Let's worry about Anderson and the early goals.

Craig Anderson hasn't been the same rock-solid goaltender he was last season. That's fine; last season, he only played 24 games and it was over an abbreviated schedule besides. He was due to regress, anyway, from that league-leading 94.1% save percentage. This season, he's fallen to 90.2%, 41st league-wide. If we take a closer look at the shots which Anderson failed to save, however, something potentially troubling emerges: in 34 games so far, he has let in at least one goal in the first eleven shots in 24 games.

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Let's worry about team spirit, or the lack thereof.

Spirit has a rather juvenile connotation when one wishes to speak of it as an intangible factor affecting a hockey team's recent play. We're at the 30% mark of the season, though, and I'd say it's a pretty apt term for what I'd like to talk about. We've seen the Senators win big, only to drop the next few games. We haven't had a win streak longer than three games. As for the sometimes-downright-putrid possession numbers, well, we can conclude that either the Sens are simply not a good team, or they don't "care enough" or "want it enough".

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Let's worry about the first line.

Take a quick look at a few basic numbers regarding the Senators' first line. Calculating every game played since the beginning of the season, Jason Spezza's average Corsi For is 44.95%. This suggests he hasn't been generating as many shots as a top-line forward should be, or that his backchecking skills leave something to be desired, or a combination of both. Furthermore, he's been part of no fewer than three line combinations that are over 5% frequency, which suggests that "chemistry" is an idea that Paul MacLean has yet to fully realize with Spezza. His go-to winger, Milan Michalek, has an average Corsi For of 45.6%, and a closer look at his game-by-game numbers shows him to be even more inconsistent than Spezza.

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