In the team’s last three games, the Sens have stopped doing the things that made them successful during their winning streak.  They have stopped playing with the kind of hard work and urgency that has been the hallmark of Cory Clouston’s tenure as head coach of the team.  Whether that’s because they are feeling a little bit more comfortable these days with a playoff spot all but guaranteed or whether it’s been the flu that has ravaged the team of late, it doesn’t matter and they will need to start playing with more heart and desire.

Another part of their success before the break was the play of goaltender Brian Elliott, who was simply spectacular during the team’s successful stretch in January and February.  He hasn’t played at that same high level since coming back from the break and seems to have lost his stranglehold on the team’s number one spot to Pascal Leclaire.  Leclaire played well on Saturday night but will need to do that with more consistency if Clouston is going to start giving him the majority of the starts.  A little healthy competition for playing time is almost always a good thing but one of the two goaltenders will need to step it up in the final month and a half of the season to give the team a fighting chance in the playoffs.

It will be interesting to see how the team plays as a whole on Tuesday night.  Clouston cannot be happy with how they have performed thus far since the break and he probably sent a stern message to the team after Saturday night’s shootout loss.  Granted, most of the team is suffering from the flu in some way, shape or form but they still have to be better.  Getting one out of a possible six points against three weak teams is inexcusable and they will have a short playoff life this year if they continue to play like they have.  They have been an up and down team for most of the year so hopefully for them, this is a temporary downturn in their season and they will be back to playing the way they did before the break sooner rather than later.

The Senators’ powerplay has been near the bottom of the league for most of the year and will surely be their downfall if they don’t win the Stanley Cup.  If you want to win in the postseason, it is virtually imperative that you have strong special teams and while the Senators penalty killing has done well, its’ powerplay has not.  You would think that with their current personnel, the Sens would be able to have at least a mediocre powerplay but that has not been the case as they currently rank 27th in the league with the man advantage.

Something has got to give as the Senators have far too many offensive talents to not be scoring at a higher rate.  I’ve said it before and will say it again but the Sens would probably have more success if they simplified their powerplay and directed more pucks towards the net with traffic in front.  Mike Fisher and Milan Michalek, who are tied for the team lead with seven powerplay goals each, have both had success going to the front of the net and getting some ugly goals with the man advantage.

Either way, the Sens will have to improve their powerplay with the current players on the roster because there is no more help on the way.  Whether the price was too high or whether there just wasn’t a good enough upgrade available, it’s unfortunate that Murray was unable to get a legitimate powerplay quarterback to help the team.  Based on what the Hurricanes got for Joe Corvo, the price appeared to be quite high and there was no way that Corvo was coming back to the nation’s capital.

Sutton, on the other hand, offers very little in the way of offense but will add to Ottawa’s cast of strong defensively minded rearguards.  Sutton adds another big bodied defender who plays the game with a lot of grit, blocks a lot of shots and likes to play the body.  His most important contribution will be the simple fact that he’s a healthy NHL defenseman that can help the team’s depth on the blueline.  He is not going to be the difference for this team but his presence alone will give coach Cory Clouston more options to tinker with.

While Sutton’s acquisition wasn’t necessarily a bad thing as it only cost a late second rounder, the fact that he isn’t what the Senators needed means the trade deadline was not a success for the Sens.  They needed a puck moving, powerplay quarterback and Sutton fits neither of those descriptions which means their powerplay will probably continue to struggle and could cost them a chance to do some damage in the playoffs.  Another negative about the deal is that the Sens now possess one of the slowest defensive corps in the league which will surely be exploited by the likes of Pittsburgh, Washington, and New Jersey come playoff time.

You have to hand it to Murray for being proactive and helping increase his team’s depth but he didn’t address his primary need and that hurts.  Regardless of that, the trade deadline has passed and now, all there is to do is to play the last month and a half of the season and get ready for the playoffs.  The Sens should make it there with ease but how well they do will be largely dependant on whether their powerplay can improve, something that is less likely now that they haven’t gotten any help for it.

The Olympic tournament was a coming out party for other young Canadian players such as Duncan Keith, Shea Weber, and Drew Doughty who were Canada’s three most dependable defensemen.  All three of them played great and are proof that the Canadian game is in good hands, especially on the back end.

