While my drunken, anger-fuelled prediction proved a touch melodramatic, the Senators nevertheless fell to Satan’s minions this afternoon, dropping their matinee date with the New Jersey Devils 4-3 in overtime. The Senators gave away three - count ’em, three – leads in regulation before giving up the overtime winner while shorthanded.
The game held such promise for the Senators after 40 minutes. Nick Foligno got an early goal, the Senators killed off a bad penalty by Jarkko Ruutu without even giving up a shot, and the suits from the TSN broadcast were praising their effort. A late breakdown courtesy of Alex Picard and Jason Smith and some crafty work by Dainius Zubrus was all the stood between the Sens and a first intermission lead. The second frame was another respectable one for the Sens, as they kept the game close and got a little puck luck, resulting in Brendan Bell’s second tally of the year on the power play. Despite being outshot, the Sens kept the game tied after two, despite the fact Zubrus notched his second of the day, finishing a pretty tic tac toe play aided by Patrik Elias and Brian Gionta.
The third period was where the Senators began to let this one slip away. The club managed a paltry 3 shots on goal, and let the Devils take control of the game. Brent Sutter’s club was buzzing around the Senator net for most of overtime, and the winning goal was more foretold demise than sudden death. While I was unable to spot the “hold” in Chris Phillips’ holding minor that gave Jersey that fateful man adavantage, the writing was on the wall for the Sens heading in to the extra frame.
Players and fans alike will surely find frustration is the fact that the Senators weren’t even abjectly awful in this outing; they just weren’t good enough to best a superior Devils team. The Zubrus, Elias and Gionta line seemed to have their way with the Senator defence at times, while Travis Zajac, Zach Parise and Jamie Langenbrunner provided the kind of second line pressure the Sens just don’t get on a regular basis. Alex Auld wasn’t bad, but should have had the Devils' third goal, a bad angle shot from 20 feet inside the blue line. He would probably like to have the OT point shot that trickled in off his right pad back as well. The Senators only managed 20 shots, only 6 of which came from the Big 3, who could not produce a goal to compliment the much needed burst of secondary scoring. A satisfactory showing by this team simply wasn’t good enough to beat the Devils, a sign there might not be much light at the end of the proverbial tunnel that is the 2008-09 season. While the Senators did earn a point in this contest, overtime losses will not pave the road to the playoffs for this club.
A few notes:
1) NHL.com credited Brian Lee with 7 blocked shots and over 23 minutes of ice time. Apparently the Minnesotan has taken it upon himself to replace Anton Volchenkov during his absence. Despite being on the ice for two New Jersey goals, I thought Lee had a respectable showing this afternoon. He made a few nice outlet passes, and is showing more of a desire to make the physical sacrifices required of an NHL defenceman.
2) I didn’t catch this on TSN, but Foligno was given a 10 minute misconduct penalty for abuse of official after the game. I have been unable to find any information on the incident up to this point. Anybody know what’s up?
3) TSN’s Bob Mackenzie suggested Bryan Murray might be looking to fire coach Craig Hartsburg sooner rather than later, stating owner Eugene Melnyk wants a more experienced bench boss. Seeing that John Paddock, Murray, and Hartsburg have all had similar results with this team over the past calendar year, something tells me this team’s problems run deeper than coaching. If ownership and management aren’t able to see that, they should be. What breed of successful, proven coach would even want this job knowing they’d be fired after 6 months if they don’t manage to turn water into wine?
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