Senators Blown Out 8-3 by Montreal Canadiens
None of the scary movies you watched this weekend were as terrifying as this trainwreck
It’s almost Halloween, and the Sens are going all out this year. While other teams are going through the usual process of having Halloween parties and showing off costumes ranging from slightly funny to kind of offensive, tonight Ottawa decided to take it one step further, providing us with an hour long screening of all of our worst nightmares.
We got Erik Karlsson not being fully healed from his injury and kind of sucking at defense, Craig Anderson leaving his net too many times, #TheSystem totally collapsing, Jean-Gabriel Pageau not scoring a hat trick to save the day and, of course, the Sens being embarrassed on home ice by a team so utterly devoid of hope and shame that it has resorted to starting Al Montoya in net. I never thought I’d say this, but I’m pretty glad I’m no longer living in an environment which requires that I interact with Habs fans on a daily basis.
It was definitely the scariest thing I’ve seen all month. I might have nightmares for weeks.
But you know what? I volunteered to write this recap for one reason and one reason only. No, not because I forgot to sign up for recaps this week and it was the only one available, but because I wanted to roast the Habs. And you know what? The Sens may have robbed me of a productive night of writing essays (or rather, if I’m being honest, watching Stranger Things), but they will not rob me of this. I came here to roast the Habs, and roast the Habs I will. I just can’t do that without roasting the Sens at least twice as much, because my goodness they were hot garbage tonight.
The first period was eventful, to say the least. Ottawa started their fourth line of Tom Pyatt, Alexandre Burrows and Nate Thompson, and just as all of Sens Twitter collectively typed out a snarky tweet mocking Boucher for this decision, the trio made us all eat our words by scoring a goal less than twenty seconds into the game. Now if, without watching the clip, you were to imagine the kind of goal these three players might score together, that would probably be pretty close to the actual goal. The Habs basically scored on themselves. But hey, if you can’t score on one end of the ice, might as well practice on the other one, right?
The saddest part is that it worked.
It didn’t take long for Montreal to even the score on a powerplay, when a rookie scored his first NHL goal. Honestly, at this point the Sens should just make a list of every player still looking for his first goal before every game, then give him a goal before the puck even drops and save us all some time. Really, if you’re an NHL player who has played the Ottawa Senators before and still hasn’t scored a goal, I’m judging you pretty hard.
Montreal took the lead on a shorthanded goal, when for some reason Craig Anderson decided it would be a good idea to play the puck (which, by the way, is a decision goalies KEEP MAKING despite the fact that it is never, ever the right decision), and Max Pacioretty scored a garbage goal.
All hope was not lost yet, though. No, that wouldn’t come until much later. On the same powerplay, Mike Hoffman sent a laser of a shot through traffic, and it bounced off a Habs player. Really, most of the goals scored in this game were caused by the defending team shooting themselves in the foot. It’s entirely possible both teams got confused about which side is which and just resorted to firing the puck randomly across the ice.
Continuing with that theme, the Habs scored again when Alex Burrows decided to dive into Craig Anderson for no apparent reason, and the rest of the team apparently forgot how to play defense. It was 4-2 by the end of the period.
The Sens looked considerably better in the second period, getting a few good chances and even cutting the Habs’ lead in half when Chris DiDomenico continued his surprisingly strong start to the season. It was another strange goal, as the kid was clearly trying to pass the puck to Brassard (a wise choice), but it ended up deflecting off a Montreal player and going into the net.
Unfortunately, things went rapidly downhill from there. Montreal scored two more goals in the second period, both of which were made possible by some truly abysmal defense from the part of the Senators. Strangely, Ottawa was terrible in their own end and pretty good in the Montreal end all night, which is a huge change from the defense-first hockey we’ve grown accustomed to. I guess Guy Boucher is going as Dave Cameron for Halloween.
Mike Condon started in net for the third period, a good choice since Craig Anderson was not at all in his best form during this game. Considering that this was the Sens and Habs, and that Pageau still had yet to score a hat trick, I wouldn’t blame you for approaching these last twenty minutes with cautious optimism. If Ottawa had come back and pulled off a win, it wouldn’t have been the weirdest thing to ever happen in a game between these two teams. I’m sure I wasn’t the only person looking at that Montreal lineup and drafting a few tweets to send out once the comeback was completed.
Of course, that did not happen. Instead Montreal scored two more goals, and Ottawa was thoroughly embarrassed.
Notable Performances
- Mike Hoffman was pretty good I guess.
- I didn’t know or care who Chris DiDomenico was before the start of this season, but he’s been a really good surprise so far.
- This might have been the worst game I have ever seen Erik Karlsson play. His skating was off, his defensive play was awful, and he just didn’t look like himself. It was painful to watch.
- Anderson wasn’t too great either./
