Coming off a season opener win over the Leafs on Wednesday night, the Senators took the opportunity on Thursday to lay a giant egg in front of their first home town crowd of the regular season.
The Sens in short looked horrible; from the goal out they seemed incapable of back checking, stopping pucks and scoring goals. The Senators who had ruined the party for the Leaf on Wednesday, gave them a gift of a game on Thursday no effort, no skills and no goals as they watched Leaf after Leaf take his turn at shooing on Martin Gerber on the way to a 6-0 blanking.
Goaltending always the Achilles heel of the Senators, proved once again to be a worrisome thing, as Martin Gerber had what many hope will be his worst night ever in a Senators uniform. With last years project of Domenik Hasek back in Detroit (and the Wings lost too by the way!); Gerber was brought in to become the main guardian for now, while Ray Emery continues to learn his ropes.
While game number two is a tad early to panic, the play of Gerber and his team mates isn’t exactly the confidence boost that the Senators fan base were looking for. Sens/Leafs match ups always provide an aural experience at Scotiabank Place, what with seemingly half the crowd cheering on the Blue and White. By then end of the game the rink was left to the Leaf Nation, the Sens fans long since off to battle the traffic home on the Queensway.
Wednesday night’s game featured foolish penalties by the likes of Darcy Tucker, Thursday, Tucker atoned for his slashing call of Wednesday, with a two goal performance. He was the kind of manic whirlwind that he can be when he doesn’t get sidetracked with the stupid stuff; Thursday he did most of his damage on a score sheet, something that has a more lasting effect than his other activities.
Two games in and the Ottawa media are already on edge, Don Brennan did a little math as the game progressed. When he was done on the abacus, he had determined that had the Sens gone after Andrew Raycroft instead of Martin Gerber, they would not only have had a pretty good goaltender, but enough money to have kept Big Zedeno Chara on the squad. A large piece of the ever changing hockey puzzle, and one who might have come in handy in the Sens end of the rink on Thursday.
It’s probably a tad early to write of the season and the current line up, but Brennan made a good point, Gerber did not look good in his two period appearance, and there is a now a hole in that normally solid Sens defence. Add on to that the anemic offence of Thursday and you’re going to have some angry Sens fans should this become the norm rather than the exception!
Toronto 6, Ottawa 0 stats pack
No comments:
Post a Comment