Ottawa Senators Training Camp Update, September 27th
Ah, the inevitable letdown after twice beating the Leafs
In the narrative arc of the Ottawa Senators, no matter how close and significant meetings are with the Buffalo Sabres, these contests always fail to capture the excitement of games against Toronto. Even if Ottawa realistically has more of a chance of dueling the Sabres for a wild card spot this upcoming season, beating the Leafs just provides so much more entertainment value. With that in mind, we still do have some pertinent details to unpack regarding an overtime loss to Buffalo (cursed phrase right there, folks).
First and foremost, let's talk about Dustin Tokarski—kidding! (But also, no, really). In fairness, both of Buffalo's former netminders, Tokarski and Linus Ullmark, stood out in a good way for Ottawa, against their old team. Obviously Sens fans cared mostly about their first look at Ullmark as a Senator and it went about as well as we could have hoped with just one goal against (at five-on-five) in a game when Buffalo dictated the play pretty much all night. Tokarski to his credit also made a good first impression, conceding goals at six-on-five and three-on-three but otherwise getting the job done.
In terms of Ottawa's skaters, considering only two or three players who dressed for the Sens (Shane Pinto, Tyler Kleven, Noah Gregor(?)) have sewn up their regular season roster spots, this group didn't look especially hungry. Call me naive, but I imagine a bunch of people playing for this kind of a promotion would show a bit more fight. Anyway, Buffalo outshot Ottawa 41-16 on the night including a 24-5 difference in the first. Everyone pack your bags and get on the bus, I guess.
And to Buffalo's credit, they iced an AHL roster with one or two blue chip prospects and virtually no NHL experience. I genuinely wonder if Belleville will regress this season based on what we saw against (essentially) the Rochester Americans. Only one or two key BSens sat out this game and the Sabres skated circles around the Sens. Time will tell I guess. If nothing else, the Senators organization has a lot of skaters who can kill penalties apparently.
If I had to get into conjecture regarding the implications of this game and imminent roster construction, it looks like either Zack Ostapchuk or Angus Crookshank still has a decent chance at an NHL gig this fall. Both did well in terms of ice time in meaningful phases of the game (although to reiterate, Ottawa's roster in general didn't have much fight against the Sabres). I also wouldn't write off Carter Yakemchuk just yet for a nine-game audition if Artem Zub misses any amount of time with injury to start the year. As others have mentioned, Calen Addison has also put himself in the conversation.
Having said that, Addison and Yakemchuk put up some of Ottawa's worst on-ice, five-on-five rates against Buffalo (along with virtual locks Kleven and Pinto) so you kind of have to entertain the whole eye-test versus numerical data discussion. Crookshank and Ostapchuk fared much better by the numbers and it also bears mentioning that Donovan Sebrango (who has a very low probability of carving out a stop among Ottawa's left-handed defenders) had the best on-ice results at five-on-five among Sens defenders to go along with seven penalty minutes (and some lethal eyes from Linus Ullmark on an ill-fated screen).
What does it all mean? Maybe nothing! But it felt good to see Ullmark play so well so really who cares about the rest. Have a great day, everybody!
