Five Thoughts For Friday: Playoff Hopes and 1 Year of the PWHL

What a fun week of hockey for Ottawa, with both our professional hockey teams now in playoff spots. Can't think of any other important things happening in Ottawa, hockey-wise.

The wild card race is heating up

What’s that saying people always throw around every November? You can’t make the playoffs in November, but you can miss them?

Well, we’ve made it through not just November but also December, and the Sens haven’t missed the playoffs yet. In fact, they’re not even chasing a playoff spot; they’re holding one down while other teams try to overtake them and, best of all, they have games in hand over every team chasing them. They don’t have a lot of room for error in the second half of the season, but they do have some. They control their own fate, for now.

We’re getting meaningful hockey in January, and unless things go very wrong, we’ll get meaningful hockey in February, too. That’s progress.

What’s more, things should get easier from here on out. The big road trip was supposed to be the trap, and it’s almost over. Even if they fall out of a playoff spot tonight, they have games in hand and an easy schedule ahead of them, with a lot of home games at the very end of the season. I’m almost too afraid to hope.

The Return of Zub

Amid all the hype around the Sens’ win streak and the drama of the goalie injuries, I’ll admit I had forgotten about Zub’s injury timeline until he was confirmed to be in last night’s game. The Sens have done surprisingly well without him, with Chabot, Jensen and Sanderson all playing well. 

The defense as a whole has actually done a very good job at limiting chances close to the net - note the blue spot by the net on this hockeyviz chart, which shows that the Sens’ opponents aren’t getting many shots from there. I can’t remember the last time I saw that much blue on a Sens defensive chart. And they did most of that without Zub!

Adding one of their best defensemen to a lineup that’s already getting results will be massive, but if last night’s game taught us anything, it’s that Zub needs to be taking Hamonic’s place, not JBD’s. A top 4 of Chabot-Jensen and Sanderson-Zub is legitimately good, and we know that because both pairings have played together before. I hope the only reason he was on the third pairing last night was because Green was trying to ease him back into things.

Goaltending

One year of normal goaltending for the Sens. Please. It’s all I want.

To recap: Ullmark and Forsberg were both kind of bad to start the season. Then Ullmark became good. Then both goalies got injured, pretty much at the same time, forcing the Sens to run with Sogaard and Merilainen for a bit.

The last few games have at least given us an idea of what the Sens goaltending depth looks like. Ullmark is the guy for the foreseeable future. Sogaard does not look ready for the NHL. Merilainen has looked good enough that I wouldn’t mind him staying with the Sens as a backup for a bit. 

We’ve been burned so many times that it’s hard to get excited about goaltending in Ottawa, but it’s nice to see Merilainen playing well.

One year of professional women’s hockey in Ottawa

January 1st marked the first anniversary of the first game in PWHL history, and yesterday was the anniversary of Ottawa’s first game. It’s wild to think about how much has happened in that time. Toronto played that first game in an arena that could only fit about 2000 people. People thought Ottawa was a bad choice of location. I was surprised when they sold out the season opener. And look at us now. What a massive year for women’s hockey.

There have been a lot of ups and downs, for the league as a whole and for Ottawa specifically, but as we hit the 1 year mark I’m so proud of how far women’s hockey has come, and so grateful that we have a team here in Ottawa. I’ve been following “pro” women’s hockey since the CWHL was the only league around, and I never could have imagined that things could change so quickly. I used to wear women’s hockey merch in public and get asked if I played for the team whose merch I was wearing. If you’d told me in January 2024 that in a year I’d be able to watch women’s hockey games at sports bars and see women’s women’s hockey merch in public so often that it wasn’t even special, I’m not sure I would have believed you. This is everything women’s hockey fans have been asking for for years. 

What exactly are the Charge doing?

One thing I really appreciate about the current state of women’s hockey, especially in Ottawa, is that I can finally talk about women’s hockey just in terms of the actual hockey and not have to worry that people are going to stop watching or something. It’s great that the Charge can make dumb roster moves and trade away fan favourites and I’m not worried that they’re going to drive away all their fans. I still wish they wouldn’t do that.

I will say this about the Charge: they have addressed their biggest issues. They used to be a good possession team that played on the perimeter and couldn’t finish their chances, so they brought in Vanisova and Serdachny. Their goaltending was mid last season, and Emerance Maschmeyer has been completely unbeatable lately. They used to make big, obvious defensive mistakes, so they brought in Savolainen and traded Harmon for Larocque. The front office clearly knows what the problem areas are. That’s good.

Most importantly: they had no puck luck last year, and now they’re actually getting bounces.

In the process of addressing their mistakes, though, they’ve lost more talent than any other team in the league. Will it work? I don’t know.

They don’t look like a playoff team right now, but the results aren’t that bad.