Up front, Crosby didn’t have his best tournament but seemed to create chances almost every time he was on the ice and came up huge when his team needed him most.  The best players have a tendency to show up when the chips are down and Crosby will probably be scoring big goals for Canada for the next 15 years.

Other fine young talent up front includes Ryan Getzlaf, Corey Perry, Eric Staal, Mike Richards and Jonathan Toews, who was simply fantastic throughout the tournament.  While it may seem that these guys have been around forever, they have all yet to reach their prime and should form the core for Canada for the next decade or so.

In net, we witnessed the changing of the guard so to speak for Canada as Roberto Luongo took over from Martin Brodeur midway through the tournament and although he was not spectacular, he got the job done and won each one of his five starts to cement his status as one of the best goalies in the world.

Hockey Canada has a long winning tradition and it looks like it should continue in the coming years.  The Olympics was a wonderful display of hockey and in the end the best team won.  Canada got better as the tournament went on and by the end of the tournament they were one of the best teams ever assembled.  More good news for Canadian hockey fans is that they won the gold mostly on the backs of their young stars which means that they should only get better as time goes on.

The Americans have played extremely well throughout the tournament and have been led by Ryan Miller who has been is usual dominant self and is the odds-on favourite to capture the MVP at this time.  If you wonder how a team like the Buffalo Sabres has done so well this year, look no further than Miller who never seems to give up a bad goal and is always steady between the pipes.  The Americans play a up-tempo style of game and their energy and enthusiasm are two of their biggest assets so it will be important for Canada to neutralize those two things.

For Canada, their goaltending, which has always been the backbone of their team, has been suspect at times in this tournament and while Roberto Luongo doesn’t have to steal a game, he will have to play well to give his team a chance.  If the Canadians can play like they did against the Russians then they should win but if they play like they did against Switzerland or against Slovakia in the last 15 minutes of the third, they will lose, no doubt about it.  In order to win, they will need to keep the pressure on the Americans, use the energy in what’s sure to be a raucous building to their advantage and get some ugly goals.

Sidney Crosby has played well so far but has been relatively quiet compared to what we’ve become used to with him.  Look for him to have a massive game and be the difference maker for the Canadians in what should be a tightly fought affair.

It’s been six and a half years since Vancouver was awarded the Olympics and while the Games have been a pleasure to watch so far, it’s the gold medal game of the men’s hockey tournament that everyone has been waiting for.  Well, it’s finally here so sit back, relax and watch history unfold.  GO CANADA GO!!!

I think that their biggest problem so far has been their lack of desperation and desire as it seems like they are simply going through the motions for most of the game and then only turning it on when they need a big goal.  When you watch the other teams score a goal so far in this tournament, they have shown pure elation as if this were the most important tournament of their lives, which for many it is.  The Canadians, on the other hand, have shown very little emotion, something that is uncharacteristic for this very proud hockey nation and they will need to step it up in this department if they are to fare well.

The trademark of Canadian hockey has always been players that play with a lot of heart and desire but that has not been evident thus far at these Olympics.  Players like Joe Thornton, Rick Nash, Ryan Getzlaf, Corey Perry, Mike Richards, Patrice Bergeron, Jarome Iginla, Dan Boyle, Scott Niedermayer, Chris Pronger, Brent Seabrook and Martin Brodeur have not played well or with the kind of desperation that is needed in such a short tournament.  They will need to step it up or else it will be over far too soon.

By deciding to play Roberto Luongo in the next game, Mike Babcock has shown that he’s not about to play favorites but maybe he should start doing more of that with some of his other players.  Thornton and Niedermayer in particular have not played well and yet they continue to see major minutes.  I thought that Jonathan Toews was Canada’s best player against the Americans and it’s time that his line started seeing the ice more often.  It could be the turning over of a new leaf so to speak for Canadian hockey as older players such as Brodeur, Niedermayer and Pronger make way for younger stars like Sidney Crosby, Toews and Duncan Keith, who has also played well.

Maybe the infusion of some of the younger talent will help motivate the Canadians and give them the necessary boost to win the next four games.  If not, it could be another four long years of wondering what went wrong between now and the next Olympics in Sochi, Russia.

