Ottawa v Minnesota Game Review

Ottawa have had a tough start to the season, losing 5-3 and 6-5 so far and looking were looking for a better defensive performance in this one.

Ottawa started the game with a PP and chances for Spezza and Alfredsson but Minnesota held on and killed the penalty well. The first 8 minutes the Senators were really on top, taking the game to the Wild with Backstrom seeing a lot of the puck.  They would have been disappointed when the Wild then took the lead with a Brosiak tip infront from what seemed a soft shot by Stoner towards the goal.

Kassian and Konopka then decided it was time to drop the gloves and a pretty even battle of the heavyweights ensued. Konopka picked up an extra 2 minutes for instigation but the Wild couldn’t capitalise on the PP. A ragin dash through centre ice saw his long shot take a funny bounce back off the boards and through the crease but Foligno failed to carrel the puck and his attempt went just wide.

Minnesota took a 2-0 lead before the end of the period after a series of bad plays again by veterans on the Ottawa side. 1^st Spezza took a ridiculous slashing penalty, retaliating as he was skating off the ice for  a line change and being caught for it. Gonchar then failed to clear the zone on the resulting PP, only sending the puck round the boards and straight back to Koivu who in turn found Heatley and he set up Setoguchi for the one timer. That was the end of the 1^st period and despite a better performance the Senators still found themselves down on the scoreboard.

Brosiak had a great chance early in the 2^nd period to make it 3-0 as he skated in alone on Anderson but the netminder got a piece of it and fended it off. Nick Foligno got the Senators back into the game just before the halfway stage of the 2^nd as his line with Neil and Ragin did some great work in crashing the net and he tucked a loose puck away from close range. Ottawa at this point were outshooting Minnesota 10-1 in the 2^nd period.

Ottawa continued to dominate the period but the score remained at 2-1 going into the 3^rd. Only 2 minutes into the 3^rd the Wild got their 2 goal lead back as Johnson made a strong play to the net and the puck pinballed off numerous players infront, creeping in over the line. As the play went to review the puck clearly did go completely over the line and the goal stood. This incensed Ottawa as Phillips had his stick broken on a slash as the play was made and the officials missed the call.

 

Chris Neil made it 3-2 with almost 14 minutes left with another goal that went to review as he clipped the puck high into the net from a tight angle. It hit the back of the netting and shot straight out which confused the officials as they original waved no goal which lead to a melee infront with players squaring off to each other in a mad few minutes of scuffling.

Michalek and Clutterbuck were both given 2 minute roughing penalties from that scuffle and a further 2 minutes were then taken by Minnesota as Zidlicky was called for high sticking. This led to open ice and some great chances for the Senators with Colin Greening tying the game on the 5 on 4 pp as he stood infront of the net acting as a screen and picked up a loose puck and found the five hole of Nicklas Backstrom.

Both teams battled for the rest of the 3^rd with Minnesota coming back into the game a little. However, neither team were able to find the winning goal in regulation and it headed into OT. The overtime period was a pretty quick one with neither team able to capitalise on the open ice situation and the game headed into penalty shots. Michalek took the first shot and he buried his attempt. Koivu then missed. Both Spezza and Cullen put their attempts away meaning captain Daniel Alfredsson had the chance to win the game with his shot and he put the puck into the twine and the Sens won 4-3 after PS.

My star for the game was Chris Neil of Ottawa. He picked up a goal and an assist, was a pest all game and made some big hits when his team were 2-0 down to try and motivate the Senators. He was all over ex Ottawa man Dany Heatley, much to the delight of the home fans and his line with Ragin and Foligno played well all night.

by Adam Yates

Doan Does the Trendy Thing and Lays out Sexton

"Wow, so this is what it's like to be on the receiving end. Not so sweet."

The saying is “Another Day, Another Dollar”, but, seeing as NHL salaries have skyrocketed in the recent past, maybe that’s not so apt an expression... at least as it would apply to professional athletes. In fact, even taking into account the $2,500 fine imposed on Ottawa Senator Nick Foligno, I would hazard a guess that he’s doing quite alright. So, if we’re looking for a true expression of the times, how about this: “Another Day, Another Dirty Hit”.

Sure enough, only two days after Foligno got fined on Friday for his hit on Carolina Hurricane Patrick Dwyer, Anaheim Duck Dan Sexton got blind-sided by Phoenix Coyotes captain Shane Doan. The hit was to the head, it was late, it was illegal. Case open and shut. Or at least it should be.

I’m not naive enough to think that if the NHL would have suspended Foligno on Friday instead of just taking away his lunch money that Doan wouldn’t have hit Sexton. I apparently was born recently enough, however, to think that if the NHL had got it right with Foligno, we wouldn’t be having this one-sided conversation right now because the right precedent would have been set and everyone would know what was coming.

