It's hard enough to write a game recap that can be as encapsulating as an AP one, it's even more difficult when...

• ...you're in a Guinness-induced drunken state
• ...the nearest television screen is at least 25' away
• ...your team is killing it at The Glen's Trivia Night and takes home 1st place.

Consequently, I've decided to piece together a Sunday night grab-bag.

Enjoy.

First Line Chemistry:

Listening to last night's pre-game show on the radio, I couldn't help but notice that a lot of love being directed to the two-way play of Jonathan Cheechoo and Milan Michalek. A number of the "experts" believed that Jason Spezza's interest in the defensive aspect of the game can be attributed to his two new linemates. Regardless of his motivation -- Olympic consideration, linemate influence, maturity -- Spezza's defensive zone play thus far deserves to be recognized, even if it isn't reflected in his stats.

Looking Back:

Speaking of the return that Murray actually received for Heatley, I was doing some revisionist research and examined Edmonton's statistics to gauge the development of the return that could have been. Apparently, the trio of Oilers are doing quite well...

Dustin Penner -- 7GP, 5G, 4A, +5

Andrew Cogliano -- 7GP, 2G, 3A, +3

Ladislav Smid -- 7GP, 0G, 3A, +8

Maple Leafs Keep Losing

I don't hate the Maple Leafs organization or their fans as much as some Sens fans. That being said, it sure is fun to watch the losses mount and watch a potential lottery pick slip away. Besides, I'm in favour of anything that makes Mike Toth look like a bigger idiot than he already is.

Kovy Ovations

The Mayor, over at Sens Town, has posted two videos from last night's game that captured the fan response after Kovalev's goal and his third star selection.

The Enigma?

Like I mentioned on the website's Twitter account, how big of an enigma is Kovalev, if everyone predicted that he'd produce against his former club and he followed through?

Too Much Depth

Gerald Norton, of Sensay, makes a valid point discussing Ottawa's layoff and the roster implications that it could have as some of Ottawa's injured players get healthy. He even goes the extra-mile and proposes a trade that he'd like to see Ottawa pursue with Nashville.

With Peter Regin, Filip Kuba and Jesse Winchester to return soon, have your say -- Who should stay? Who should go?

Since the start of the season, I've been participating in James Gordon's (of the Ottawa Citizen's Hockey Capital blog) game-day prediction panel. Here's my prediction for ce coir...

...Senators 3, Canadiens 1

If the Montreal Canadiens could stickhandle their way through Ottawa's defence like Georges Laraque could stickhandle past the women in that Octane energy drink commercial , Ottawa might actually be in trouble. Pundits often allude to Montreal's lack of size at forward, but it really hasn't helped matters that in the last three years, they've lost Souray, Komisarek and Streit on defence and have replaced them with Paul Mara, Hal Gill and Jaroslav Spacek respectively. When you compound this problem with Andrei Markov's injury, it's the talent on the Habs defence that really comes up short.

If you want to check out the rest of the panel's predictions, click here.

"Payback for McAmmond," Carkner said afterward. "I hate that little prick (Downie)." ~ Steve Perry courtesy of The Ottawa Citizen

Repeat after me...My name is _____ and I'm a Michalek.

Now that you're an official member of MA, here is the twelve step program:

1: We admitted we were powerless over Michalek's speed -- that without him everything looks slow by comparison.
2: Came to believe that someone not named Alfie could restore us to sanity. 
3: Made a decision to turn our will and our fandom over to the care of Milan as we understood him.
4: Made a searching and fearless inventory of how good this team's roster could actually be.
5: Admitted to Milan, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. (Admitting that at the time, you thought Milan + Cheechoo + 2nd rounder wasn't equal value for Heatley.)
6: Were entirely ready to have Milan remove all these defects of character. (Do best Wayne's World imitation. We're not worthy. We're not worthy. We're scum.)
7: Humbly asked Milan to remove our shortcomings and fix our power play.
8: Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. Except for Steve Downie. He can promptly go fuck himself.
9: Made direct amends Use the threat of violence to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. and thank Matt Carkner when he's done with them.
10: Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. Karlsson was -1 in a 7-1 win. Ship him out!
11: Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with Milan, as we understood him, praying only that our spawn will someday share his rare blend of size, skill and speed. 
12: Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to as many Sens fans as possible, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Hey readers, I really appreciate all of the feedback and commentary in the last topic. I was going to just post my thoughts there, but decided that a new post might be better.

Anyways, I think I should rephrase my thoughts to better articulate my position.

I'm not adverse to returning Erik Karlsson to his Sweden per se.

When it was announced that Karlsson had earned a spot on the roster, Bryan Murray forewarned the fans that he and the coaching staff were willing to weather Karlsson's defensive shortcomings. Which is fair, provided that Karlsson provides the puck-moving and offensive prowess that Ottawa lacked last season.

