The good?
Tim Stutzle’s dancing like he’s Fred Astaire.
The bad?
The rest of the team’s dancing like Elaine Benes.
This has not been a November to remember for the Ottawa Senators and – really – this mini-slump rich with bad rhythm and a few poorly timed one-step and two-step and promenades couldn’t have come at a worse time.
The team that started the season with a tinge of promise (through the opening month of October) has stumbled and bumbled its way to a 3-5-1 mark through 20 days of November.
Terrible timing indeed for a team – and hasn’t this been talked about enough? – that desperately needs/needed a strong opening to its season. It just hasn’t been there.
It’s not like the Senators can use the schedule as an excuse this year. The team’s had to play in just one back-to-back situation through its first 18 games. Compare that to the Toronto Maple Leafs who’ve slogged through five back-to-backs.
And further to that, Tuesday night’s opponent, the Edmonton Oilers, were playing in their third game in four nights. Even tougher considering the Oil were two hours out of their regular time zone as well.
Didn’t matter as Connor McDavid and crew rolled to an easy 5-2 win.
Ottawa’s excuse?
Well, there really wasn’t one to clutch on to. Head coach Travis Green looked a bit perplexed when speaking to the media afterwards.
Sum up your team’s play, coach?
“Flat. Not a lot of energy. Not a lot of execution. We were flat . . . It’s a tough league to win in if you’re not playing with energy and you’re playing flat.”
And you can lay that at the skates of the entire club, excepting for Stutzle who seems to have found another gear – a much higher one – in late 2024. Finding holes where there were seemingly none and darting and dipping and dashing through the opposition with impunity, the 22-year-old winger has been magic. He scored his eighth goal of the campaign late in the first period to give Ottawa a touch of life after Evan Bouchard of the Oilers undressed half of the Senators roster to open the scoring earlier on.
Stutzle’s been consistently good; exceptionally good. He now has 22 points through Ottawa’s first 18 games.
Summing up the game, Stutzle oddly put the blame on himself – “They played well, their top guys were good tonight and I . . . didn’t score enough goals.”
Meantime, it gets no uglier than between the pipes.
Once again, net saviour Linus Ullmark played more like Linus from Peanuts without his blanket – shaky, unconvincing and without resolve. Honestly, outside of a few periods here and there, Ullmark has not performed up to the hype.
With the loss, Ottawa’s dropped itself into a nasty little November three-game losing string.
As a number of posters on the Senators main chat board suggested late into Tuesday night, anything less than a win against Vegas Thursday night and it once again gets dim for the team heading into the telltale American Thanksgiving weekend.
THOUGHT, SEEN AND HEARD:
Now into his third full NHL season, expectations were high for Jake Sanderson and a breakout season. This one’s been a bit of a dud through 22 games though as the 22-year-old sits with only one goal scored and a troubling -12. Caught-out-of-position has become a mantra . . . TSN’s Jamie McLennan is gold on the network’s Overdrive (TSN 1050 and TSN2) show. As an in-game analyst (he does most if not all of Ottawa’s games) he struggles with saying anything resembling a negative word about the home side. Don’t get it . . . Zack MacEwen has seen his ice time bumped nearly two minutes upwards so far this season. He’s earned it. MacEwen does what is asked and expected . . . And kudos to GM Steve Staios who saw something in Nick Jensen that the rest of us didn’t: stability and maturity. His +12 leads the club by a mile (next up would be Thomas Chabot at +2). Smart hockey player . . . The time for Ullmark to ‘find his game’ has come and gone. Ottawa simply doesn’t have the luxury of not playing Anton Forsberg (who’s been much better) at this point. The organization is a bad week or two away from seeing seven playoff-less years turn into eight.
LEAGUE PONDERINGS:
It’s Bizarro World in Toronto. The Leafs best player’s been sidelined since the beginning of November, yet the Buds are 5-0-1 without Auston Matthews . . . I don’t know if this is accurate or not but if I was ever going to label a team for packing it in on a coach it’d be the Boston Bruins and Jim Montgomery . . . Did Montgomery start to lose the room last season when he called out David Pastrnak during the playoffs? Fuel to the fire this season with Brad Marchand? . . . Just wondering . . . Starting to wonder (as well) whether that Ullmark from Boston to Ottawa benefitted either team. Without his best pal in Beantown, Jeremy Swayman has under-performed – to say the least . . . That makes two . . . If Mike Sullivan gets canned in Pittsburgh, hello Boston . . . You heard that here 57th . . . HNIC’s Elliotte Friedman on the state of talks between the NHLPA and the league regarding the salary cap: “No. 1 is they keep the cap at $92.5 (million US) and then there is a huge jump the year after in 2026-27. Or, what the players say they’ve kind of been told about is the possibility the cap moves higher next year, probably around the $95-97 (million) area” . . . There’s also talk it could rise above $100 million US in short order which would instigate cartwheels and handstands in Toronto, Vegas, Colorado and New York. In other words, the Big Boys.
OTTAWA SENATORS WEEK AHEAD:
Thursday, Nov. 21: Vegas at Ottawa (7 pm)
Saturday, Nov. 23: Vancouver at Ottawa (7 pm)
Monday, Nov. 25: Calgary at Ottawa (7 pm)
thegrossgame@yahoo.co
