Blogs Off The Posts

Chris Phillips will play his 1,000th.
Mike Fisher will return with the Predators.
Craig Anderson will get a well-deserved rest.
Alex Auld will get his first start since Dec. 30th.
Yup, it’s a big night at Scotiabank Place.
Most of all the Senators need to end a seven-game losing skid.
I spoke with GM Bryan Murray today. He said he’s not going to be a buyer at the deadline at this stage. If he wants a player, he has to give up a top prospect and first round pick. That’s not going to happen.
“There’s peaks and valleys,” said Murray. “But, we’re not going to give up what is a possible very good future player and a pick for a rental. We’re just not doing that. We may have to tolerate a bit at the deadline but that’s what we’re going to do.
“If the right deal ever came along, and we were able to do something, I’m not saying we wouldn’t step up. My intent is not to sacrifice something we really like going forward.”
Makes sense to me.
My guess would be a lot of teams are after Mark Stone.

Two days off can really refresh a guy – even if one of them is Super Bowl Sunday.
With clear eyes again, I see something I did not realize. It’s the only number 14 the St. Louis Blues have. The one under the loss column. Only one other team in the entire NHL has suffered defeat in regulation time more often than St. Louis.
Yes, the Blues have been the toughest out in the Western Conference so far this season. So yes, the Senators will have their work cut out for them if they’re going to end their losing streak at six tonight.
And they’ll have to go through an all-star goalie to do it.
Goalies coming back to face their old team usually come up big. Especially when they want to prove they’re better than the old team – and the old team’s fans – thought they were. Senators players who speak in defence of Brian Elliott’s play here now didn’t play such great defence in front of him when he wore the same color jersey as they did. That, and he was as bad as we said and you saw. Not all his fault, though. Elliott should have been a backup goalie for Ottawa, but was forced into a more important role because of all the injuries to Pascal Leclaire.
Clearly, he wasn’t ready for it.
Personally, I don’t think Elliott, who has lacked confidence on the “slippery” Scotiabank Place ice in the past, will be the difference tonight. I don’t think he’ll be one of the three stars, especially if the fans get on him and the Senators players get to him.
James Reimer’s success against Ottawa Saturday had a lot to do with the fact nobody was in his face. Nobody was around to swat at the rebounds he did give up. That’s why I think guys like Nick Foligno and Chris Neil and Milan Michalek will be key for the Senators tonight. They were the players doing the dirty work in front of the net when the team was having success.
Also, Jason Spezza will benefit from having Colin Greening on his line again. The fastest forward on the team, Greening hustles back to do a lot of the down low work in the defensive zone, allowing Spezza to both cheat up high a little and save some energy for his play at the other end of the ice.
If Craig Anderson plays tonight, I see the Senators snapping out of their slump in what would qualify as an upset. If Alex Auld is in net, all bets are off.

Not a super Sunday for everyone.
The loss Saturday night at Scotiabank Place was hard to stomach and hard to figure out.
The first question: What happened?
The Senators just didn’t get the job done. They played well in the first 10 minutes. Then they completely fell apart. The Senators didn’t react well to being down. Sure they had lots of shots on James Reimer but Glenn Healy and I were watching a different game because the Senators didn’t have many scoring chances.
So, what now?
Get back on track. Make you stay in the playoff hunt.
It would appear the Boston Bruins are going to do the Senators a favour by beating the Washington Capitals today.
That will keep the Caps three points back of Ottawa and sitting at No. 9 in the East.
My personal feeling is the Winnipeg Jets are too far back to make a push. That’s just me.
The Senators didn’t expect to make the playoffs at the start of the season. Now they are expected to make the post-season. If you expected coach Paul MacLean to cancel the day off Sunday and hold a practice, you were wrong.
I didn’t either.
The Senators can get this turned around.
They can get back to playing the hockey that made them successful earlier this season.
They’ve got it in them. They just have to find it.

