GAME DAY: Washington Capitals @ Ottawa Senators - 7:30pm EST - Mon. Nov. 23rd, 2009 PLUS post game thoughts

Why are we re-hashing the same Dung all the time?

So much fairweather-ism with Sens fans.
One week Spezza is worth every penny, the next he's Dung.
One night Kelly is a stud worth every penny, the next we're looking to ship him out for anything.
One second we're talking about how great the Kovalev signing is, the next everyone is talking about trade options/benching him.
We trade for Cheechoo, know exactly what to expect and somehow when he's meeting those expectations (of struggling), he's still not good enough and we're re-hashing all the same Dung we've been talking about forever.

One poster is always flip-flopping on like literally every single thing we talk about in here.
Others just prefer to avoid the realistic situation their team is in.

It's starting to get agitating a bit to come in here and talk hockey with some of these 'know-it-alls'.

I respect that everyone has an opinion and I'm certainly not saying that people shouldn't present their points of view. It's just too much flip-flopping in here on this team.

You know why Toronto fans are better than Sens fans? Because they never give up on their team. They get disappointed that the team isn't what it used to be and that they just can't get the pieces in place to make it better.

But they come in to OUR building and outcheer us. And they do a damn near close job of doing the same at the Bell Center. And at pretty much every building they can get to in numbers.

Pathetic.

Instead of tearing down the guys all the time over every little niggling thing, why not back them up? Why not stand behind them for once for more than when the good times are around? Complaining is so easy to do. Standing up and saying you support your team no matter what takes balls.

What we need to do is start a campaign to make ScotiaBank Place the loudest, noisiest, most annoying building in the league to play in. We need to inspire these fans and these users to stop being so negative about every little mistake and misstep that the team makes.

It's one thing to criticize a mistake, but it's something else to be a flip-flopper, fairweather, bandwagon-riding "fan".

It's time we changed that. And it needs to start with these forums and be disseminated to every fan in this city who bleeds red.

SpezDispenser wrote:

SensGirl11 wrote:

PKC wrote:

SensGirl11 wrote:We should have a poll of how many games Leclaire will actually play for us during his 2 year contract.

This isn't even his fault. This is just stupid.

Did I say this was his fault? No. He's just one of those goalies that gets injured all the time. That's all I mean here, how many games will he actually play this year and next?

For the record, I think PKC meant that this isn't even his fault - and that this is just stupid that this keeps happening - especially in bizarre ways like this, not that your suggestion was stupid.

Yeah, I'm referring to this guy's unbelievably Dung luck.

What are we going to do with Cheechoo anyway? What a waste of 3M. It's starting to hurt more and more. The crappy part too is that he's pretty good, not 3M worth, but he has his moments. The thing I always notice with him though is that he's about 10 steps behind the play, ALL THE TIME! He can't skate at all. He's not cut out for the new NHL, he's waayyyy too slow now. He's slower than Richardson was if that's possible. It's really starting to get frustrating. And, what a horrendous giveaway yesterday. That, I thought, was the end of the game for us. He felt horrible about it, but he just can't afford to be doing stuff like that. If he had 10 goals by now it'd be different, but he doesn't.

SensGirl11 wrote:What are we going to do with Cheechoo anyway? What a waste of 3M. It's starting to hurt more and more. The crappy part too is that he's pretty good, not 3M worth, but he has his moments. The thing I always notice with him though is that he's about 10 steps behind the play, ALL THE TIME! He can't skate at all. He's not cut out for the new NHL, he's waayyyy too slow now. He's slower than Richardson was if that's possible. It's really starting to get frustrating. And, what a horrendous giveaway yesterday. That, I thought, was the end of the game for us. He felt horrible about it, but he just can't afford to be doing stuff like that. If he had 10 goals by now it'd be different, but he doesn't.

I don't know. Buy him out in the summer? Problem again is: his work ethic is very good, he's been getting some bad luck. I don't know if he can snap out of it or not, but it doesn't look fantastic right now.

PFK - I will never say I admire a Leaf fan and I won't blindly throw money at my team either.

