Continue Reading

EM: I think they’re doing fantastic! You’re talking about the St. Mike’s Majors, right? Oh, you mean Ottawa?  Okay. I thought we were going to spend the time talking about the Majors and the Memorial Cup.

Q: Did you have a sense that perhaps that we did, that the time was approaching that it was time to repair this thing?

EM: No. We’re disappointed like everyone else at the team’s slow start. It’s not something that’s happened before. The year that we went to the Cup Finals, we started poorly as well. We’ve only played like 10-percent of the games and there’s a lot of hockey left. They have to get their act together and they know it because they’re professionals.

Q: Some of the criticisms of your team have been directed to you having some old players in key places. How do you feel about that?

EM: It seems like the the flavor changes every day. People complain that some teams are too young. It’s like asking someone to pick a poison. We have some seasoned talent and we have some young talent that’s getting guidance from the veterans. It’s tough to pinpoint what the problem is but if they all click together, they should be a competitive team. The Kuba and Spezza injuries haven't helped. Before our interview, you guys were talking about the San Francisco Giants. Using them as an example, it’s all about peaking at the right time. You can’t win the Stanley Cup in October.

Q: You can’t win it but you can certainly lose it. You’re digging yourself a hole here.

EM: True. But they haven’t dug that deep of a hole yet. Fifteen games from now is a better sample size as to what  kind of team we have.

Q: How often do you talk to Bryan Murray?

EM: Depending on how hectic it is, I’d say three or four times per week.

Q: Bryan Murray’s open to talking trade? Did you know that he’s in a position to make some moves?

EM: Bryan’s been around a long time. Whether it was done to motivate the guys or to make some moves, I’m not too sure. It’s not my place to get involved in those decisions.

Q: What do you think of Alexei Kovalev?

EM: He is an enigma but in a positive way. One day, he is just going to explode. When he has that puck, it’s phenomenal what he can do. What he does in practice is unbelievable. I know there are criticisms that he doesn’t show up in games but we still have faith in the guy.

Q: There must be nights though when you just want to scream at the guy.

EM: Look, he does things to the beat of his own drum. He’s too much of a veteran for us to sit down and tell him what to do. I think things will eventually click and when he does, he’ll be the straw who stirs the drink. We have to be careful here. Hee's a veteran player and we just can't get in his face and starting making demands. I am a firm believer that the GM has to make hockey decisions, the coach has to coach and the players have to play. I would have to be a serious situation for me to get involved in that level.

Now that the Senators are off to a 1-4-1 start with two important games against Buffalo and Montreal this weekend, there's a lot to talk about right now. Is there a fine line between panic and emergency? Find out on the 30th episode of The 6th Sens podcast. Joining us on the show is Tom Chorske a Stanley Cup winner and a man who is responsible for bringing some good luck to the Senators in the second half of the 1996-97 season. Buddha Power!

Thanks to Tom for coming on the show, readers can follow Tom on Twitter (@hockeylogic).

As always, you can subscribe/download/stream the episode or entire catalogue of episodes from Itunes. Or you can download the file by right-clicking and saving this file. Or you can simply stream the episode below. We hope you enjoy it. If you have any questions or comments about the podcast, please leave us some feedback in the comment thread below. Thanks for listening, we hope you enjoy the show.

Tracklist for the podcast: Final Flash Chosen Generation; British Sea Power Zeus; Ted Leo and the Pharmacists Angel's Share; and The National Squalor Victoria.

With a few days until the Friday's game against the Buffalo Sabres, the media had an opportunity to discuss Ottawa's slow 1-4-1 start to the season with Bryan Murray. Here's a transcript of the scrum:

Q: Bryan, through six hockey games so far, what do you see as the biggest issue that you've seen thus far?

BM: We're not moving the puck from the back end. We're not defending very well. We're giving up far too many chances. I think that's a big issue. Too many young guys on the blueline. Rebuilding this team. No, I'm being smart there. No, I just think that we're turning the puck over too often in our own end. We haven't battled defensively the way that we should. The way that we're capable of doing, in my opinion. The result is that we're scrambling for the puck too often and as a result, we don't create any offence and we don't keep the puck out of our net enough.

Q: Is that a personnel issue or a work ethic issue?

