

Here's something awesome:

Goalies	Trend	Notes
Craig Anderson		Anderson has to play better if the Senators are going to have any chance of winning games.
Alex Auld		In his only start this week, Auld was spotted a 3-0 lead. The final result was a 5-4 shootout loss where he looked handcuffed against every shooter. Yikes.
Defensemen
Matt Carkner		We are so glad he's back.
Jared Cowen		One of the team's few decent defensemen this week, Cowen played an absurd amount of minutes and had no games with a minus rating despite often playing on the top pairing.
Sergei Gonchar		He was average before suffering an injury. The power play has looked abysmal without him.
Erik Karlsson		See "Biggest losses."
Filip Kuba		Currently injured.
Brian Lee		You're doing fine, Brian. The bar is low these days.
Chris Phillips		Doesn't seem to be doing well with the young kids, and unfortunately, those are his only partner options right now.
David Rundblad		Might have been headed to Binghamton prior to the injury to Gonchar.
Forwards
Daniel Alfredsson		The mustache has to go.
Daniel Alfredsson, for real		In between two 2-point games were two 0-point games where Alfie played some pretty bad defense.
Bobby Butler		Got decent minutes but has nothing to show for it.
Erik Condra		Condra scored a goal against the Capitals and was one of the only Sens players to do his job effectively all week.
Kaspars Daugavins		Got a chance to play on the top line through sheer work ethic. What's not to like?
Nikita Filatov		Scratched all week.
Nick Foligno		See "Biggest gains."
Colin Greening		Eight games without any points was enough to get demoted to the fourth line. He then immediately scored a goal.
Zenon Konopka		After racking up 17 PIMs against New Jersey thanks to the silly instigator rule, he was an easy choice to scratch upon Regin's return.
Milan Michalek		Two goals on the week gives him 18 for the year. That's pretty good.
Chris Neil		With the rust out of the way, Neil was back to his old wrecking ball self against Vancouver. Of course, being Neil, he pushed it a little too far.
Peter Regin		Returned to the lineup against Vancouver, pushing Foligno back to the wing.
Zack Smith		Another two goals against Tampa and an assist against Washington. Also took a stupid penalty against Vancouver that got Ottawa down 1-0 early.
Jason Spezza		Maybe he's prepping for the All-Star skills challenge by attempting all these low-percentage passes?
Jesse Winchester		We'd give him a green arrow for his late game heroics against New Jersey--and he was strong in that game--but we really hated his fight against the Capitals.

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Comments

Growing pains

It’s quite curious that we featured tons of “get rid of Kuba and Gonchar” headlines late last year and early this year… and now that they are out with injuries, we have lost our way.

There are lots of growing pains in rebuilding, and for a while I thought we weren’t that far away…

It’s interesting how the up arrows are outside of the top six. Patience is the order of the day… while we rebuild. We seem to be building depth outside of the top six. Unless some players are moved, it’s going to be really hard to make this team next year.

by Marvellous on Dec 12, 2011 7:30 AM EST reply actions 1 recs

Just getting here, but would have said this about Gonchar and Kuba if you hadn’t. I also agree with the need for patience. The kneejerk tendency is to take a week’s worth of play and extrapolate a whole season form it and decide the bail on everything. As we csee from K and G, even a season may not be a good sample size if other factors were at play. With our younger players, that’s the variable – they’re young.

by Be_rad on Dec 12, 2011 11:46 AM EST up reply actions

Spezza needs to be better

This is not the same Spezza that finished the year last year on a tear. This is the turnover prone Spezza we have come accustomed to over the years. This league is too hard for all these fancy moves and passes. Sure they look good when they work, but that’s not often these days. He just needs to get back to making those good simple plays he’s capable of making. When he plays like that, he makes his linemates better, like Butler (last year) and Greening (early this year).

That being said, I think this was expected. We need to LEARN how to win!

by I Still Miss Hossa!!! on Dec 12, 2011 8:27 AM EST reply actions

Apparently Filatov is gone to Russia

Can’t blame him.

by TheGuineaPig on Dec 12, 2011 9:59 AM EST reply actions

Disappointing, but not unexpected

Silver Seven - The Daniel Alfredsson of Ottawa Senators Blogs

by Mark Parisi on Dec 12, 2011 11:19 AM EST up reply actions

I blame him

But I just blame him for making your ‘biggest losses’ section out of date within hours of publication.

Silver Seven | Twitter | Facebook | E-mail | eBay

by Peter Raaymakers on Dec 12, 2011 11:40 AM EST up reply actions

Yeah, if I had known this, I would have picked him over Karlsson for sure

Silver Seven - The Daniel Alfredsson of Ottawa Senators Blogs

by Mark Parisi on Dec 12, 2011 1:09 PM EST up reply actions

Karlsson needs some development time with the 67s

Terrible week.

Erik Karlsson is better than your favourite player.
Twitter: @sens_adnan

by Adnan on Dec 12, 2011 11:42 AM EST reply actions

The mullet is holding him back

Silver Seven - The Daniel Alfredsson of Ottawa Senators Blogs

by Mark Parisi on Dec 12, 2011 1:10 PM EST up reply actions

I think it's technically a Quebec turtleneck.

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by Peter Raaymakers on Dec 12, 2011 3:16 PM EST up reply actions

Falling back to earth?

I’d say that the Senators are regressing to the mean a bit this week. It is hard to play over your head for an entire season, so letdowns like this are inevitable.

Personally, I still think the Sens are heading for around 12th place in the East. I think they still have some more strong stretches in them as the season goes along, but there are probably more weeks like this one coming up, too.

I’d like to see Karlsson and Spezza bounce back this coming week.

by DW19 on Dec 12, 2011 11:43 AM EST reply actions

All of this would be fine if our goalies were regressing to the mean as well

Except they continue to suck.

by TheGuineaPig on Dec 12, 2011 1:29 PM EST up reply actions

True, the Sens are going to need more from Anderson and Auld if they are going to stay in touch with the playoff race in the new year. Anderson has had a few good games this year, but I expect more consistency from him.

by DW19 on Dec 12, 2011 3:19 PM EST up reply actions

Filatov

I would be interested to have a more concrete inside observation from MacLena and Murray. It feels like there was more going on behind the scenes than we know. Whether it was perception, personal, real, who knows?

by Be_rad on Dec 12, 2011 11:49 AM EST reply actions

Maybe, like Kovaloaf, the coaches were cutting his ice time out of jealousy?

by Pmoron on Dec 12, 2011 12:54 PM EST via mobile up reply actions

Bye bye Filatov

There’s a reason why a player falls flat after being a high draft pick. With Filatov, we didn’t risk much. We just put alot of energy into trying to help a player find himself.

In the end taking on solving another team’s problems seldom works out. Like Kovalev, Filatov brought his personality with him when he changed teams.

It’s not everyone who can change cultures and languages and make it in another part of the world. Just imagine what it would be like to be a highly skilled young player, and then go over to Russia to play hockey… away from family and friends.

by Marvellous on Dec 12, 2011 12:09 PM EST reply actions

I assume that you will own up to the comments you have been making recently if Filatov comes back in a couple of years and actually turns out to be a good player.

by DW19 on Dec 12, 2011 3:21 PM EST up reply actions