I will always cheer for them when I'm at the game and never boo them - Fans have that right but I think it's just plain counter productive. If the team is sagging and screwing up that is when you stand up and cheer louder. I have my Sens memorabilia, I have my Season tickets and I won't be giving them up either, even if I think certain players need to pick there games up.

I am certainly quite schizophrenic about the Sens at times and throw stuff up against the wall to see if it sticks so to speak and perhaps it could be viewed as flip flopping. At least people are talking about the team and showing there passion for them. I'd prefer that to not caring at all, not going to or watching the game and not coming onto forums to vent, rant, flip flop or whatever.

Would anyone here trade Nick Foligno and our first to Minny for Havlat? It's an interesting question (I thought).

Forget about the money for a moment - would you do it?

SpezDispenser wrote:Would anyone here trade Nick Foligno and our first to Minny for Havlat? It's an interesting question (I thought).

Forget about the money for a moment - would you do it?

And a 1st. No. And a Jim O'Brien and a 3rd. Something like that.

SeawaySensFan wrote:

SpezDispenser wrote:Would anyone here trade Nick Foligno and our first to Minny for Havlat? It's an interesting question (I thought).

Forget about the money for a moment - would you do it?

And a 1st. No. And a Jim O'Brien and a 3rd. Something like that.

Fair enough SSF. I was just curious what people's reactions would be.

Also, Clouston out-coached Boudreau last night. That's a good thing.

PKC wrote:Why are we re-hashing the same Dung all the time?

So much fairweather-ism with Sens fans.
One week Spezza is worth every penny, the next he's Dung.
One night Kelly is a stud worth every penny, the next we're looking to ship him out for anything.
One second we're talking about how great the Kovalev signing is, the next everyone is talking about trade options/benching him.
We trade for Cheechoo, know exactly what to expect and somehow when he's meeting those expectations (of struggling), he's still not good enough and we're re-hashing all the same Dung we've been talking about forever.

One poster is always flip-flopping on like literally every single thing we talk about in here.
Others just prefer to avoid the realistic situation their team is in.

It's starting to get agitating a bit to come in here and talk hockey with some of these 'know-it-alls'.

I respect that everyone has an opinion and I'm certainly not saying that people shouldn't present their points of view. It's just too much flip-flopping in here on this team.

You know why Toronto fans are better than Sens fans? Because they never give up on their team. They get disappointed that the team isn't what it used to be and that they just can't get the pieces in place to make it better.

But they come in to OUR building and outcheer us. And they do a damn near close job of doing the same at the Bell Center. And at pretty much every building they can get to in numbers.

Pathetic.

Instead of tearing down the guys all the time over every little niggling thing, why not back them up? Why not stand behind them for once for more than when the good times are around? Complaining is so easy to do. Standing up and saying you support your team no matter what takes balls.

What we need to do is start a campaign to make ScotiaBank Place the loudest, noisiest, most annoying building in the league to play in. We need to inspire these fans and these users to stop being so negative about every little mistake and misstep that the team makes.

It's one thing to criticize a mistake, but it's something else to be a flip-flopper, fairweather, bandwagon-riding "fan".

It's time we changed that. And it needs to start with these forums and be disseminated to every fan in this city who bleeds red.

I agree with you about a lot of this (especially the part about making our building loud and proud, all the time, no matter how the game is going), but at the same time, like fans of all other teams, we get frustrated with certain players because they are extremely inconsistent. Doesn't going back and forth on certain players and hating on (not really hating) but being frustrated with the team and talking it out here make it more fun. We get to talk to other fans who are just as frustrated. Some fans are extrememly fairweathered, I don't think we have that many of those here though, some, but not many. We all get upset with the team, and a lot of the time they should be playing better than they are. Don't think the players and coaching staff don't get as frustrated as us, they do.

Cheechoo - we knew what we were getting with him, some of us *myself included* hoped that he would get his scoring touch back, that's hope that I like to have especially considering the amount of money he's making and that we couldn't get better than him. Clearly, he's just not good anymore, and I'll leave it at that and not go back on it unless he proves me wrong.

Kovalev - again, I expected him to play the way he has been so far, no surprise there. He's good when he wants to be and bad when he doesn't feel like playing. I didn't understand why Murray signed him, but, he has his moments. We can go back and forth as much as we want on him, he does it with his play. No surprises here.

