Sens Game Report - Ottawa @ Washington - 11.6.06

The Balance in the Bank:

Final Score: Washington wins 4-3 in overtime, coming back from a 3-0 deficit.
Ottawa Goals:
- Alfredsson (3) in a line change taking a pass from Spezza
- Vermette (5) using his speed and finding some power to get around the d-man and cut back around Kolzig
- Heatley (8) walking in on the left side and tucking one away to spell the end of Kolzig’s night.
Making Sens: Spezza, Alfredsson, Volchenkov, Neil
Lacking Sens: Schaefer, Schubert
It was over when: Phillips taking a penalty in the last minute put us on a 4-on-6 and it just had an eerie feeling to it.
It was definitely over when: Clark tipped in a Semin shot, giving Washington four goals on four deflections. Awesome.
Message in a Molson bottle: We played well early, didn’t turn the puck over, backchecked, started to trap a bit in the second half of the third period, and then remembered, “wait, we don’t win close games!” After they recovered from this brief lapse in memory, we got back onto our self-destructing ways by giving up a goal with 24 seconds left in the game and then another one 1:33 into overtime. These losses in one goal games are WAY to familiar to all four losses to Buffalo in May and it is making me want to puke, to be quite honest.
Courtesy Boxscore: http://scores.espn.go.com/nhl/boxscore?gameId=261106023
Next Game: Wednesday in Atlanta, and I’m hoping to be there to take on the brunt of boos in my Heatley jersey.

Grab a Timmy’s double double and listen to what really happened:

The Good
- Alfredsson has scored legitimate goals in the past two games and is skating very well. He and McAmmond were flying tonight and if it weren’t for the laziest forward of the night, Peter Schaefer, they might have found a few more goals. Vermette would be fun on this line.


The Bad
- The powerplay is ridiculous right now. The first one at least produced chances, but once again we lost the game on special teams. We didn’t convert on our chances, they scored on two (three if you count the one when the penalty door opened and Heatley had yet to step back on the ice). As I said last week, I’m looking to Coach Murray to straighten this out. Whether that is fair or not doesn’t really matter at this point, does it? These units need to score goals or we will continue to lose.

The Ugly
- When it rains, it pours. We eagerly anticipate a four-game road trip to get out of Dodge and focus on hockey for a while. Then we blow a three goal lead on four deflection goals to a lesser team (say what you want, they just shouldn’t be able to play with us). It doesn’t matter that this loss was out of the school of hard knocks because it goes in the books as us blowing another lead and losing another one goal game. Here are two things that Ottawa fans don’t want to hear but ring the truth: 1) Jacques Martin almost always held onto a one-goal lead, and 2) Toronto wins close games like this. If our coach can’t figure out a system that is conducive to winning in games like this, then perhaps our changes don’t need to be the guys on the bench..

Overtime
- We had five giveaways to their eighteen. Apparently that is irrevelant.
- At least Pothier didn’t score the winner – he was their leading ice time guy again.
- Phillips looked to be playing a great game early and kind of fell of late, culminating in the tripping penalty late.
- Volchenkov actually didn’t a decent job shadowing Ovechkin, hitting him whenever possible but still didn’t live up to Chara’s record of completely shutting the kid down.
- Volchenkov also blocked eight shots tonight and led the way with four hits. As I said, apart from the Ovechkin goals, he rose to the occasion.
- I’ll continue to dismiss the ridiculous Alfredsson rumours. He was our best player tonight and it is hockey suicide to try and change the culture of your franchise mid-season. That doesn’t mean I don’t think something big needs to happen to this team.