A goal? What’s that?
It's easy for Ottawa Senators fans to forget what a goal looks like now that their team has gone 137 minutes without scoring
In a pivotal road game against the rival Boston Bruins, the Senators lost 2-0 Thursday, failing to put one puck past former Ottawa goaltender Joonas Korpisalo. Ouch.
Where is the line between short sample size and a trend? Well, we’ve hit the latter in the Senators’ inability to create offence and goals this season. It’s a problem.
Let me throw some stats at you.
Flood the (o)zone.
The Senators were shut out in back-to-back games, and for the third time in their last five games. They’ve set a franchise record of getting shut out five times in their last 11 games. To pour salt on the wound, the Senators’ five shutout losses since Jan. 1 ties them for most times blanked in a month in franchise history. The only other time in Senators history they were shut out five times was in December 2017.
OK, now done with the horrific stats.
Shifting focus to the game, the Senators came out flat as Boston peppered Anton Forsberg with shots. He stood firm like he did on the weekend against New Jersey to give his team a chance to win. By my count, the Senators had at least five awful turnovers in their own end in the first 2:30 of the game from Thomas Chabot, Nick Jensen, Artem Zub and others. It was rough.
“I thought the worst part of our game was probably the first 10 minutes of the game,” said coach Travis Green.
NHL on Sportsnet
Livestream Hockey Night in Canada, Scotiabank Wednesday Night Hockey, the Oilers, Flames, Canucks, out-of-market matchups, the Stanley Cup Playoffs and the NHL Draft.
Broadcast schedule
Eventually, they got their legs underneath them. The Senators had the opportunity to break the drought when they earned consecutive power plays in the first period, where Claude Giroux hit the post and Brady Tkachuk missed two slot shot opportunities.
During the Senators' hellacious winter scoring slump, their power play has hit a huge skid, dropping out of the top 10 in January after scoring on one of their last 15 opportunities heading into Thursday's game.
Despite the lack of offence, the Senators have won five of 11 games this month. They've managed to win tight, defensive-minded, “low-event’ checking games, earning 2-1 and 2-0 wins in the month and losing in overtime 1-0. That’s defensively sound hockey. Just ask Jake Sanderson, who didn’t play Thursday due to a lower-body injury.
“We're not afraid to win a game that's 2-1 or 1-0,” Sanderson told Sportsnet last week.
However, his loss hurt a back end that has been struggling to score. In the games they won this month, Zub, Jensen and Chabot have carried the way with production for a blueline that is tied for 30th in goals from defenceman.
Of course, it makes it tougher to score goals either from the blueline or up top, when you’re missing your best defenceman and second-line centre (Josh Norris). But no excuses, Boston too was missing its top defenceman (Charlie McAvoy) and stud blueliner Hampus Lindholm.
The Senators have become the Lou Lamoriello New York Islanders — you can’t score on us and we can’t score either.
First goal wins
That’s what happened when Morgan Geekie found himself behind Sanderson’s replacement — Donovan Sebrango — to open the scoring in the second period.
Boston deserved the goal, too. The Senators weren’t creating high-danger chances throughout the game at five-on-five, losing the battle 12-4. Ottawa is third-last in high-danger chances created this season, according to Natural Stat Trick. They aren’t getting chances, thus not scoring. Did they deserve to score at least a goal in the last two games? Sure.
But they aren’t doing enough consistently to find the back of the twine. Their coach is optimistic that will change.
“I think we had 72 shot attempts,” said Green post-game. “Usually they're going to get a few goals out of that. But obviously the pucks are not going in for us right now.”
32 Thoughts: The Podcast
Hockey fans already know the name, but this is not the blog. From Sportsnet, 32 Thoughts: The Podcast with NHL Insider Elliotte Friedman and Kyle Bukauskas is a weekly deep dive into the biggest news and interviews from the hockey world.
Latest episode
The best players haven't produced. Drake Batherson has one goal in his last 18 games, Tkachuk extended his pointless streak to a career high of nine games, and Claude Giroux has one goal in his last 15 games and it was an empty-netter.
All three had the opportunities to break open the floodgates in the third period on the power play, but first the referees stopped them. Tim Stutzle looked to have tied the game after shoving home a puck that squirted from underneath Korpisalo off a Tkachuk shot, but the referee blew the whistle as the puck sat by itself in the blue paint. Awful call. But sometimes the hockey gods want to send a message.
Seconds later, the Senators managed to earn a 32-second, five-on-three. All they mustered was a Giroux floater that Tkachuk tried to tip. On the power play, I am pretty sure I could see all the Senators fans screaming “shoooooot” at their televisions. And then poof, the power play was gone.
Their coach recognizes the scoring woes.
“Had some good looks again,” Green said. “I think when your guys aren't scoring, it probably affects them on the power play.”
The power play is on a one-for-19 run.
Wherever you look, the statistics back up the end product. On Thursday, Boston had an expected goals of 4.19 to 2.26 for Ottawa, according to MoneyPuck. In January, according to MoneyPuck, the Senators have had a higher expected goals than their opponent in three of 11 games. The Senators are now 25th in goals for and 21st in expected goals, according to Natural Stat Trick, while having the 28th-worst shooting percentage.
Oh, time for some optimism!
As worrisome as the lack of goals should be, the Senators have found ways to win, they have had some bad puck luck of late and are still right in the hunt for a playoff spot. They will be better offensively, eventually.
The team is filled with proven goal scorers in Tkachuk, Stutzle, and Batherson whose track record suggests that they aren’t going to be this glacial forever.
Adams apples
Jensen left the game. Green provided no update post-game, but Jensen had been missing practices for “maintenance” days for quite a while. Something to monitor for an already banged-up blueline.
Meanwhile, Boston figuratively and literally put Ottawa in a choke hold, when Brad Marchand choked Nick Cousins in the first period as Marchand later made a diving motion to Cousins because why not? The beautiful game.
COMMENTS
When submitting content, please abide by our submission guidelines, and avoid posting profanity, personal attacks or harassment. Should you violate our submissions guidelines, we reserve the right to remove your comments and block your account. Sportsnet reserves the right to close a story’s comment section at any time.