Yes folks, show me a good goalie and I’ll show you a good coach. Finally, the Senators got some saves, and maybe those saves were responsible for a win.
Ok, Murray’s .947 save percentage was in this game only, but the Senators will take it and are hoping to see more performances like this from their goaltender they trade for in the off season.
I think the Senators have proven that goal scoring may not always be plentiful this year, so how important is goaltending? Huge…Murray worked with goalie coach Pierre Groulx, in Edmonton, recently and the outcome was positive in what we seen with Murray’s game against the Canadians. He was square to the puck and looked comfortable challenging shooters.
Now the Senators won the game and Murray made 36 saves on 38 shots on goal. But the loosing goalie only faced 22 shots. Being outshoot this badly cannot continue if the Senators want to keep that winning feeling they took back with them to Ottawa from Montreal last night.
Erik Brännström looked good in his season debut, but the defensive side of the Ottawa Senators game could still use some tightening up. The newly sprung out of jail Zub, also looked better than some of the other defenders that haven’t been defending very well in that 9-game loosing skid. When Christian Wolanin returns from injury, will we see half of the defense core be turned over? Can’t really hurt can it.
Look who’s scoring again, Stützle pots another one and added two assists in that 3-2 victory. Other goal scores on the evening were Thomas Chabot and Connor Brown.
Stützle now has 6 points (4 goals and 2 assists) in 8 games and is only 3 points behind rookie scoring leader Kirill Kaprizov (3 goals 6 assists) who now has 11 NHL games under his belt. One could certainly argue that if Stützle was at the same 11 game mark, his point total would put him firmly in 1st place in the rookie scoring title. We all know what usually happens when you win the rookie scoring title; The Calder trophy for Rookie of the year. Last Ottawa Senator player to winner the Calder trophy, a Swedish player named Daniel Alfredsson in 1995.
This single victory will not get DJ Smith in the conversation for the Jack Adams trophy for NHL coach of the year. But may hold the naysayers at bay for a few more days. According to sportsbettingdime, DJ Smith, along with Jeff Blashill coach of the Detroit Red Wings, tops the list of coaches to be fired. +450 odds are the odds for these two coaches, whereas the least likely coach to be fired is a +10,000.
Does DJ Smith really have to shoulder the blame for the Senators horrible start? I would say he certainly has to shoulder some, but not all of the blame.
Show me a good goalie, and I’ll show you a good coach.