BM: I think it's probably a combination (of both). I think that we've got a couple of young guys on the blueline that have struggled to play their game and I think that's it become contagious. I can't say that one of our d(efenceman) have played to where I thought they were going to be. We can go through it: Chris Phillips has got to be a real top defender. He does miss his partner (Volchenkov) a little bit. I think when him and Gonchar play together, they're really good but we haven't been able to do that too often as we'd like. We expected Erik Karlsson to come back after a very strong finish last year. I think we all thought that he was a really good draft pick at the time and that he had developed in a really strong player in the second of last year and he has struggled big time so far this year. So our expectations aren't being fulfilled in that... (sigh) there's a little bit of a dropoff in that area that when you build a team and you have a group, you think that we're replacing this guy with that guy and that's an even trade and the rest will be fine. Obviously when Karlsson and Kuba played together, it was a better pairing than anyone that we've being able to accomodate him with so far.

Q: When Cory (Clouston) came in, he brought in some badly need structure. Have guys strayed away from that?

BM: When guys don't play well in a couple of areas, everything breaks down. If you watched practice today, he's trying to refine some things but what a quiet practice. When you lose, you read about yourself, you hear about yourself. You have meeting after meeting. Before very long, the confident player that you had isn't so confident anymore. I think that's a little bit of it. Breaks down in one area lead to other breakdowns and it's very obvious in the last few games, that's the big problem right now.

Q: You talked about this confidence wise and Cory's alluded to this before but is this a fragile team right now?

BM: I think every team... I watched Vancouver play last night. Everybody in Canada picked them to win the Stanley Cup. They lose 6-1 to Minnesota. I talked to Chuck Fletcher during the day. They couldn't win a game. The coach burned them out on Sunday. All kinds of questions and they win the (next) game 6-1. Teams that don't win have a tough time winning. That's what happens and you've got to get a win. You've got to get a big performance from a couple of individuals and I'm hoping that to be the case (here). We've gone through streaks with this team. Too many of them for the last couple of years where we lose 8 and then we win 10 in a row or whatever it may be. We were hoping that wouldn't be the case. Teams become fragile because of not playing to their potential.

Q: Is it a leadership issue?

BM: No, I think it's just winning and losing. I hear that. I think our leaders are very strong people. Is there a better captain than Daniel Alfredsson in the league right now? Chris Phillips is a strong person. Mike Fisher is a strong person. Jason Spezza, I look at him and I think he's a real strong person this year. I don't think it's that. I think it's getting together a little bit more often. Getting a little bit of a break. Not giving up a goal early in the game. Getting into the third period of a game somewhat close and giving yourself a chance to win.

Q: It is just six games in to the season, people throw out the word panic. How much of a concern is it six games in?

BM: First of all, everybody panics because they believe they're supposed to. I think that's part of it. We're all concerned. We want to win every night. The preparation for each individual game is for that to happen so when we don't, we're concerned. That's our business. You play 82-games and the best teams are going to lose 30 games or more. I want to see some of our people play a lot better. I want to see a couple of our young guys who we really counted upon in the second half of last year to get back to that level. Obviously it comes down to our best players playing their best hockey and I can't say that that's happened every night.

Q: Bryan, what would you personally to help the situation? If anything?

BM: It's up to all of us. This is a team. It's not the coach or players only. It's me doing anything I can. I sent Zach Smith down this morning. We're going to bring David Hale up. I have talked to a number of people. As I've said, I talked to Chuck Fletcher for a long time yesterday. I said "Can I help you, you help me" type of thing. So we're talking with to the management of other teams, trying to find if there is a need and a possibility of making another move. That's not always the solution but it's something that maybe sends a message to the players.

Q: Bryan, Alexei Kovalev is seemingly a lightning rod for criticism. How would you evaluate him thus far?

BM: Not very good. It looks like his skating isn't where it was last year. I think there are lingering effects from the surgery that he had. I'm hoping that's part of it. I'm hoping that as time goes on and he gets going, it's like Milan. I don't think Milan is quite where he will be. I don't think Alex is where he will be. We need him to be a good player for this hockey team. We need him to be a creative player. He doesn't have to be a star. He has to be creative and help the players that he's playing with, the power play, those areas to get better. He knows he is one of those people who everyone points at. I don't know whether that bothers him or not. I assume it would like it bothers anyone else.

