All right, so the Canadian Tire Centre hasn't exactly been our playground so far this season. But the snow's been here for three weeks, and so has the Sens' play; we've been above 50% in Fenwick For Close for the past eight games. Although it's hard to know exactly how much encouragement to take from this, given that we lost to Buffalo in a ridiculous game on Tuesday, Ottawa seems to be trending firmly upward. And this home game versus the (dead-last-by-seven-points) Sabres should be an easy on to take to help continue the trend.
But alas, alas, not a day seems to go by without one of our young players being embroiled in something new to talk about. (Of course, our team is basically 91% young players, so that's not terribly significant.) Hoffman's down after only a three-game try-out, JGP makes his return (...on a line with Greening and Neil) and the Dynamite Duo of Cowen and Wiercioch will have to save the day some other time, given that Cowen's on a 2-game suspension. Meanwhile, Mika Zibanejad continues to say "I told you so" to everyone on the team; he scored a sweet goal in the shootout and leads all currently active players in both Corsi For % (short-term predictor) and Fenwick For % (long-term predictor).
What to say about Buffalo: why is Miller still there? He's got a save% of 0.920 and still only has six wins on the season. The Buffalo Sabres are allowing on average 34.5 shots a game, which, granted, is just about the same number as the Sens, but we shoot 33.2 shots a game on average; they hover at 25.5 per game. Buffalo is a beatable team, and if the Sens want to separate from the lower-tier teams -- teams that have looked awfully on par with the Sens this season, like Philadelphia, Columbus and Edmonton -- they need to start beating them.
There are some games which you can allow your team to lose (see: LA Kings vs. Toronto Maples Leafs); it's a fact that the Western Conference is tougher than the Eastern, and fans were okay with being 0.500 on our season-opening Western road trip. But to be okay with losing tough games, you have to win easy games. It's either that mindset, or the mindset that every game is a must-win. You choose.
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