It hasn't helped matters that his veteran partner, Filip Kuba, will miss his fourth straight game tonight and it's had a residual effect on Karlsson's game in two ways. One, he's playing more minutes and is at risk of being exposed more often. And two, he's forced to play with Chris Campoli who's ill-suited to compliment Karlsson's inexperience and style.

Five games just seems like too few to appropriately gauge Karlsson without considering that he hasn't been put in a position to succeed.

If his confidence is waning and it adversely affects his offensive capabilities then he deserves to be sent down. But just give him his ten game sample size first.

And another thing, Don Brennan and the Ottawa Sun have tried to dub Matt Carkner with the nickname "Big Country". It's okay but kind of bland. For the purposes of this site, from now on, I'll only refer to Carkner as Steve Perry because he's a Journey Man. Hi-yo!

This piece is dedicated to Darren M. from Silver Seven Sens, who tragically expressed his opinion that Erik Karlsson wasn't ready for the NHL in an article this morning only to have it be rendered moot by Bryan Murray later this afternoon. This one's for you Darren.

Amid speculation Karlsson might soon be packing for a trip to the American Hockey League team in Binghamton, general manager Bryan Murray said the 19-year-old defenceman is staying put here in Ottawa. ~ Allen Panzeri, The Ottawa Citizen

The way fans and the media have been carrying on, one would think Erik Karlsson's play had made Sens fans long for the days of seeing Jim Paek, Chris Dahlquist or even Hank "Sail My Boat" Lammens on the blueline.

For whatever reason, it's a polarizing issue for a Senators team that's done reasonably well thus far this season. Is there reason for legitimate concern? Or is this another Dany Heatley described case of the media/fans making an issue of something when there's nothing else going on?

In order to come to a conclusion, I'm going to examine this issue by the numbers:

Three Seasons...

...On an entry-level deal.

When I first found out that Karlsson had a legitimate chance to make this year's squad, my primary concern was that the Senators would burn a year on Erik's entry-level deal, bringing him one year closer to restricted free agency. Or for you non-savvy hockey economics readers, it'd essentially mean that the Senators would expedite the process for Karlsson having a bigger cap hit. Given the NHL's cap system, one can raise a valid point that the Senators would be better served if Erik Karlsson was still on his entry-level contract for the 2012-2013 season.

With the current trend to lock up young talent before their entry-level contract expires and if Karlsson develops as we all hope he does, the man might be making some big jack on his next contract. In other words, his next deal could have huge implications on Ottawa's payroll structure when the team might be better equipped for Stanley Cup contention.

165. Or is it 175?

There are two things that are taboo to talk about in Ottawa. One's light rail transit. The other is Erik Karlsson's weight. Even though no one knows his weight, we can take pride in that he's still bigger than half of the Montreal Canadiens roster. Regardless, there's legitimate concern for how it can affect his play over the course of a season. Can he survive the wear and tear of playing an 82-game schedule? Or will the size and speed of the average NHL'er ruin his swagger and confidence? Unfortunately, these are questions that can only be answered after the season.

18

That's the number of minutes per game that Karlsson is averaging in icetime thus far. According to Panzeri, that's three more minutes than Bryan Murray expected to be playing at this point in the season.

Part of this increased workload can be attributed to the loss of Filip Kuba to injury and that's part of the reason why it's difficult to gauge Karlsson's play right now. Without the positionally sound Kuba by his side, Karlson's been flanked by another puck moving defenceman in Chris Campoli. Not exactly the ideal pairing for a kid who's trying to find his niche or for a coach who's busy trying to get ideal matchups on the ice. Fortunately, Ottawa's currently on a stretch where they're playing five of six games at home, so the Kuba injury hasn't affected the team as much as it could have.

While some are citing Karlsson's weight as a reason for him to grow and develop back in Sweden, it's conceivable that because of Kuba's injury, Karlsson's been pressed into some meaningful minutes and that could help his development as he adapts to playing against the best in the world.

65

Karlsson wears a number most commonly associated with pasty white offensive linemen from Oklahoma. I hate to borrow something from the Jacques Martin era, but can the organization not ditch the high digits and give this kid a more appropriate number fitting of a defenceman? What about wearing 8? He wore that with Frolundra. Or maybe the 5 that he wore with the Swedish Junior team. Now that Schubert's gone, he can have that number too.

-4

Some are citing Karlsson's plus/minus stat as a determining factor as to whether he's ready for NHL duty. I don't want to get into a discussion over how trivial of a statistic plus/minus is, but let's examine the facts. Prior to Monday night's Pittsburgh game, Karlsson was only a -1 through four games in which the team had a record of 3-1.

After the Penguins game in which he posted a -3, people are criminalizing the guy on a night when Ottawa supposedly didn't get the bounces against last year's Stanley Cup Finalists.

Was his size to blame for Tyler Kennedy's first goal to deflect in off Karlsson's skate past a helpless Leclaire?