The reason that I took Canada, other than the fact that I just want them to win, is that they are simply too deep at every position and don’t really have any glaring weaknesses.  Martin Brodeur and Roberto Luongo have both struggled of late but they are both world class goaltenders and one of them, my guess is Brodeur, will get the job done.  On the back end, I worry a little about Scott Niedermayer and whether or not he is still an elite player but I think that Mike Babcock and his staff are not out to make friends and will insert the extremely gifted Drew Doughty in his spot if Niedermayer isn’t up to par.  Up front, they are led by arguably the most complete player in the world in Sidney Crosby and with the likes of Rick Nash, Ryan Getzlaf, Joe Thornton Dany Heatley, and Jarome Iginla, there is just way too much firepower for them to be stopped.

The Russians are a bit of a sexy pick for the simple reason that they can throw an incredibly offensive arsenal at you and still have either Evgeni Nabokov or Ilya Bryzgalov to back them up.  I would personally go with Bryzgalov but I suspect that the Russians will go with Nabokov as he has more experience.  It’s the offense though that will win this team the gold medal if they are to win it as Alex Ovechkin, Evgeni Malkin, Ilya Kovalchuk, Pavel Datsyuk, Alexander Semin, and Sergei Gonchar are all premiere offensive players.  The Russian powerplay might be next to unstoppable so the way the officials call the game will go a long way in determining how they do.  If the game is tightly called and there are a lot of powerplays, the Russians will be tough to stop but if it comes down to a tight checking one goal game, they could have some difficulty.

The Swedes are coming into this tournament with surprisingly little being said about them considering they are the defending champions and they have some of the youngest stars in the league on their team.  They are led in goal by Henrik Lundqvist who could carry the Swedes to gold all by himself but will be helped by a balanced attack including greybeards such as Nicklas Lidstrom, Daniel Alfredsson, and Peter Forsberg and younger stars like the Sedin twins, Nicklas Backstrom and Loui Eriksson.  They will be a tough team to beat but my guess is that the smaller ice surface will hurt them more than any of the other major contenders and they will come up just short in the semis.

After those big three, I would be fairly surprised if any other team won the gold but of the other ten teams, the Americans and the Finns have the best shot.  The Americans will be tough to play against and will be well suited for playing on the smaller North American ice but they are extremely young and inexperienced which could be their strength as well as their weakness.  They should have strong goaltending in Ryan Miller and possibly Jonathan Quick but will be hard pressed to make it to the final.

The Finns will also be very tough to play against, as they always are, based mostly on their outstanding goaltending and their strong team play.  It’s tough to envision them winning the gold but they’re a team that always seems to be about more than the sum of its’ parts and they could have some added motivation as this is probably the last go round for both Teemu Selanne and Saku Koivu.

Whatever happens in these next thirteen days, it should be some of the most exciting hockey that anyone has ever seen.  I desperately hope that the Canadians win the gold but I would not be at all surprised if the Russians or the Swedes take it instead.  Now that these games have been analysed to death by just about everyone in the hockey world, there’s only thing left to do and that’s to sit back and enjoy the ride.  It should be a great tournament.

Going the other way are the draft pick, which will have a decent chance at becoming an NHL regular and Alexandre Picard, who had virtually no value if any at all.  I suspect that Picard’s inclusion in the deal might have been made in order to provide the Sens with some cap flexibility, in which case he probably had negative trade value as the Canes were actually doing Ottawa a favour.  I have never liked Picard as he is quite possibly one of the worst defensemen in the league although he did have a strong start to the season, forming a decent defensive duo with Matt Carkner.  More recently though, he has been a frequent healthy scratch and when he got the chance to play as a result of an injury to Erik Karlsson, he proved just how incompetent he is.

I’ve been calling for Picard to be traded ever since I started writing this blog and although I’m happy to see him go, it comes at a time when the Sens are in desperate need of healthy bodies on the blueline.  Picard’s departure, coupled with the injuries to Karlsson and Chris Campoli mean the Senators will be forced to go with Brian Lee and Derek Smith for this weekend’s games in Detroit and Long Island.  While the writing has been on the wall for some time that the Sens need a defenseman, that has become even more abundantly clear and should be Bryan Murray’s new number one priority.

