Friday Five Oct. 25
Written by: SensBuzz
Happy Friday Sens fans! If you’ve clicked to read more about my Friday Five takes on the Sens for the past week, bless your soul. It is October 25th so the Sennies are playing at ungodly hours tonight facing off against the Las Vegas Golden Knights. That means we can only go off of the last two games fortunately for the Sens, a 5-4 Win over the Lightning on the weekend, and a 4-0 SHUTOUT Win by Forsberg and the boys during the midweek.
1. Jake Sanderson is raising his game to an even higher level.
How good has Jake Sanderson been?
Heading into just his 3rd NHL season, he’s emphatically raised up to the 1D role on this team contributing to this team's success at both ends of the ice. Offensively, he comes into tonight’s matchup with the Golden Knights with 7P in the Senators’ 6GP, thanks in major part to his impressive involvement with the 1st PP Unit which is leading the league at just over a 40% clip. But what’s more impressive is his prioritization of the defensive 5v5 and the penalty kill.
He fell down the list because of the few and far games between this week, but Jake Sanderson is tied for 6th in defensive league scoring, bested at the moment by the Makars and Foxs of the league while sitting Top 5 in league ice time. Taking the hardest matchups, while performing at both ends of the ice, the Senators have never seen a complete three-zone dominant force since… Zdeno Chara?
If I could leave him with a little bit of criticism, the 5v5 scoring when he’s on the ice needs to pick up because as it stands Sanderson is just breaking even in this young season.
2. We needed to rely on the young corps to carry the slack and they were delivering.
Brady Tkachuk, Tim Stützle, Drake Batherson, Jake Sanderson, and Josh Norris. These are your leading scorers for the Senators' early days, and the oldest of the bunch is 26-year-old Drake Batherson. Last week I called out the veterans to be better, and to be fair, Giroux and Jensen answered the call with a big bounce-back week. But it's the young corps, finally grabbing the steering wheel and driving the Senators bus right from the top.
Funny enough these 5 players also comprise the top Power Play unit and have for a couple of years now apart from Sanderson who has replaced Chabot. Though the overarching point I’m making here is that the boys are pretty heat at the moment – I can’t lie.
3. If Forsberg can put up winning segments like this to give Ullmark extended breaks – man oh man we’re cooking.
We’re not asking for a Hamburglar run, or to turn into Patrick Roy overnight. We’ve been asking Forsberg to give us .900 Save Percentage games, and simply win more than you lose, and that’s exactly what he’s done this week. Notching the Sens two wins over the Top 10 hottest starting teams in the Lightning and the Hockey Clubs of Utah (stupid name).
With how nagging injuries can take Ullmark out for weeks at a time, no pressure from the coaching staff to rush Ullmark back into action if he’s not 100%. Can’t help but think Forsberg is going to get every shot to be a 1B and not just a backup to Linus Ullmark who has never started in over 50 Games at any point of his career.
It’s safe to say that if he plays the way he did this past week, and with the extra votes of confidence from his teammates. Winning segments from Forsberg in relief of Ullmark may prove to be more invaluable to this team that’s trying to desperately remain competitive in the early parts of the Season.
If he can continue winning in these segments, and prove to be a competent 1B - he’s 12 wins away from being the 5th winningest Goalie in Sens history – I say he can get there, especially with this being a contract year.
4. Depth needs to step up.
Outside of Shane Pinto who has notched 3 points for himself thus far in 6GP, Zack MacEwan stands alone as the only Senator in the Bottom 6 to have more than 1 Point in the opening games this season. We can argue that Ridly Greig showed up vs Utah after coming back from injury, Noah Gregor has looked good, and Perron and Amadio have contributed in other ways.
But the Top 6 is due for a tough matchup versus the Golden Knights. I’d like to see the Bottom 6 emerge here to close out the road trip and bring some momentum back into Ottawa.
Note: Shane Pinto is not expected to play versus Vegas as the Sens have recalled Cole Reinhardt, his status is questionable now, and what a blow that would be to our three-headed monster at Center Ice
5. The Senators as of the time of writing have the best Points % in the Atlantic Division
YES, heading into Game 7/82 YOUR Ottawa Senators lead the Atlantic Division in Points Percentage *Sens Horns trumpet in the background*
I was running out of takes for this last take because, jeez man, just two games in one week is just brutal to make hasty generalizations off of. I’m not gonna start now based on Points Percentage, but sit back and relax as we piss off the rest of the league by claiming these small victories on our path to unparalleled success.