Every now and then hard work goes noticed.
Like this morning, for instance.
Senators coach Paul MacLean either listens to the Team 1200 at the start of his day or he’s a good guesser.
“You’re glad tomorrow’s Friday, eh?” he said. “Those early mornings and late nights are catching up to you.”
Don’t know about late nights, but I’ve had the good fortune to spend my A.M.’s with JR and Jungle all week. That means a 4:45 alarm. And that means by the time Senators practice rolls around, I could use a nap.
Being the consummate professional, though, I forge ahead. On Wednesday, I even asked 90 percent of the questions during MacLean’s press conference. Today, I didn’t do much interrogating at all. I think I had a couple of things I was going to throw his way, but they slipped my mind when the coach kept the media waiting about a half hour for the second day in a row.
I was tired. I lost focus. It happens. Just ask Craig Anderson.
Brilliant through the early part of January, Anderson has allowed 13 goals in his last 11 periods of work, by my count. The busiest goalie in the NHL, you have to wonder if he’s getting a little tired. Especially when he’s giving up goals from centre ice.
Even if he is, MacLean can’t give him a rest now. Alex Auld has generally been a huge disappointment this season. The Senators can’t afford to put him in for an important game, and at this stage, they’re all important.
So Anderson will play Friday. making his 16th straight start, and if you think he’s overworked, well, so are Bruce Garrioch and I. Your two Off The Post contributors love our jobs and would never complain, but sometimes we break down a bit.
Just like Anderson.
Right now, I’m babbling incoherently before I catch another four hours of shuteye and head to the radio station. Bruce has been in bed all day, battling a bug. Don’t worry, though. We’ll both be at tomorrow’s morning skate, then Mark Papousek’s guests on the Kanata Sports Club Hot Seat, before we go back to the rink to cover the Senators tackling the Islanders.
It will be the 1500th game in Senators modern-day history. I forgot to mention that in anything I wrote for the website and paper today, so you’re getting it here. Their record to date: 665-640-115-79.
Can’t believe they’ve played 1500 games. Seems like we’ve covered at least 3000.

BOSTON _ The Senators go back to work Tuesday.
The party is over. It was a great weekend.
Now, the chase for a playoff spot begins.
The Senators have a lot of work to do. They’re going to have to get to the 90-point mark to make the playoffs. They’ve played more games than everybody else but with 30 games left that pretty much means they have to have a .500 record.
They’ve done it all season. I don’t know why they can’t do it now. They just need to get their scoring back. They didn’t have that going into the break.
A tough start in Boston. They haven’t had a lot of success here but the road to the playoffs begin now.

The NHL All Star Fantasy Draft is the best addition to this weekend. It makes sense. It is fun. The players have fun with it. Everybody waits in anticipation to see who goes last.
The show should be done in an hour but that’s a story for another day. I thought Logan Couture took being selected last with class. He’ll drive home in a new car. He talked about all the ribbing he was getting from teammate Joe Thornton.
It has certainly helped to raise Couture’s profile.
I wouldn’t have been upset if either Alfredsson or Chara decided to make a trade. That would have been fun. It would have been neat if they swapped a Canuck or Leaf.
Fun is what the All Star weekend is all about.
The game isn’t going to be hockey. It’s going to be a lot of scoring. But if the league wants to kick off the weekend the right way they’ve found a winner with the Fantasy Draft. It works and it is fun.

I read the Brian Elliott piece in our paper with great interest.
First things first, he deserves to be here. He is having an all-star season. He has been one of the best goalies in the league.
He still doesn’t get what happened in Ottawa.
That’s OK neither do many fans.
You would think Elliott was run out of town by the media which couldn’t be further from the truth. That’s the greatest myth in sports.
He’d have people believe that. He believes it himself. He proved it with this quote given to Robert Tychowski of the Edmonton Sun.
“Obviously, the Canadian media is pretty harsh on goalies and in Ottawa it’s been kind of a focal point for them in years past. They like to throw people under the bus. I try not to think about it too much. I never really read into any of it. The guys know how you are in the locker room and that’s all that really matters,” said Elliott.
Yes, the guys in the locker room now know they’ve got a goalie in Craig Anderson that can stop the puck. They don’t have an excuse maker behind the bench or in the net that won’t take any responsibility when the team loses.
Let’s look at Elliott’s numbers when he was dealt again: 13-19-8, .894 save-percentage and a 3.19 GAA.
Those speak for themselves. I know, I know, it wasn’t his fault. It never was when he was here. His quotes speak volumes to the fact that he doesn’t accept the blame either.
He never did while he was here. Why would he now?
Have a great all-star weekend. It’s going to be fun.

