Senators: Viewer Discretion Is Advised: QUOTABLE

Published 12/15/2023 · Updated 12/15/2023

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“It’s an 8:00 pm EST start tonight, available on RDS, TSN5, and TSN1200. Viewer discretion is advised.”

Silver Seven7 Blog on start-time for Ottawa Senators game

No we’re not talking about the warning at the beginning of the edgy FX series Fargo (“Viewer discretion is strongly advised,” is its disclaimer) currently burning up the airwaves.

Not at all. This is the Silver Seven7’s warning when telling viewers when the Ottawa Senators are playing. Yes the Sens are that bad.

Or are they? The team has an amazing amount of good young talent that last year wasn’t playing defence. So it missed the playoffs. And yes, this is a team that at first glance looks like run-and-gun is the prime directive. And sometimes, these being youngsters and all, loving to score goals, they play run-and-gun. So the team loses … a lot.

But if you look at the statistics, the team is actually playing very well. The plus-minus stats (instance when a player is on the ice for goals, for and against) are not terrible. The only really bad offender is Dominik Kubalik, the left-winger who the Sens have been trying to move, at a gruesome -10. Spread that over the whole schedule and you’ve got -40 which is roughly the worst in the league or winger Drake Batherson’s territory last season (editor’s note: Batherson is -2 this year which is a spectacular improvement).

Let’s Give All Ottawans Free Money: THE VOTER

So by process of elimination, the Senators have sound defencemen and good forwards and they are statistically responsible. So the problem with this under-performing team must be goaltending.

And guess what? It is.

Anton Forsberg, picked up off waivers from the horrible, at the time, Vancouver Canucks has a putrid .885 save percentage. His partner, Joonas Korpisalo, is sporting an .898 save percentage. A goalie-sized piece of plywood picked up at Home Depot would do as well. And it’s cheaper, too. That eliminates the salary-cap woes of the Senators.

A weakness of fired general manager Pierre Dorion (other than adding and subtracting on the salary cap or being unable to successfully trade a hockey player) was picking goaltenders. Both incumbents between the pipes are Dorion acquisitions. And don’t forget that Dorion gave us the goaltending adventure Matt Murray who was pawned off on the pathetic Leafs and is now being paid for not playing goal. Next he’ll show up in a scratch-and-dent sale. That’s not good.

The Senators try. God knows they try. But nothing is as demoralizing as watching your goalies underperform. You’re working your tail off and the goalie allows a soft one. It is easier to keep pucks out of your own net than score at the other end of the ice.

So why hasn’t D.J. Smith been fired? Why does veteran star forward Claude Giroux defend Smith? Because it’s not Smith’s fault. Unfortunately, whoever is running this team will bow to fan pressure and fire the coach. But there’s nothing you can do when your goalie can’t stop the puck. Dorion left the team with a fatal weakness.

Are there better coaches than Smith? Yes. Is he doing a bad job? No.

But his goaltenders are killing him. And there’s not much he can do about that in the short term.

Ken Gray

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