Silver Nuggets: What's the main issue plaguing the Ottawa Senators?

If you watched the entire Senators - Red Wings game last night, you should have witnessed the thing that pisses coaches off the most: inconsistent play. The Senators started the game strong, but their play started to fall off and led to a number of poor penalties. It took until the third period, when the Red Wings were up three goals, for the Senators to start to carry play, but I think that may have to do with the fact that the Red Wings could take their foot off the gas. It's been shown that when teams are up a number of goals in the third period, they usually hold back, and that made the game closer than it should have been.

What I'm here to ask all of you is centered around the reasons for the Senators inconsistent play. Is it personnel (players aren't talented enough)? Player usage? The high-event system that Paul MacLean likes to play? Is it due to strong opponents?

Let me know what you think in the poll and the comments below, and I'll choose some thoughts to expand on for Friday.

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Sens Links

• The Sens have played two games since our last Nuggets but lost them both. Here are your recaps from Saturday night's tough loss to the St. Louis Blues [Silver Seven, Rank the Performances, Ottawa Citizen, SensChirp, SenShot]
• Here are your recaps from last night's loss against the Red Wings. [Silver Seven I, Silver Seven II, Rank the Performances, Ottawa Citizen, SensChirp, SenShot]
• Nichols tackled the Daniel Alfredsson news. It looks like he's going to retire, but when and how is yet to be determined. Pierre LeBrun also had a column on Murray and Alfie taking a car ride recently when the Senators were in Detroit. [6th Sens, ESPN, Ottawa Citizen]
• Here's Erik Karlsson on his mentor, Daniel Alfredsson. [Ottawa Citizen]
• It feels weird linking my own work but yeah... I wrote a thing on Paul MacLean and the roles and expectations that he has for players. [Silver Seven]
• Relatedly, Trevor looks at the expectations that we have for Mike Hoffman in a nice article. [SenShot]
• Amelia with a look at which Sens players are trending up and down. [SIlver Seven - Ups and Downs]
• Should the Senators trade Patrick Wiercioch? PLEASE NO (just kidding.. if he's part of a package for part of a bonafide top-4 defenseman, fine. BUT ONLY IF) [SenShot]
• Ian with your weekly prospect update. Some positive news (!!!) out of Binghamton as the BSens offense came alive. Jeff also has a recap of the BSens 7-0 rout. [Silver Seven, SenShot, Highlights]
• Chet and Luke went international for Episode 14 of their podcast! [Chet&Luke Episode 14]

Sports Links

• In case you missed the tragic news, longtime Leafs coach Pat Quinn and Russian hockey legend Viktor Tikhonov passed away yesterday. Sarah wrote a piece on Quinn, and Nick Cotsonika wrote a column on both Quinn and Tikhonov. [Silver Seven, Yahoo! Quinn, Yahoo! Tikhonov]
• Here's Yost on the efficiency of the Jets penalty killers. [TSN]
• The absolutely fantastic Jo Innes has more on the blood clot injury that's plaguing Pascal Dupuis. [Sporting News]
• Scott Cullen has a weekly post focusing on statistical facts with respect to hockey called "Statistically Speaking" [TSN]

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Thanks for reading!

Why are the Senators inconsistent this season?