Thursday, March 19, 2009

Ontario: A Hab-not province

You could probably tell from my previous post that I was conscious that some Habs fans would be terribly noisy and probably ruin this game for all the Sens fans in attendance, but our team shut those overly boisterous Habitants up pretty well with a edge-of-your-seat 5-4 win. Ole-ole-ole-ole.

First of all... Brian Elliot, your crazy glove saves are spectacular, and they are giving me heart attacks. On the plus side, you're rarely beat glove-side. On the other side of the equation, you're caught out of position and HAVE to make these saves in order to bail yourself out. It's madness. I hate you and you're amazing.

Great game from Nick Foligno too. He's becoming such a consistent player because of his forecheck and occasional offensive contribution. Under Clouston's system, he's become a very important part of the Senators' game plan.

This was one of Jason Spezza's better games. He minimized his giveaways and was a pivotal player in the offensive zone. Oh yeah, also those goals.

Anton Volchenkov has remembered how to hit people again. That's nice: he's quite good at it. The Sens out-checked the Habs 31-16 on the game, and it showed. The team's overall enthusiasm seems to sky-rocket after Fisher or Volchenkov goes out of their way to clobber an opponent. Keep it up for God's sake.

If I were to credit Canadiens fans for anything, it's in recognizing that Carey Price clearly weaker than Jaroslav Halak in net right now. Thank goodness Bob Gainey's ego won't allow Halak to be the #1 goalie.

Penalty-killing was pivotal for the Sens in this win. Credit to Daniel Alfredsson for some extremely smart plays (he must be one of the smartest players in the NHL) and Chris Kelly for helping the Sens survive some stickey situations.

Despite some defensive lapeses, this game displayed the Sens at their late-season offensive best. There were times when Ottawa was man-handling the Canadiens in their own end. This sort of game makes me think the Sens will be in the playoffs next year.

Ottawa Sun headline: Spezza jabs Habs in the abs!
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