The Senators longest road trip of the season concluded Tuesday night with a convincing 5-2 victory over the Montreal Canadiens. That put the Sens record at 4-3 for the road trip that started back on November 20th. Let’s dive into the details on what worked and what didn’t during the Senators time away from home.
READ MORE: Shane Pinto’s Case to Make Team USA
The Good
Jake Sanderson
Here’s Sanderson’s statline through the seven game trip:
- 3 goals, 5 assists, 8 points, 25:33 time on ice/ game
That placed Sanderson second on the team in goals, first in assists, first in points, and first in ice-time. Keep in mind that at five on five during that time, Sanderson received defensive zone starts almost 45% of the time. Only Artem Zub was higher amongst Senators defensemen. He truly does everything at both ends of the rink for the Sens and was easily their best player during this road trip.
Fabian Zetterlund
It was mentioned above that Sanderson was second in goals on the trip. That’s because Fabian Zetterlund beat him by one, scoring four, while also adding an assist to give him five points in the seven games. Keep in mind that going into the road trip, Zetterlund had scored just one goal and four points all season, a total of 19 games. One of the most exciting developments with Zetterlund is how well he played in the last game of the road trip on a line with Stützle and Tkachuk. It’s all about producing for Zetterlund. If he can keep scoring, he’ll continue to have a chance to play with Ottawa’s top offensive players.
The Bad
Special Teams
Now, onto the not-so-good. Here were the special teams numbers from the road trip:
- Power Play: 3-20, 15%
- Penalty Kill: 16-23, 69.5%
If a team adds up their power play and penalty kill percentages together, they would want to be over 100%. Take the Senators last season, for example. They ranked 11th on the power play, and 19th on the penalty kill. Their combined percentages were 101.5 (23.8% power play, 77.7% penalty kill). On this road trip, they were at a woeful 84.5. For the season, their percentages add up to just 89.7. They have the worst penalty kill in the NHL.
Their power play should bounce back with the talent they have, especially with Tkachuk returning. He’s led the team in power play goals each of the previous two seasons. As for the penalty kill, it’s time to be more aggressive, both while defending in the zone and while trying to prevent zone entries.
Defensive Breakdowns
It’s not as if the defensive play was bad throughout the trip. There was the two game hiccup, though, where they gave up high danger chance after high danger chance. That was of course the two game losing streak against the Blues and Stars where they gave up a combined 10 goals against. Every now and then, the Senators revert back to their old ways of forgetting to be detail oriented on the defensive side. They’ve shown enough in the Travis Green era, though, to have you believe that those slip ups are the exception to their usual solid defensive play. Another reason for the lesser defensive play? They’ve been without Thomas Chabot, who’s shown himself to be a key cog on the defensive side of the ice.
Final Thoughts
Dylan Cozens started the trip well with a goal and an assist in the first two games. He finished it with no points in the last five. Speaking of being held pointless, Lars Eller went all seven games without a point, which means he’s gone 14 straight games without getting on the scoresheet for anything other than a penalty. At least he wins faceoffs at a great rate, up over 60% for the season.
Neither goalie put up great total numbers. Merilainen had an 0-2 record with an .887 SV% during the trip. Linus Ullmark went 4-1, but the one big loss to the Stars ruined his save percentage, which was .882 during that time. The other players with multiple goals during the trip? Pinto and Batherson, with three each. Now, it’s good to be home! The Senators will take on the Rangers tonight, their first of three straight games on home ice.
