Five (Late) Thoughts for Friday: Halfway There

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These are my thoughts on the team as we reach the halfway point of the Ottawa Senators' season:

Struggling Offense

After turning in a strong performance against the Detroit Red Wings earlier this week, Anton Forsberg had a bit of a weak showing last night vs. the Buffalo Sabres. The Sens' goalies haven't exactly covered themselves in glory since Linus Ullmark went down with a back injury, but it's also hard to win a game when your team scores zero goals. Last night's outage wasn't exactly an outlier either, as Ottawa's now down to 22nd in the league in goals/game after a red-hot start where seemingly every shot was going in the net. I won't belabor the reasons the struggles, but I will point out that this is exactly the way that most folks predicted that the Sens could struggle. There's not a lot of offensive punch outside of the top 4-5 guys, and the Power Play has historically run hot and cold. I don't have any easy answers beyond saying that this won't be the last time the roster struggles to generate goals for a stretch of time. The hope is that the stout defense will be enough to offset the power outages.

Greig Extension

The Ridly Greig extension seems pretty reasonable to me on its face. It's the kind of contract that strikes the right balance of giving a prospect some room to grow without a whole lot of downside risk. At the same time, would I love to see some more production from Greig? Yes, yes I would.

For someone who makes as many good, skilled plays as he does, it would be nice if the puck found the back of the net more than it does. That said, as long as Greig's hardly seeing any time on the power play it's going to be tough for him to crest more than 35ish points. A third line centre/top six winger fill-in that drives play (as Greig does) and can credibly play on the PK is probably worth 3.5M or so. If Greig can find another level offensively then this could be a really valuable deal. Even in a near worst-case scenario I can't see this deal being an anchor. Tidy bit of business for Steve Staios.

Zub-Sanderson Will Get the Bounces

Jake Sanderson has had some struggles (by his standards anyways) this season after breaking out in the second half of last season. Some of that has to do with being asked to carry an overmatched Travis Hamonic on the team's nominal top pair while Artem Zub was injured, but it's also the case that the Zub-Sanderson pairing hasn't gotten great results when they have been together so far this year: Ottawa's scored just one goal and given up eight for a paltry 11.11GF% at 5v5 when the duo share the ice. The good news is that there's a lot of reason to believe that they're in for a luck reversion in the (hopefully not-too-distant) future. Ottawa's getting 56.56CF% and 58.50 xGF% with the two on the ice together, and those numbers are in keeping with the duo's historical levels. An 876 PDO will sink anybody.

It says here that as long as Zub stays healthy, they'll get back to at least breakeven, if not better, before the year's out. The Sens could really use it.

I am Worried About Claude Giroux

I do not feel good about even putting this into writing because his time in Ottawa has been such a delight, but I'm kind of starting to worry that Father Time has caught up to Claude Giroux. Now, Giroux is hardly the only forward that is having a tough time of it these days so maybe he's just due for a change in fortune, but I've had concerns that his deteriorating foot speed was eventually going to hamper his effectiveness even going back to last season, and this year has featured an uncomfortable number of instances where the wily forward has been unable to create the separation he needs to make creative plays with the puck. Giroux still reads the play remarkably well, and for my money is still very much a helpful NHLer, but it might be that his days as someone who can carry a line are behind him.

LeBreton Sort Of Update

Owner Michael Andlauer made an appearance at the intermission of last night's game and was asked about the situation with LeBreton Flats. In a quip that didn't exactly inspire a lot of confidence about the process, Andlauer said the following:

The first part of the quote is totally boilerplate, milquetoast PR talk but the second part about worrying the NCC might "change the rules in the last second" is a bit weird. I've seen some folks interpret this in a more negative light, but my take here is that Andlauer is just doing some jockeying. For whatever else you want to say about the Sens' owner, he is nothing if not careful about choosing his words. Whatever he says publicly, he does so deliberately. Of course I'd rather he sound a bit more optimistic, but for now I'm just reading this as posturing. Wake me up when we get some real decisions.