Silver Nuggets: Some Love for Mac
Last year, the Senators were a team carried by their stars, lucky to have so few man games lost to key players. A common refrain was "they are a (Spezza, Karlsson) injury away from being a bad team". Looks like that isn't the case.
Thanks for playing along yesterday folks, we had roughly 220 votes at the time of writing this, and even though there were three options, 51% of you had Jakob Silfverberg leading the team in goals at the end of the season for a variety of reasons, but mostly because he's the hottest of the three. Mikeec67 put it very simply, and wrote what I think many of you were thinking when you voted for Jakob:
Silfverberg
The release, the confidence he’s shown in the last few games, the skill. It will be close, but Silfver all the way.
I was also floored by the effort put in by B_T to put together this graph explaining his reason for choosing Silfver:
And of course we got (as I knew we would) one from "Roger" that looked like this (8 recs):
Alfie.
Because.
How can you argue that, right?
For today, going to keep it short, just wanted to give some love to the guys on this team that are healthy, but most specifically Paul MacLean and his staff.
How many times last year did we hear that the Senators were just an injury to a key player away from being a non-playoff team? That the success our club had last year was simply the result of
a) our top players all having career years at the same time and
b) our star players with injury histories (Jason Spezza, Milan Michalek) playing a full season?
Now that the Senators have played 28 games this season without Jason Spezza. 19 of those have also been without Erik Karlsson, the best defenceman in the world. Milan Michalek? Only suited up 15 games himself.
For a while, it was the world class play of Craig Anderson that was to be pointed to as the reason the Sens were afloat. Of course he has been out for 18 games now.
So at some point, you have to look at this coaching staff and say, hey, maybe its the game plan. Maybe it is the adjustments, maybe it is the system, maybe it is the ability to motivate, maybe it is the ability to cultivate young players.
Because this season has shown, we were FAR from one injury away from success.
Sens Links
- Bobby delivers his amazing prospect round-up and gives us a glimpse into what Mike Hoffman may be able to add to this squad. I'm really looking forward to seeing him in action. [SSS]
- A hilariously Adnan-infused contest that we have going on. Profess your love for soft players, win a free ticket to the Silver Seven Night out! [SSS]
- Kind of old news by now but Kaspars Daugavins went on waivers yesterday. Long term, not sure what kind of spot he had here, but MacLean seemed to like him enough. All the best to one of the strangest Senators ever. [SSS]
- BREAKING: REPLACING ERIK KARLSSON WITH ERIC GRYBA HAS MADE THE SENATORS A WORSE POSSESSION TEAM. MORE ON THIS STORY AS IT BECOMES AVAILABLE. But seriously, a cool post if you are up on your fancy stats. [6thSens]
- The three headed monster of Craig Anderson, Ben Bishop and Robin Lehner are doing what no goalie threesome has ever done. [SE]
- Some thoughts on the Sens various impending free agents. Who should we bring back, who should we let go? [WTYKY]
- Last but not least, the Sens have been mentioned as being interested in Derek Roy, but honestly, I feel Bryan Murray will just stay the course. Side Note: a guy in the comments writes "I wonder if the Sens would trade Mika Zibanejad for Derek Roy and a Second?" LOLZ. [DBD]
Go Sens!