Leclaire - has had his moments, but as we all expected, just gets injured all the time, who knows what's going to happen with him. Again, we pretty much knew what we were getting with him.

And so on and so forth.

These forums are here for us to speak our minds about our favorite teams and players. Whether we go back and forth loving and hating them, we are still fans and spend a lot of time and money on them. So, I think we are entitled to be the kinds of fans we want to be. I don't think any of us jumped the Sens bandwagon. We just get frustrated sometimes, we still love our team though. It's an intense sport and brings out a lot of emotions. Some good, some bad. Again, I think that's a big part of being a fan of any sport. It's good to have people here to talk things through with, whether we agree with them or not.

I support the team no matter what. Whether I'm high or low on a guy from one day to the next doesn't matter. What matters is that I love the Sens, they are my team and I bleed the colors as much as the players do.

SpezDispenser wrote:Also, Clouston out-coached Boudreau last night. That's a good thing.

Just like he did Lemaire last season!

SpezDispenser wrote:Would anyone here trade Nick Foligno and our first to Minny for Havlat? It's an interesting question (I thought).

Forget about the money for a moment - would you do it?

If they also take Cheechoo, maybe.

SpezDispenser wrote:Would anyone here trade Nick Foligno and our first to Minny for Havlat? It's an interesting question (I thought).

Forget about the money for a moment - would you do it?

Ok...initially i said do it!!! Now, I'm not sure. Is it too much to give up? I don't think Foligno could ever be as good as Havlat, but I think there are certain parts of his game where he could be better....

man...I don't know...

asq2 wrote:

SpezDispenser wrote:Would anyone here trade Nick Foligno and our first to Minny for Havlat? It's an interesting question (I thought).

Forget about the money for a moment - would you do it?

If they also take Cheechoo, maybe.

They'd tell you to deal with Cheechoo yourself. They wouldn't take a 3 million dollar 4th liner.

BTW, I'll re-visit Cheechoo and his struggles approximately 70 more times this year alone - not to mention the summer. Why? Because he's the Senators' problem, we have to deal with it - and we will deal with it. Here's to hoping he finds his touch, but if not, there'll be tons to talk about.

The guy I'm sick to death of hearing negatives about it Spezza. Absolutely sick to death of it.

SpezDispenser wrote:BTW, I'll re-visit Cheechoo and his struggles approximately 70 more times this year alone - not to mention the summer. Why? Because he's the Senators' problem, we have to deal with it - and we will deal with it. Here's to hoping he finds his touch, but if not, there'll be tons to talk about.

The guy I'm sick to death of hearing negatives about it Spezza. Absolutely sick to death of it.

Funny, because if they both stuck it out on a line together with, say, Kovalev for a reasonable amount of time we'd probably end up complaining about neither.

SeawaySensFan wrote:
Funny, because if they both stuck it out on a line together with, say, Kovalev for a reasonable amount of time we'd probably end up complaining about neither.

Mass bridge-jumping would ensue I'm sure.

SpezDispenser wrote:BTW, I'll re-visit Cheechoo and his struggles approximately 70 more times this year alone - not to mention the summer. Why? Because he's the Senators' problem, we have to deal with it - and we will deal with it. Here's to hoping he finds his touch, but if not, there'll be tons to talk about.

The guy I'm sick to death of hearing negatives about it Spezza. Absolutely sick to death of it.

I'll revisit Cheechoo's struggles a gabillion more times this year too. Hopefully as you say though, he turns it around. I like him, he just makes too much money. He needs to work on his skating a lot too. See...I'm talking about it again.

I'm sick of hearing crap about Spezz too. I don't bother reading negative stuff about him anymore. I'll skip by those ones.

Does he ever need work on his skating.

SpezDispenser wrote:BTW, I'll re-visit Cheechoo and his struggles approximately 70 more times this year alone - not to mention the summer. Why? Because he's the Senators' problem, we have to deal with it - and we will deal with it. Here's to hoping he finds his touch, but if not, there'll be tons to talk about.

The guy I'm sick to death of hearing negatives about it Spezza. Absolutely sick to death of it.