Q: Is this more than a slump in the beginning of the year?

BM: I don't know. I hope not. I looked at our team last year, I thought we had a pretty good hockey team. This is not an old hockey team. I hear the implications all of the time. That's bull. This is an average aged hockey team. There a couple of older hockey players on every team as I look around the league. I think we're missing a little bit on the back end in one spot I think, but beyond that, I think that this is a pretty good hockey team but we need our players for the most part, to get back to a good level. And with that, we'll be a pretty competitive hockey team.

Q: With the power play, you've brought in Gonchar to make it better, what do you see? You've been observing many of the games on the road...

BM: He's certainly come in to help the power play. I read somewhere that he basically hasn't done anything to help the power play. I think he's done a lot. We have a group on the power play that as I watch every team play around the league, we have a talent level on the power play that should be productive. Sometimes you know, the power play is a strange thing. You go 5 or 6 games, don't get a shot on goal and then it clicks. I'm hoping that's the case. I don't think we give ourselves a chance often enough. We enter the zone. We don't make that safe pass to get control first. We try to make that homerun play right away or shoot the puck from a bad angle. So I'm hoping that with time and work here, not much time mind you, that it gets considerably better.

Q: I know it's not your decision but would you like to see Robin Lehner start?

BM: Well he hasn't given up a goal yet but he hasn't gotten many shots. I'm not going to comment on that. That's a coaching decision. I talk to the coaching staff all of the time regarding players, "Do you like this guy or not like that guy? Do you want to play this person or would you like me to call someone else up?" We discuss that but he can make that determination.

Q: Any update on Pascal Leclaire?

BM: Much better today. We say that it's day-to-day but he gets to go on the ice maybe as early as tomorrow. It won't be by the weekend for sure (when he plays next) but we're hoping to get through the weekend and that he feels a lot better.

Q: How is Eugene Melnyk handling this rough start?

BM: I think like the rest of us. Disappointed but understanding. I talked to him on Sunday and he asked "What can I do to help?" In fact, the game in Montreal is what we talked about obviously. The third period of a tied game, we only get two shots on goal. But beyond that, he's been fine. He's a lot easier on us than you are Dan (Seguin). I can tell you that...

Q: Bryan, are you confident that the players are still receptive to the coach's message?

BM: Yeah. I don't know why they wouldn't be at this point. I think Cory's come in and as Wayne (Scanlan) said earlier, he's brought structure right away. He gave them a chance to be a competitive group. I think the same message is being sent forward. There's a few changes in the lineup only so I'm sure that this group respects him greatly.

Wednesday Link Dump:

• Via Scott MacArthur's Twitter: Should be noted that when asked if Lehner would get a start for Sens, Clouston didn't rule it out.
• Via Dan Seguin's Twitter: Bryan Murray says Alex Kovalev isn't skating as well. Kovalev disagrees. Says he's skating better. ( Ed. note: Expect Don Brennan to hit the streets, talk to a few fans and get to the bottom of this.)
  
• Former Senators head coach Craig Hartsburg will undergo heart surgery on Wednesday to correct ascending aortic aneurysm.
• At practice, the Cory Clouston bag skated the team. It looked something like this.
• I hate Yankees fan.
• Bruce Garrioch's deductive reasoning indicates that David Hale's callup will spell Brian Lee.
• Also at practice, Sergei Gonchar was hit by an Alexei Kovalev shot and had to leave the ice. It doesn't appear to be anything to worry about though since he did eventually return to practice.
• SLC from Five For Smiting has been banned from every local Tim Hortons.
  
• Via Erin Nicks' Twitter: Jason Spezza: 27-years-old, a handful of games into the NHL season, and he requires a "maintenance day." Alrighty then.
  
• I was in the Kanata Centrum last night and stumbled upon a Wade Redden Rangers jersey that's for sale at Clubhouse. The cost is only $69. Steeeeeeal.

Last night the Senators renewed hostilities with last year's playoff opponent, the Pittsburgh Penguins. Considering that it was Sergei Gonchar's return to Pittsburgh, one would have presumed that it would have been an opportune time to step it up and win one for their new teammate. Even when their lineup featured Alexei Kovalev - a player who Bryan Murray believed would have single-handily made a difference in last spring's quarterfinals matchup - the end result didn't change. Victory never materialized.

