Five Thoughts for Friday: November Nosedive?

In the preamble to Monday's Links, News, and Notes, I wrote the following:

How am I feeling about where the Sens sit after 11 games? Pretty positive on the whole, probably best described as cautiously optimistic. We've seen stretches of strong play from this group before: keeping it up for longer than five games at a time is the challenge. We'll learn more this week.

What did we learn in the two games since? Well, that there's going to be some bumps along the way. Nothing is ever easy in the NHL.

Uneasy Feeling

Are we all feeling a little neurotic about the Ottawa Senators these days? Yes, that's a crucial part of being a Sens fan after all. I thought Nada captured the overall vibe in yesterday's recap. Is it time to consider this a lost year? No, Ottawa's only played thirteen games. But I also don't blame any fan who is feeling uneasy about celebrating moral victories. The New York Islanders are not a good team, and it took falling behind 3-0 for the Sens to really assert themselves in a meaningful way. When they finally did hit their top gear, they looked fantastic and the Isles barely held on for dear life. Yet at the end of the day, all that we're left with is a disappointing 3-2 defeat. Tuesday's beatdown at the hands of the Buffalo Sabres contained even fewer positives.

Our motto around these parts has been to keep an even keel as the season is long, and I'm not advocating abandoning that altogether. At some point we do have to see this team get actual results in November. The Islanders and Sabres games were two of the easier ones on the schedule. To see the Sens start the month 1-3 instead of 3-1 isn't ending the year but yeah, I get why folks are a bit uneasy.

Chabot Elite

Thomas Chabot has been really quite excellent this year. He's been his usual dynamic self in transition, and is creating a lot of chances in the offensive end. When Chabot is on like this, he moves with supreme confidence and his ability to hold onto the puck and find incisive passes is a major boon. That same tendency can lead to the kind of gaffes that drive fans crazy when he's not on, but the blunders have been few and far between so far this year. With Chabot on the ice at 5v5, the team is getting 57.54 CF%, 56.57 xG% and 51.61 GF%. The shot and chance numbers are elite, crusher-destroyer shit and are almost always leading indicators for the goals share.

In our Sterling Predictions series, I wrote the following about what I was expecting from the new guy Nick Jensen in his partnership with Chabot:

Jensen will be fine, which will be more than enough thanks to a return to health from Chabot and Jake Sanderson and Artem Zub handling a lot of tough match-ups. The pair will post very strong numbers, and Jensen will get an oversized amount of credit for "stabilizing" Chabot.

This is pretty much exactly how I see things today, too. Jensen has been competent, if a bit wild with the puck at times, which I definitely didn't expect, and competent is good enough when Chabot is playing like this. Now to keep Chabot healthy for a full season...

Sanderson will be Fine

Speaking of elite defensemen, I've seen some fretting in a couple of places about Jake Sanderson. In the same way that Chabot is getting incredible results simply by being paired with a capable partner, we'd all be well-served to remember that Sanderson has only played four games so far with Artem Zub. While I'm not here to kick any more dirt on the guy, it's pretty clear that Travis Hamonic was overmatched on the top pairing as the duo has been run off the ice to the tune of a 46.03 CF%, 39.70 xGF% and 12.50 GF% at 5v5. The goals numbers are at least in part a result of bad luck, but you can't get shot/chance shares in the mid-to-low 40's and expect anything but a butt-kicking in the long run.

That said, Sanderson and Zub haven't exactly lit the world on fire and there's no denying Sandy is in a bit of a rut – but he's going to be totally fine. You don't achieve the type of results that Sanderson has been getting for 169 NHL games without being really good. I think there were some folks in the media (let alone the fanbase) that got a bit over their skis when he racked up a bunch of points on the power play to start the year. For all of his virtues, offense is not likely to ever be his main calling card, and Sanderson can be highly effective even without scoring more than 35-40 points in a year.

Is Sanderson in a bit of a rut? No doubt. But whether he's going to turn around his play is pretty low on my list of concerns. Zub is back and they're going to be crushing the opposition. Sandy is going to go back to kicking ass.

Starting Forsberg instead of Ullmark

At some level, I have an understanding of why Travis Green elected to go with Anton Forsberg instead of Linus Ullmark last night: so far this season, Forsberg has been the better of the two goalies. He's also already posted two shutouts, and he's delivered some spectacular performances. Ullmark has also never played more than 49 games in a season. This wasn't an indefensible choice.

That said, if Ottawa is serious about making the play-offs, they need Ullmark to a) play well and b) play a lot. If you don't think he can handle more than 50ish games, then you don't trade for him and sign him to the contract that they did. This isn't a Martin Brodeur situation where I'm expecting Ullmark to suit up for 70+ games, but 60 should have been a target before the year. As it stands, that means 53 of the last 69 games, or about three in every four. When it's a full rest situation, he's gotta be in there almost every time.

Goalie performances are notoriously hard to predict; as a Sens fan I can fully appreciate the intoxicating appeal of the back-up stringing together unexpected stellar performances. The best thing you can do is to not over-think things and just run with your best guy as many times as you can while you ride out the inevitable ups and downs. On any given night, Ullmark is the team's best chance to win. Let's see if he can do it.

Ottawa Charge

Yesterday, the Ottawa Charge revealed their jerseys:

I am....ambivalent about these? I cannot truthfully say that I was blown away by the design, but in the above video Brianne Jenner shows off some of the finer details up close and I do find lots to like there. The home colour scheme is cool, and the whites are clean if maybe not totally original. Does the logo look a bit like the Calgary Flames' flaming C? Yes, it does no one any good to deny that. Still, having a proper jersey with a proper logo is a big step up from last season. If nothing else I'm looking forward to seeing some Charge jerseys around the city this winter.

We'll also have lots of PWHL coverage as the season gets underway, so look out for that!