Righting the Ship

After a long - and for Sens fans very tiring - series of slumping, the Sens have pulled off an impressive win over the Canadiens, winning 3 - 0 in pretty much the toughest arena to play in. While three straight wins over teams with varying playoff aspirations, the Sens are far from guaranteed to be out of their months-long slump. Despite this, there is much hope to be found in tonight's game.

Against one of the better defensive teams in the league, and a very hot young goaltender in rookie Carey Price, the Sens managed to score three goals on only 24 shots, and helped Gerber to get his second (or third, depending on how important Ray's first and only save against Carolina was in your mind) shutout this season. It was a good sign, both for success and for team cohesion, that the Sens managed to block 24 shots, and attempted to block 15 more (coincidentally, the Habs blocked just 15 shots, and failed on attempts to block 24 others).

Some other numbers bring more hope as well. While you can never be thrilled that they missed 17 shots, the fact that they put 56 shots towards the Habs' net, nearly one every minute, shows plenty of untapped potential, hopefully just waiting to burst forth in early April. The 23 hits, including 6 by Fisher, are another good sign that we are starting to regain our confidence (but let's overlook the 33 hits the Habs pounded us with).

Possibly most shocking and pleasing of all was that the stats sheet notes that Spezza committed 0 giveaways, a season best for our top line centre. Shocking still was that the ice time lead was held by Phillips with only 21:54, and with Alfie playing less than 19 minutes, far less than Paddock had him skating for, which will go well with his three day rest until the Sens host the Blues on Sunday to help him heal further. Oh, and did I mention that our powerplay has been a whopping 6 for 9 in the last three games, and in those same three games we haven't allowed a powerplay goal against in 16 chances, even getting a shortie from Fisher on Saturday against Phoenix?

Certainly it's still a long way to proving we're over the slump, and a months long journey lies ahead if we want to prove ourselves the contenders we all hope we're cheering for. But saying that, I also believe that these particular three games, with the Sens playing dominating games and winning by a combined score of 11-3, show a team with the potential to be even more dominating than people thought we were after our 16-3 start, as many of those victories were close fought or in overtime. As the commentators on RDS said tonight, when Neil gets back in the lineup, the Sens will have not only their full squad back, but also a full range of options available to them to dominate games. From hot goaltending to a solidifying blueline, and from physical and crafty, speedy forwards to the only team with three 30 goal scorers, the Sens have the potential to be the best team in the NHL for the first time in decades; all that's left is for them to realize it.