With an embarrasing 5-2 loss, the Senators now fashion an ugly 1-4-1 record that makes Cory Clouston's suit combinations look good by comparison. With three points, Ottawa is tied for having the least number of points in the NHL. If they're going to turn things around, they need to do it fast. Like really fast. Think Don Brennan jumping off of the Pascal Leclaire bandwagon fast. (Ed. note: Here's how Brennan felt on October 13th and here's his change in faith on October 15th).

As much as I want think that the world is over and act like Junior Seau, it's still early. Optimists can allude to modern history like Ottawa's 2006-07 season as evidence that the team can overcome poor start. Albeit, part of me wants to look at the more recent 2008-09 start under Craig Hartsburg in which the team went 2-4-1 as the more logical reference point. It didn't really help matters that during the second period of last night's game, I got a phone call from Francois wherein we discussed whether or not tonight's game was rock bottom for the team. In all honesty, I'm not sure that it is. As the Ottawa Citizen's Ken Warren (@Citizenkwarren) put it on Twitter before last night's game, (it will be) interesting to see how cory clouston matches up against sidney crosby tonight. Volchenkov and Phillips had his number — until the playoffs.

The correct answer was with a wish and a prayer. By bumping Matt Carkner up into Sergei Gonchar's stead, it was Cory Clouston's strategy to spread out the defensive depth (Ed. note: Depth? That can't be the right word.) and ensure that Crosby and Malkin wouldn't get some ridiculously easy matchups. Had you told me at the beginning of last season's training camp that Matt Carkner would be on Ottawa's top defensive tandem within one calendar year, I would have had a coronary. As it currently stands, Ottawa officially has no defence. A bottom four of Erik Karlsson, Carkner, Brian Lee and Chris Campoli isn't going to get the job done.

As I reflected upon this during last night's game, I asked this question on Twitter: What's the worst case scenario for this team this season?

Here are some answers...

@Don_inOakville: I think we are living it. Add Leafs success to the misery.

@JGasson21: 9th or 10th in the east. If we're gonna suck, please suck to epic proportions.

@lewysmith: Heatley scores 6 on us Dec. 2nd and hits Alfie, separating his shoulder and forcing him to retire.

Daniel Alfredsson should be pissed. He should be referring to Brian Lee, Alexei Kovalev and Pascal Leclaire as deadweight one, two and three. He should be cursing John Muckler for years of poor drafting and mismanagement that has severely handicapped this team since its 2007 Cup Finals appearance. He should record a video message to be played in San Jose thanking Dany for decimating his trade value and ruining whatever prospective return that Ottawa could get for him. He should hate Bryan Murray for being the guy who has either: (1) squandered cap space; (2) seemingly lost every trade, (3) dealt high picks for rentals; or (4) for being the person who ruined the last few seasons of his career by assembling patchwork rosters.

Poor Alfie. He's the one who I feel for the most. Injuries, poor teams, the subsequent coaching changes and a lack of playoff success... what he's had to endure for the past three seasons is a tragedy. (Ed. note: I feel for Cory Clouston a bit since he has shown that he can get a lot out of this roster. However, the passiveness of the power play and all of the too many men on the ice penalties are killers.)

So where do we go from here?

For Alfie's sake, we can only hope that Ottawa gets better and that his 1,000 career point isn't the only bright spot during the season. We have to hope that Ottawa's power play improves its efficiency. We have to hope (pray?) that Bryan Murray doesn't do something inane like move high draft picks or trade away expiring contracts. We have to hope that Filip Kuba doesn't return too late to improve Ottawa's blueline depth. And as naive as it might be, we have to hope that this current roster still has a little bit of magic left in them.

...And if this season doesn't work out?

Avoid talk radio. Avoid the message boards. Pray that Jason Spezza won't publicly ask to be dealt. Pray that this isn't Alfie's last season. Or better yet, use this website for your catharticpurposes. Send me your emails. Send me your comments. What are your feelings? What does Ottawa do?

Thought On Lehner:

Over on the Ottawa Citizen's Senators Extra, Wayne Scanlan penned a piece detailing how it's probably not in Ottawa's best interests to keep Lehner at the NHL level. After watching tonight's game, I concur but for entirely different reasons. Given the current state of the blueline, there's no reason for Ottawa to piss away a year off of Robin's entry-level contract for this.

