Silver Nuggets: First six games by some very depressing numbers
Last time, I wrote about how good can the Senators defence can be. Then a few hours later the Senators lost 7-2. In my defence, I was asking about how good can the defence be in the future, and the 7 goals were more on goaltending than defence.
So maybe if I talk about some of the bad things, we'll win tonight. Let's look at the Senators numbers after the first six games:
The good
- Erik Karlsson has 1 goal and 7 assists after 6 games. That's first among all defencemen and third among all players behind Phil Kessel and Anze Kopitar. The Senators have scored 15 goals and Karlsson has 8 points. That's 53% of the Senators offence. Our special little guy even has more hits than Zack Smith and Chris Phillips.
- The power play is still seventh in the league at 24%.
- Milan Michalek is 7th in the NHL with 21 shots. He's been the best forward so far on Ottawa.
The bad
- The Senators have trailed by at least two goals at some point in every game.
- The penalty kill is 64.5%.
- The Senators have trailed after the first, and the second period in every game.
The ugly
- Ottawa has allowed five or more goals in four of their six games.
- The club has allowed five goals a game on average. If they allow four goals tonight, that number will actually improve!
- Our boys have lost the last two home games by a combined score of 14-3.
- The Senators penalty kill has allowed five more goals than anyone else. In fact, nine teams have allowed less total goals than the Senators have allowed just while shorthanded.
- Having played 365 minutes of hockey so far, the Senators have lead for just 2:59 of those, been tied for 74:51 and losing for 287:10. Percentage wise, Ottawa has led 0.8% of the time, been tied 20.5% of the time and trailed 78.7% of the time.
After the jump, tonight's lines, Sergei Gonchar, Jesse Winchester and Craig Anderson return, Filatov speaks about Binghamton, and ten reasons to cheer up about the Senators.
Tonight's game
- Lines were swapped all over. Mika Zibanejad moves back to centre while Stéphane Da Costa is relegated to the fourth line. Jesse Winchester could return in the place of Zenon Konopka. 1) Greening-Spezza-Michalek, 2) Foligno-Regin-Alfredsson, 3) Smith-Zibanejad-Neil, 4) Winchester-Da Costa-Condra. (Brent Wallace)
- Sergei Gonchar and Craig Anderson will return. Bobby Butler has been placed on injured reserve. (Sylvain St-Laurent)
- With Gonchar's return, the defence is as follows: 1) Kuba-Karlsson, 2) Gonchar-Cowen, 3) Phillips-Rundblad. (Sylvain St-Laurent)
- Game preview. (Senators Extra)
- Everyone predicts a win tonight on the panel. Peter went with 3-1 Ottawa. (Senators Extra)
- The Jets SBN blog however, predicts 5-1 for Winnipeg. (Arctic Ice Hockey)
General Sens News
- Nikita Filatov has been pleased with his first week in Binghamton. Kurt Kleinendorst has been happy with Filatov's play. I don't know if Filatov will be back in time to play his old club Columbus on Saturday, but he should hopefully be back for the game at home to Florida next week, which will be game #10. (Press & Sun-Bulletin)
- Alex Auld refused to speak with the media on Tuesday before the game. I can see this becoming an issue with some of Ottawa's esteemed media. (Ottawa Sun)
- Tim Baines, Bruce Garrioch and Don Brennan get their take on the Gonchar booing. Garrioch is actually against it! (Ottawa Sun)
- Sergei Gonchar admits the booing bothered him, but adds the only thing he can do is play better. If nothing else, the power play should at least get a boost. (Ottawa Citizen)
- If some of my comments in the opening were too depressing, here are ten reasons to cheer up about the Senators. Though, I am not sure if saving money by not having to go to playoff games makes me feel better. (Ottawa Citizen)
- Paul MacLean thinks Mika Zibanejad is an NHL player right now but that the club will do what is best for Zibanejad. James Gordon thinks this means MacLean would like to keep Zibanejad but Bryan Murray isn't sure. (Senators Extra)
- For anyone interested in going to the game tonight against the Jets, AlfieGirl has two tickets for sale at a discounted price. Click here for details.
General Hockey News
- How important is winning an offensive zone face-off? Turns out, not very important. If a team wins 55.5% of even-strength face-offs all season, it will be worth two points in the standings. On the power play, a team needs to win 60.3% of offensive zone face-offs all season for it to translate to one win. The Vancouver Canucks led the NHL with 54.9% last year. What this means to me, it's nice to win face-offs, but overvaluing a face-off specialist is not worth it for a player who only takes a portion of a team's face-offs. (Arctic Ice Hockey)
- Joffrey Lupul broke the net camera with this shot. Thanks to The Tif for the link. (NESN)