If Cheechoo keeps it up he's going to be sitting in the press box and then bought out this summer I would think. You can't justify the salary he's making with his current play. He's been trying really hard all year but he needs to be scoring some goals and he's obviously not. I'd rather give the money he's making to a defensemen who can quarterback a power play.

I also wouldn't be surprised if Murray waives him at some point this season so that he has some cap space to acquire somebody for the stretch drive. No team would take his full salary but maybe at half the price, a team would be willing to see if he could find his magic again.

Urkie wrote:
If Cheechoo keeps it up he's going to be sitting in the press box and then bought out this summer I would think. You can't justify the salary he's making with his current play. He's been trying really hard all year but he needs to be scoring some goals and he's obviously not. I'd rather give the money he's making to a defensemen who can quarterback a power play.

I also wouldn't be surprised if Murray waives him at some point this season so that he has some cap space to acquire somebody for the stretch drive. No team would take his full salary but maybe at half the price, a team would be willing to see if he could find his magic again.

Yep, 100% on all points. And these are topics that are 'hot' in Ottawa, they won't go away. If we need to waive or sit Cheechoo, we will, end of story. Especially if we need to acquire someone to help this team.

I am not sure Melnyk will be throwing around money with the team attendance tanking. We might be stuck watching the most expensive fourth line in the history of the NHL.

When it is Kelly between Cheechoo and Neil, we are talking $7M+

yikes

MurderOnIce wrote:I am not sure Melnyk will be throwing around money with the team attendance tanking. We might be stuck watching the most expensive fourth line in the history of the NHL.

When it is Kelly between Cheechoo and Neil, we are talking $7M+

yikes

That's a really good point actually. Melnyk can't be happy with the attendance.

I can't believe there were only 16,000 people at the game. That's brutal! It's been a looooong time since it's been that bad. A little scary...

SensGirl11 wrote:I can't believe there were only 16,000 people at the game. That's brutal! It's been a looooong time since it's been that bad. A little scary...

Early in the season + long homestands when the casual fan doesn't really care = deep problems.

Were they charging a premium for last nights tickets.

i was just thinking of the game again, that pass from shannon to winchester that got in via michalek? man that was perfectly executed. i'll give most of the kudos on that one to shannon and winni. just beautiful

SpezDispenser wrote:

SensGirl11 wrote:What are we going to do with Cheechoo anyway? What a waste of 3M. It's starting to hurt more and more. The crappy part too is that he's pretty good, not 3M worth, but he has his moments. The thing I always notice with him though is that he's about 10 steps behind the play, ALL THE TIME! He can't skate at all. He's not cut out for the new NHL, he's waayyyy too slow now. He's slower than Richardson was if that's possible. It's really starting to get frustrating. And, what a horrendous giveaway yesterday. That, I thought, was the end of the game for us. He felt horrible about it, but he just can't afford to be doing stuff like that. If he had 10 goals by now it'd be different, but he doesn't.

I don't know. Buy him out in the summer? Problem again is: his work ethic is very good, he's been getting some bad luck. I don't know if he can snap out of it or not, but it doesn't look fantastic right now.

I don't get it...I get to see every game live, and the last 4 or 5 I've made a point of watching Cheechoo every time he's on the ice, and only him. Once I notice that he's on the ice, I shadow him with my eyes. With that said I don't see him being the pathetic brutal player most people do.

Yes he's not scoring, but in reality he's only played with either Spezza Michalek or Kovalev/Fisher 36% of the time. He's been bounced from one line to another constantly, and I find that brutal. Why is it ok to bounce a scorer like Cheechoo around from line to line constantly changing his line mates, but We allow Spezza to play with Michalek and Alfie all the time. Spezza has 3 times the points that Cheechoo has, but I'd argue that playing with Alfie and Michalek he's playing with more than 3 times the talent than what Cheechoo is playing with. Spezza is also averaging more then 5 min more of Time on Ice even strength and more than 2 minutes more of Power Play time each game. That in itself can account

True he's not producing offensively, but there is more to it than just scoring. He's on the 4th line, so his job is to punish teams offensively and be defensively responsible. He's got 11 give aways (which is only 2 more than Alfie and Kelly) but has 10 take aways which for me evens out and makes it a wash.