Senators Win:

On Sunday afternoon, the Binghamton Senators beat the Toronto Marlies 3-1 one and signified that at least one Senators team can win on national television.

One Thought On Kovalev From Saturday Night's Game:

I will never claim to be the biggest Kovalev supporter and I realize that there is a slew of animosity towards a well-paid player who is expected to shoulder some of the secondary scoring burden, however, there was one moment from Saturday night's game that stood out for me. During the third period, Kovalev had a shift in which he aggressively back-checked, stole the puck from the Montreal forward and went the other way. So what happened? Chris Kelly turned the puck over in the offensive zone, Montreal went back on the rush and scored the game winning goal.

As one of my friends noted at the time of the play, we would never see a mention of Kovalev's defensive takeaway in the local rags. He was right.

We're back with another edition of The 6th Sens Podcast. Joining us on this week's show are two guests. The first is Kaspars Daugavins - a former a former Olympian and current Ottawa Senators prospect whose infamous shootout goal has gone viral on the interwebs. And the second is  The Hockey News' Adam Proteau - a stalwart who's looking pretty good after Ottawa's  slow start has lended itself to his preseason forecast that the Senators would finish out of the playoff picture this season. You can check out Adam's work at The Hockey News or you can follow him on Twitter. Thanks to both for coming on the program, we really enjoyed having you on.

As always, you can subscribe/download/stream the episode or entire catalogue of episodes from Itunes. Or you can download the file by right-clicking and saving this file. Or you can simply stream the episode below. We hope you enjoy it. If you have any questions or comments about the podcast, please leave us some feedback in the comment thread below. Thanks for listening, we hope you enjoy the show.

Tracklist for the podcast: CCR Hey Tonight; Japandroids Younger Us; Iggy Pop I Wanna Be Your Dog; Fugazi Caustic Acrostic; Jets To Brazil One Summer Last Fall; and Johnny Thunder and The Heartbreakers Born To Lose.

After reading A Thought on Alexei Kovalev's Slow Start, posted by G a few days ago, I began wondering how much AK-27 is actually worth. However, measuring his (or any other player's value) using financial measures presents some issues in terms linking contract values to actual production. For example, a portion of Mike Fisher's salary - from the standpoint of ownership and management - is likely associated to his marketability and indirect contribution to pink jersey sales.

My particular interest was to examine Kovalev's value in relation to that of the average NHL right wing. In other words, if the Senators were to replace Kovalev's production with that of the average NHL right wing, what upgrade/downgrade might we expect?

So I searched online and came across one advanced hockey statistic at behindthenet.ca, referred to as 'GVT'. Although this stat appears to be some all-emcompassing metric that captures the overall value of a player, the kind folks at behindthenet.ca do not explain what 'GVT' means, or how it is calculated. My search then led me to examine some of the more advanced statistics used in other sports. Finally, Baseball Prospectus offered up a metric that might allow me to answer my question. This stat is called VORP (you guessed it... Value Over Replacement Player). Baseball Prospectus defines VORP as "...the number of runs contributed beyond what a replacement-level player at the same position would contribute if given the same percentage of team plate appearances. VORP scores do not consider the quality of a player's defense." It is also important to note that Baseball Prospectus defines a replacement-level player as having an offensive output equal to that of the league average at a given position.

Next, I proceeded over to NHL.com to gather my sample. I simply went to the stats tab restricted the 2009-2010 scoring table to right wings (RWs). I then proceeded to copy these tables into a standard Excel spreadsheet. Overall, the final sample consisted of 172 RWs who played at least one game for an NHL team last season.

Defining how I would adapt the VORP stat to NHLers was the next challenge I faced. However, based on the Baseball Prospectus definition of VORP, I didn't have to worry about quantifying defensive contributions (which made my job easier). I decided to include only goals and assists as a measure of offensive output (e.g. equivalents to run contributions). I also weighted goals more heavily than assists for two reasons: (1) one could argue that a player's ability to score a goal is relatively more valuable than a player's ability to set one up, and (2) it allowed me to control for players that may have racked up a large amount of secondary assists. Therefore, I attributed a relative weight of 3 for every goal scored, and 1 for every assist. The next step was to include a variable that would adjust the offensive output based on playing time (e.g. given the same percentage of team plate appearances). In order to accomplish this, I decided to use the average ice-time for NHL RWs. Although this is not a perfect measure, it does normalize production in order to reflect the efficiency level of the average NHL RW.