GLENDALE – This is not breaking news or anything, but do you know who’s really tough? Chris Neil, that’s who.
Just had a chat with him outside the hotel, before heading to the rink, and he doesn’t have a scratch on his face. That’s amazing, given the high speed collision he had with Kyle Clifford last night. Was it an accident? Probably. Clifford wasn’t out to get him. But he did raise his stick just before contact, catching Neil right in the mouth and on the side of his head.
Neil was sore this morning, but no, he doesn’t have a mark on him, and of course he’ll be in the lineup for tonight’s game against the Coyotes.
Meanwhile, Jason Spezza wound up taking seven stitches above the right eye from the puck that hit him, coming off the back mesh, during the pre-game warmup. As I wrote in the paper, Spezza spoke to Le Droit’s Marc Brassard, Sportsnet’s Ian Mendes and I earlier in the day about why he doesn’t wear a helmet in the warmup and how, one time five years ago, he took a shot off a crossbar that ricocheted back and hit him in the face, cutting him.
I knew when he was clipped by the puck Monday, five years later, that he was going to blame me for jinxing him.
“Hey Jason, we’re gonna need you when you’re done,” I said to him at the rink this morning, as he was headed outside to kick the soccer ball around with some teammates.
“No chance,” he said, joking. “I’m not talking to you $%$^&*(*$& guys. You want to talk to me, let’s talk about scoring goals. Then maybe I will.”
I have a feeling he gets a couple tonight. I also think the Senators will snap out of their two-game losing streak to wind up with a 3-2 record on this road trip. If they lose to Phoenix, which I don’t think is a very good team, it will raise a very good question: that is, are the Senators finally falling back to earth?
Personally, I think they are where they’ll end up, somewhere around fifth or sixth in the conference. I’ve said from the start of the season they’ll make the playoffs, but in no way is it as cut and dry as the ridiculous story I read in the other Ottawa paper a couple of days ago.
The Citizen guy wrote that if they don’t get 34 points in their final 32 games, it would be a collapse comparable to the Boston Red Sox fold. That’s just goofy. Real goofy. The Senators will still need to play well to get to the post-season tournament, the standings are tight and there are going to be teams making a big push down the stretch. But barring injuries to key guys, I think Paul MacLean will get them there.

When he kicked for the Ottawa Renegades in 2003, New York Giants hero Lawrence Tynes was called “Auto” by some of my buddies. Partly because it was an auto-matic three points when he lined up for a field goal, and partly because he was once was charged with a traffic violation and when the officer was giving him a ticket Tynes apparently looked at him incredulously through the window of his auto-mobile and said: “Do you know who I am?”
Something similar happened when we were at a club in the market a few weeks ago. One of the Vancouver Canucks (I won’t say which in case he’s married) started hitting on my incredibly attractive girlfriend. When he sensed she wasn’t interested, he said “you don’t know who I am?” When she said no, he told her his name and that he played hockey. She said sorry, still don’t know. He then said he played for the Canucks. She replied: “I cheer for the Bruins.” He said, “they beat us in the final last year.” She said: “Sucks to be you” and walked away. Back to the better man, of course. Ha.
Anyway, I just laugh at these “do you know who I am?” people. Usually, they’re not nearly the big deal they think they are.
On the flipside, I’ve been traveling the past week with a legitimate famous person, and often, at least down here, he walks around in obscurity.
Okay, I get that Denis Potvin retired from the NHL in 1988, which is now 24 years ago. But this guy is one of the Top 6 defencemen EVER – according to The Hockey News. I say Top 2. And yeah, he’s a little older, but he still looks the same. Yet I actually had to tell some autograph seekers who he was the other day. Dopes.
The Senators will have to keep from looking for the Hollywood stars and hot chicks in the crowd tonight. They’re going to need their full focus to beat the Kings.
Isn’t it nuts that they’ve only won once here EVER?

Colin Greening, on scoring two goals:
“I think I’m a little streaky with that kind of stuff. I usually just close my eyes and shoot and hope for the best.”

Craig Anderson, on winning in the Tank:
“Patty Roy told me once he loved coming here because he always won. I don’t have the same record against San Jose, I’ve won some games, I’ve lost some games here, but it’s a fun place to play.
“We just had to weather the storm in the first five minutes without being too bloodied up by the Sharks.”

Jason Spezza, on the team’s confidence and the knee he took from former 67′s captain Jamie McGinn:
“Winning breeds winning. Right now we feel confident going into games. We knew they were going to start real well and they did. Great job by Andy to keep us in it and big goal by Kyle to settle things down for us, and then we play a good hockey game after that.
“Good road win, we’ll take it and move on now.
“I thought it was a little bit dirty. He says he just reacts to it, but you don’t guys sticking their knees out. If I’m lying on the ground hurt its a much bigger issue. I’m lucky I get my leg out of the way in time, but I’m around him and he sticks his knee out. I didn’t like it.”

Kyle Turris, on Anderson’s play and specifically a save off Dan Boyle that had the Sharks D-man staring at the rafters in disbelief:

“He made one unbelievable save. It went off his forearm over the net, on the top of the net and rolled down. It seemed like the guy was in shock of what a save it was, and our whole bench stood up and was energized from it. It gives us lots of energy to know he’s back there bailing us out. ”