I could throw stats out all night, but I'll be honest, given who his line mates are and how much ice time he gets I'm happy with the way he is performing. I don't blame him that coaches don't give me a real shot to play with good players. I would give him 5 games up with Fisher and Foligno (it would have started when Kovalev left) to see how he performs. If he plays well then I look at bumping Foligno down when kovalev returns.

He contract is far from dead weight.

N4L wrote:Shannon didnt shut me up, haha, he's had 2 good games this year, that's it. It was great to see him get going a little but he didnt shut me up or a lot of people up.

As for Kovalev, Fisher wouldnt be firing like he is right now without him. The guy who can sit for all I care is Spezza, The team would have the exact same record without him if you want to go down this little path of not needing players.

Well of course. I mean, he's only got one goal and that was, umm, ... an OT winner

SeawaySensFan wrote:

SpezDispenser wrote:It's official, Brodeur has been called up from Bingo to replace Leclaire.

Might the Brodeur brothers face each other? Will it be awkward since each brother married each others ex-wife (or something like that)? Is it delivery?

He cheated on his wife with her sister. No brothers involved -- now that would have been a story. And Mike Brodeur is not Martin's brother, although they are distant relatives:
http://senators.nhl.com/club/news.htm?id=503106

PKC wrote:

SensGirl11 wrote:We should have a poll of how many games Leclaire will actually play for us during his 2 year contract.

This isn't even his fault. This is just stupid.

Should have been paying attention to the game instead of talking to the trainer. I guess he's not used to being a backup.

Devo wrote:
I don't get it...I get to see every game live, and the last 4 or 5 I've made a point of watching Cheechoo every time he's on the ice, and only him. Once I notice that he's on the ice, I shadow him with my eyes. With that said I don't see him being the pathetic brutal player most people do.

Yes he's not scoring, but in reality he's only played with either Spezza Michalek or Kovalev/Fisher 36% of the time. He's been bounced from one line to another constantly, and I find that brutal. Why is it ok to bounce a scorer like Cheechoo around from line to line constantly changing his line mates, but We allow Spezza to play with Michalek and Alfie all the time. Spezza has 3 times the points that Cheechoo has, but I'd argue that playing with Alfie and Michalek he's playing with more than 3 times the talent than what Cheechoo is playing with. Spezza is also averaging more then 5 min more of Time on Ice even strength and more than 2 minutes more of Power Play time each game. That in itself can account

True he's not producing offensively, but there is more to it than just scoring. He's on the 4th line, so his job is to punish teams offensively and be defensively responsible. He's got 11 give aways (which is only 2 more than Alfie and Kelly) but has 10 take aways which for me evens out and makes it a wash.

I could throw stats out all night, but I'll be honest, given who his line mates are and how much ice time he gets I'm happy with the way he is performing. I don't blame him that coaches don't give me a real shot to play with good players. I would give him 5 games up with Fisher and Foligno (it would have started when Kovalev left) to see how he performs. If he plays well then I look at bumping Foligno down when kovalev returns.

He contract is far from dead weight.

You raise a really interesting point in terms of him being bounced from line to line. I will admit that I have been a huge fan of putting Cheechoo and Spezza together and waiting as long as it takes for something to click, but I guess there comes a point when you can't wait too much longer.

I really want him to succeed, obviously, it would be such a load off if he would suddenly find his stride. It would make things a lot easier, deeper, more dangerous in our forward ranks.

Let's cross fingers that he's on the ice at the same time when Spezza erupts and begins feeding assists like they're going out of style.

Devo wrote:

SpezDispenser wrote:

SensGirl11 wrote:What are we going to do with Cheechoo anyway? What a waste of 3M. It's starting to hurt more and more. The crappy part too is that he's pretty good, not 3M worth, but he has his moments. The thing I always notice with him though is that he's about 10 steps behind the play, ALL THE TIME! He can't skate at all. He's not cut out for the new NHL, he's waayyyy too slow now. He's slower than Richardson was if that's possible. It's really starting to get frustrating. And, what a horrendous giveaway yesterday. That, I thought, was the end of the game for us. He felt horrible about it, but he just can't afford to be doing stuff like that. If he had 10 goals by now it'd be different, but he doesn't.