Mike Fisher was united with Chris Kelly and Alfredsson who are all strong defensive players and the trio was much more effective at limiting the chances generated by Iginla’s line.  Clouston’s decision was made easier by the fact that Jonathan Cheechoo had probably his strongest game as an Ottawa Senator as he earned a spot on the team’s top line alongside Spezza and Michalek and rewarded his coach’s faith in him with an assist on Spezza’s game winning goal.  Cheechoo looked much more enthusiastic than usual and actually skated fairly well while getting a couple of golden scoring chances which were both denied by Miikka Kiprusoff.

It’ll be interesting to see what line combinations Clouston goes with on Thursday night when Alex Ovechkin and the rest of the Capitals’ high octane offense come to town for a battle with the Sens.  Regardless of what happens, last game’s line shuffling and the positive results it generated are a good sign for the team as it seems like they are having success no matter what combinations the coach throws together.  This is a team that, other than Saturday night’s debacle in Toronto, is firing on all cylinders and a big part of that has been the depth up front where all twelve Sens forwards are playing well virtually every night.

It should be fun to watch the game on Thursday night to see where the Sens rack up against probably the best team in the NHL at the current moment.  The last thirteen games have been a treat to watch as the Sens have been playing some brilliant hockey, but a win on Thursday night would really signal to the rest of the league that this team is for real and that they will be a force to be reckoned with come the spring.

I’ve maintained all season long that this year’s team was going to hover around the .500 mark for most of the season and be right around the cutoff mark for the playoffs but their nine game winning streak has put them in a position where they are comfortably in a playoff spot and are even challenging for home ice once they get there.  Home ice advantage would go a long way in helping the Sens do some damage in the playoffs as they have proven so far this year that they are a far better home team than road team.

The biggest reason for the turnaround has been the drastically improved goaltending from Brian Elliott who has been outstanding in the last 7 games and has given his team a chance to win every time he plays.  Last week he was awarded the first start of the week in the NHL and he followed that up this week with the second star of the week.  If he can continue his excellent play then the Sens can definitely compete with the other top teams in the East and maybe even be a force once the playoffs roll around.

Helping Elliott has been the return of the team’s top line as Daniel Alfredsson, Jason Spezza and Milan Michalek have all returned from injuries and have provided the team with an offensive boost.  While fans of the team have come to expect this kind of play from Alfredsson, Spezza is finally starting to round into shape as one of the league’s top offensive centres.  It was only a matter of time for the Sens’ lanky centre as he struggled at the start of the season with the loss of his longtime linemate Dany Heatley and a nagging back injury which he rested when he was injured.

I’m still not completely convinced that this team is for real but the signs are starting to point to this team being a contender in the East.  I still think that it’s Pittsburgh or Washington’s conference to lose and that the Sens will be hard pressed to win more than two rounds but at least Bryan Murray is starting to build a competitive team that plays hard every night and has success more often than not as a result.  The next question is what kinds of pieces can Murray add to the puzzle to take that next step although I suspect that he won’t mortgage much of the future in order to do so.

Whatever Murray decides to do before the March trade deadline, his team is playing extremely well of late and giving its’ fans reason to believe that they have what it takes to compete come playoff time.

The turnaround can be attributed to a number of things, most notably the return of captain Daniel Alfredsson after missing 11 games with a shoulder injury, and solid goaltending from both Mike Brodeur and Brian Elliott.  What makes the winning streak even more impressive is that the first three games came against teams that the Sens are battling with for the last few playoff spots while the most recent win came against arguably the best team in the league after having played the day before.

It’s tough to figure out this team at the moment as their play this week was polar opposite to how they played the week before.  During their five game losing streak, which came immediately before their current four game winning streak, they were absolutely pitiful in just about every aspect of the game.  More recently, they have played extremely well in all situations and have been getting contributions from up and down their lineup.

While this Jekyll and Hyde routine is a bit tough to figure out, all I know is that they are currently playing some of their best hockey in the last two and a half seasons and if they continue to play this well, they should make the playoffs with ease.  Of course that all could change Thursday night when they face a streaking Blues team but for now, let the good times roll.