Or maybe his size was to blame when Alfie made an egregious turnover inside the Penguins blueline that resulted in a Tyler Kennedy goal? Or maybe it was Karlsson's fault when Kennedy blew the subsequent slapshot from just inside the blueline past Leclaire for Pittsburgh's backbreaking 3-1 goal.

Besides, I thought the silver lining of the game was that Crosby and Malkin were held scoreless?

If plus/minus is such an issue for Karlsson, maybe it's time that people take notice of others:

- Michalek (-3); Kovalev (-4); Spezza (-3); Alfie (-3); and Campoli (-3);

"10 games is not going to be the measure of Erik Karlsson." ~ Bryan Murray

Nor should it be. How do you measure Erik Karlsson in 10 games when he's been in the city for months and no one still has any clue as to how much he weighs? If you can't measure something tangible, how can people be expected to measure his skillset and readiness.

It's funny though, it's only been five games and some have already filled out their scouting reports. With every loss, it's expected that people are ready to write off Karlsson's season. We're arrogant pricks pretending that as armchair GMs, we know better than team's scouts and braintrust.

Sure, maybe Karlsson's inclusion on the roster is PR for Bryan Murray doing something right, in case the season goes awry. Looky!! Looky!! See that shiny thing on the blueline? He's the diamond in the rough that I cultivated in a draft!! He's the guy that Brian Burke wanted with his Anaheim pick! I can draft talent well!

Honestly though, I've weighed the options personally and I don't have a problem with the kid sticking. Considering how shitty the power play has been and how blah the in-house alternatives are, I think Karlsson's shot and creativity are too good for the team to pass up in a year when the East is relatively wide-open. Maybe I'm being naive in thinking that the Sens can slide into one of the bottom playoff seeds in the East but whatever. After years of watching cut and paste stopgaps on the blueline, I'm willing to watch the first rookie blue-chipper since Meszaros develop back there. So count me amongst Clouston and Murray as a guy who can live with the rookie's mistakes. I guess I'm just buying into the Bryan Murray PR hype.

I'll take solace in the fact that I'm probably not the only one.

GARRIOCH: How is Kuba's upper or lower body anyway? Anyone else frustrated with these injury reports? Sorry. Change the subject. I digress.

BRENNAN: You're right, Bruce. I swear it has shifted from lower to upper. Where exactly is the uterus located, anyway? What a joke. Do you think if the opposition knew Kuba had a sore knee they'd go after his knee next game? This isn't Grand Prix wrestling and he's certainly no Don Leo Jonathan. ~ Courtesy of the Ottawa Sun .

Filip Kuba has a uterus? No way. Eat that Hayley Wickenheiser. A woman in the NHL. Who would have thought?

For a city that's renowned for its fence sitting fans (And yes, I'm allowed to say this because of the inability of the organization to sell out SBP on opening night.) and a negative media. I'm a tad surprised by the lack of negativity stemming from last night's loss to the Flightless Birds.

Why didn't Pascal Leclaire play well?

It was because he was shaking off the rust from sitting out Saturday night's game against the Thrashers.

How come the power play still isn't effective?

It's because Greg Carvel's still trying to adjust to new personnel and can no longer rely upon drawing up the Dany Heatley backdoor pass.

Where's the concern? Ottawa lost 4-1.

Pittsburgh's the reigning champion and Ottawa kept Crosby and Malking off the scoreboard. Small victories!

Shouldn't goal scoring still be an issue?

It's because they didn't get the bounces. Besides, the first line (?) of Michalek, Spezza and Cheechoo created some scoring opportunities. More importantly, Cheechoo was noticeable in his play.

Is Erik Karlsson ready to contribute at that NHL level?

He still has five more games to prove himself. Besides, Matt Carkner has a new nickname. And it isn't condescending.

What's up with Ottawa?

I'm not sure. But it's refreshing.

 Ottawa Senators (3-1-0) vs Pittsburgh Penguins (4-1-0)

@ ScotiaBank Place, 7:30EST

Who gives two shits whether the Penguins have a better record than Ottawa, the fact of the matter is that the Sens still rank ahead of the Penguins in the Eastern Conference. That's not a cruel byproduct of the current system, it's just the League's own way of telling the Penguins that they're nowhere near as good.

While these two teams are off to good starts, this game's subplot is the battle of the basement dwellers.

Karlsson vs. Crosby.

Who would have thought that Crosby still lived at Lemieux's place?

 Paz Leclaire gets the nod for tonight's game while MA Fleury is expected to get the call for the Pens.

UPDATE: 12:20PM Here are the lines according to Sens Chirp:

Kovalev - Fisher - Alfie

Michalek - Spezza - Cheechoo

Foligno - Shannon - Neil

Ruutu - Kelly - Donovan

** With Filip Kuba still on the shelf, the defence shall remain the same as it has been for the past three games.