Therefore, the formula I came up with to calculate the VORP of NHL position players (RWs) is as follows:

[(3 x Goals Scored) + (Assists)] - {[(3 x Goals Scored) + (Assists)]/RWs} / Avg. RW Ice Time

Based on this formula, Alex Kovalev's VORP was 3.42, meaning that he offensively contributed to 3.42 more goals a season than the average NHL RW. However, a VORP of 3.42 tied him for 29^th among RWs in the NHL. For those who are interested, Daniel Alfredsson's VORP was a 5.63. The table below presents the results of VORP calculations for the top-15 NHL RWs:

Based on my usage of VORP, it is clear that AK-27 (on the basis of his 2009-2010 production) is only marginally more valuable than the average NHL RW. For example, Kovalev averaged 18:09 minutes of ice time last year (almost 72% more ice time than the average NHL RW). Meaning that if the average NHL RW had also logged similar ice time to Kovalev's, there is a real possibility that Kovalev's VORP would be even lower. The VORP adaptation I have used is not without its limitations, and I am still playing with some of the variables and formulas in order to develop an improved model. However, I do believe the VORP estimation presented in this article is and adequate starting point to measuring a player's offensive value (relative to his counterparts). This being said, the frustration that came forth in A Thought on Alexei Kovalev's Slow Start (and shared I am sure, by many Senators' fans) is not only evidenced by watching Kovalev's apparent nonchalance on the ice, it now has some statistical backing. Although, $5M might be the approximate market value for a 2^nd line winger, it seems like a questionable amount of money - at best - to invest in the 29^th most valuable player at his position in the NHL.

Bruce Garrioch made a great point over on Off the Posts, Elliott's been one of Ottawa's best players. How can you afford to take that guy out of the lineup who's contributing when there are other individuals on the roster who aren't pulling their weight?

I don't think you can understate the importance of tonight's game. Currently sitting with a 0-2-1 record, tonight's match is a game that Ottawa can ill afford to lose. Albeit, it's far too early to push the panic buttons, however, Ottawa needs to start accumulating points. I don't think they'll be the difference in Ottawa making the playoffs or not but they're invaluable for determining which playoff seed Ottawa will get. Considering there are only a small number of elite teams in the Eastern Conference, a few points can mean the difference in facing a Buffalo or a Washington.

The Orr / Engellend Fight

As a Senators fan who has watched Orr decimate Matt Carkner in a number of bouts, why wouldn't I take any satisfaction in watching Derek Engellend KO the Leafs pugilist?

Speaking of Matt Carkner. Thanks to Marc A. for sending us an email that included this photo. It will assuredly be our email of the day.

Carrie Underwood Makes Pregnancy Pact

According to Country Weekly, Carrie has made a pregnancy pact with her friends. Although she doesn't plan on having kids soon, she said, "I made a pregnancy pact with a few of my female friends. Me and a few female friends are going to try to have children around the same time. That way we can babysit each other's kids and they can grow up to be friends."

Isn't it fantastic news for Sens fans that we now have a new voice who can stress the urgency of hitting the net?

For the first few games of the regular season, Ottawa's production from their top two lines has left a lot to be desired. Blame the preseason schedule. Blame Cory Clouston's inability to dress a number of veterans because of it. Blame poor gap control. Blame a terrible breakout. Blame an ineffecient power play. Or as Alexei Kovalev notes, blame Ottawa's lack of confidence in controlling the puck.

"The only problem I see in the last two games usually happens at the beginning of the season, where some of the players maybe didn't play as much in exhibition games," the 37-year-old forward said.

"When the puck comes in they're not confident with it. They're kind of skating away from the puck instead of being hungry for it.

"It almost feels like we're afraid of the puck, like every time it comes in you start throwing it away somewhere. You know, bad passes and everything else.

"Right now I see we just have no confidence with the puck. We're pretty much chasing the puck all game.

"The way the game is played, you see the puck and you say, 'I want that thing. I want to get control of it, and I want to do something with it.'" ~ via The Montreal Gazette