Unfortunately, because the league decided that illegal hits to the head are the less-expensive NHL equivalent to pre-game tweets in the NFL, Doan can now argue that he should be fined as well because he too has never been suspended. Maybe he can tweet it out and see what the league does in response. I’m guessing league senior vice-president Colin Campbell is writing the strongly worded letter as we speak.

Well, it would seem we’ve run into a classic catch-22, where a player can never get suspended because he has never been suspended. It’s a shame this thought process was just in its infancy way back when Steve Downie gave Dean McAmmond a love tap behind the Ottawa Senators’ net just a few short seasons ago. If only he had the good sense to argue that he had never been suspended by the league either!

Another illogical argument would be that because neither Dwyer nor Sexton were injured neither one of the perpetrators should have been suspended. While you can’t penalize a player based on his intent in general (you can’t penalize someone for missing a flying elbow if it lands 10 feet wide, as entertaining as it would be to watch), you can for deliberately trying to injure an opponent. Injury a result of someone’s actions or not, they need to be made to face the consequences, even if those consequences are becoming increasingly laughably lenient as time goes by.

Really, forget the players. It’s time for the league to take a long hard look at itself in the mirror - maybe not Gary Bettman; we don’t want him to mistake himself for a troll and get frightened – and ask itself if it wants to sell a product that consists of second-rate AHLers scoring garbage goals because all the actual talent is in the infirmary ward.

Now, Doan should get suspended, but, again, I thought Foligno should have gotten 10 games. Taking into account the deflationary phenomenon on lengths of suspensions that is Mr. Campbell, Doan will likely get two games. If he doesn’t, you can take one of two things to the bank:

1)      The NHL brass has taken numerous illegal checks to the head itself recently.

2)      The NHL just doesn’t care.

Considering it’s likely been years since anyone of any importance has played full-contact, competitive hockey, I would say number two is the best bet. But we will wait and see. It’s sad when the league’s response to the hits and not the hits themselves are the most shocking part of the sport. In this case, I would be truly shocked if the league did the right thing.

Foligno Should Be Looking Over His Shoulder with NHL Poised to Come Down Hard on Sen

Talk about a non-SENSical situation. Now that the bad pun is out of the way and the situation has been sufficiently made light of, it's time to get serious, which, in all honesty does not add any sizeable degree of logic to Ottawa Senator Nick Foligno's blind-side hit on Carolina Hurricane Patrick Dwyer on Thursday night.

It's abundantly clear that Foligno is not a dirty player... a fringe second-liner who may likely never pan out as the offensive threat he was envisioned to be when drafted in the first round of 2006, sure. But dirty? No way. And it's not as if Dwyer is the type of offensive threat or hated pest that would make for an effective target of such a dirty hit. In a lot of ways, it's easy to believe that both Dwyer and Foligno were victims of circumstance, with Foligno caught in a situation where he had to make a choice between making a hit or getting grief on the bench and he just didn't expect to deliver a head shot. But a head shot is what it was... even if some camera angles aren't exactly the most revealing as to its true nature.

Probably the best point made came from TSN's Craig MacTavish, of Harvey the Hound tongue-pulling-out fame. On Thursday night's telecast, he said (and I am paraphrasing here) that if it comes to a point where you have to ask yourself repeatedly if it was a head shot or not, it's most likely a head shot. As such, the NHL has a golden opportunity to set a nasty precedent and curtail these blind-side hits before an even larger epidemic befalls the league. Like the first snowflake of winter, these things have a tendency to snowball before you know it and the league can save itself a lot of criticism and headaches by getting it right this time. A 10-game suspension is strict, but justified in this context.

Rule 48 of the league rulebook states that an illegal check to the head is characterized by "a lateral or blind side hit to an opponent where the head is targeted and/or the principle point of contact..." Foligno may not have meant to hit Dwyer in the head, but it did happen, making it the principle point of contact. Supplementary discipline is thus required, especially taking into account the fact that these incidents have become this year's Edmonton Oilers of hits... the flavour of the week if you will.

No, Foligno is not a repeat offender, but neither was Chicago Blackhawks defenseman Niklas Hjalmarsson when he got a two-game ban for his hit from behind on Buffalo Sabre Jason Pominville. All things taken into account, the NHL would be justified in coming down harder on Foligno for the simple reason that they have a chance to nip this thing right in the bud right now, by making an example out of Foligno.

Hits from behind have gotten to the point where they are byproducts of an even larger problem: a lack of respect. There's already a penalty in place for checking from behind, but it doesn't work. The illegal-check-to-the-head penalty of the NHL's is brand new, relatively speaking, meaning players don't know where the line is. Show them. If a player like Foligno can get 10 games for an illegal check to the head, anyone can. That's where respect for other players begins... when it's your neck - and head - on the line.