I don't know. Buy him out in the summer? Problem again is: his work ethic is very good, he's been getting some bad luck. I don't know if he can snap out of it or not, but it doesn't look fantastic right now.

I don't get it...I get to see every game live, and the last 4 or 5 I've made a point of watching Cheechoo every time he's on the ice, and only him. Once I notice that he's on the ice, I shadow him with my eyes. With that said I don't see him being the pathetic brutal player most people do.

Yes he's not scoring, but in reality he's only played with either Spezza Michalek or Kovalev/Fisher 36% of the time. He's been bounced from one line to another constantly, and I find that brutal. Why is it ok to bounce a scorer like Cheechoo around from line to line constantly changing his line mates, but We allow Spezza to play with Michalek and Alfie all the time. Spezza has 3 times the points that Cheechoo has, but I'd argue that playing with Alfie and Michalek he's playing with more than 3 times the talent than what Cheechoo is playing with. Spezza is also averaging more then 5 min more of Time on Ice even strength and more than 2 minutes more of Power Play time each game. That in itself can account

True he's not producing offensively, but there is more to it than just scoring. He's on the 4th line, so his job is to punish teams offensively and be defensively responsible. He's got 11 give aways (which is only 2 more than Alfie and Kelly) but has 10 take aways which for me evens out and makes it a wash.

I could throw stats out all night, but I'll be honest, given who his line mates are and how much ice time he gets I'm happy with the way he is performing. I don't blame him that coaches don't give me a real shot to play with good players. I would give him 5 games up with Fisher and Foligno (it would have started when Kovalev left) to see how he performs. If he plays well then I look at bumping Foligno down when kovalev returns.

He contract is far from dead weight.

I love his work ethic. Don't get me wrong, I think in the right setting he's a useful guy. But the bottom line for me is this: If a guy is being paid $3 million per, I need one of two things, at least, from him. 1) Scoring (I'd settle for reliable secondary scoring from Cheechoo) or 2) Penalty killing (and a good one at that). We are getting neither from him. Otherwise, he'd just a guy who's being paid $3 million per to occupy a spot that could be occupied by a guy being paid a sixth of what Cheechoo is.

I think that pairing him with Fisher and Foligno might be a good idea, as I think his strong work ethic and work on the boards would really compliment the other two, but the problem is that Fisher is our N1 centre atm. I'd be more inclined to try that once Spezza is going.

All good points. I was simply trying to point out that he's not been given a fair chance to play with decent players for any length of time. Like I said if it were me, I would have put him with Foligno and Fisher for the Buffalo, Washington, New Jersey and Columbus games. He stays on that line (at least with Foligno should you have to double shift centers), but the end result is you give him 5 games. Having Kovalev in Russia gives you the perfect time to try it and give him the full 5 games to get going. If it doesn't work after 5 solid games then I'll agree to push him down, but my god you have to give him some time to develop chemistry.

Even Michalek didn't click right off the bat but you didn't see him getting demoted.

Devo wrote:All good points. I was simply trying to point out that he's not been given a fair chance to play with decent players for any length of time. Like I said if it were me, I would have put him with Foligno and Fisher for the Buffalo, Washington, New Jersey and Columbus games. He stays on that line (at least with Foligno should you have to double shift centers), but the end result is you give him 5 games. Having Kovalev in Russia gives you the perfect time to try it and give him the full 5 games to get going. If it doesn't work after 5 solid games then I'll agree to push him down, but my god you have to give him some time to develop chemistry.

Even Michalek didn't click right off the bat but you didn't see him getting demoted.

I agree that he was quick to be demoted. It's probably due to the fact that he's come over here with a certain tag if you will attached to him. It's apparent to me that he had a short leash from the get go.

In my opinion though, like you are saying, he needs to be put in the best possible situation to succeed in order to maximize the value from his contract. The problem lies in that we've got other guys who can't or shouldn't have to sacrifice for Cheechoo to succeed.

It's frustrating because he's the type of player a fan really wants to root for.