What the Senators need to do to win!

Newsflash:

What the Senators need to do to win!

Written by Peter McGrath

I’m watching the Senators lose to the Canadiens as I write this column. Is it just me or do the Sens forwards look slow? Say what you will about Jacques Martin but when he coached the Senators, team speed intimidated the entire league. The speed of the Senators took away the forecheck of opponents by forcing them into a tight defensive shell. This was a contributing factor to the Sens being one of the top defensive teams, year after year. Simply, it was tough to implement a high pressure offence against the Sens when you were preoccupied with the Sens’ race horses sprinting back up the ice on a turnover. Now, however, the Sens just don’t look very fast. This puzzles me when players like Michalak, Fisher and Shannon are flying around. With Michalak’s wheels he should be getting two or three breakaways each game. The problem I see is that the Senators get no intelligent back end support. When was the last time we were treated to a seeing-eye pass finding a streaking Senator forward breaking toward the opponents’ net? Kuba, Karlsson, Campoli and Picard hold on to the puck far too long when coming out of their own end. Time after time, against the Habs, Sens’ forwards were forced to pull up on the breakout. As a result, they never hit the Habs’ blueline at top speed. Back in Atom hockey my coach (my Dad) harped over and over about the ability of the puck to move faster than a player can skate. “Headman the puck”, he’d scream as I attempted to demonstrate I was the second coming of Bobby Orr only to get checked or cause a turnover that invariably led to a goal against. My excuse…I was ten years old. These guys are supposed to be pros! If the Senators don’t learn to move the puck at an NHL level so they attack the opponent’s blueline as a five man unit with speed, this is going to be a long, long and frustrating season. Maybe they should call my Dad.

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