Ultimate Hockey Warrior

Craig Hartsburg has been named the new coach of the Ottawa Senators.  The Senators fired John Paddock late in the season and GM Bryan Murray took over for the rest of the year as the Senators finished a disappointing season getting knocked out of the playoffs in the 1^st round.  Hartsburg was a head coach in the NHL with the Ducks and Blackhawks, but had limited success with both teams.  Hartsburg is currently coming off of two coaching jobs, he was the head coach for the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds and he also has been the head coach of the Canadian World Junior team.  Here is a quote from Hartsburg:

“It’s a good team that needs some structure and some accountability,” Hartsburg told the Sault Star on Thursday. “And if it gets that, then it should be a good hockey club.”

• Leave a comment... (0)

Ottawa Senators head coach and GM, Bryan Murray, stated that Ray Emery won’t be on the team next year.  The Senators will look to trade Ray Emery during the off-season to any one who is willing to pay the price and accept the goaltender with attitude problems.  Despite the attitude problems, Ray Emery is still a good goaltender, he just needs to play to not be a whiny player.

Murray had this to say about Ray Emery:  “My plan is not to have him back,”

Murray dodged questions asking him if the Senators would buy out Emery’s contract if there were no teams who would trade for Ray Emery.  Murray did make it clear that they want Emery to be traded because of his attitude problems with this comment:

“I don’t know if he was a total distraction or not, but the fact is he didn’t play down the stretch and he didn’t play in the playoffs, and that was a result of him not having played as well as he did a year ago,” Murray said. “He didn’t, in my opinion, commit to the team in the way that we think our players have to commit.”

note:  quotes courtesy of tsn.ca

• Leave a comment... (0)

Daniel Alfredsson got absolutely destroyed last night by mark Bell against the Toronto Maple Leafs.  Alfredsson skated across the middle of the ice with his head down and took a shoulder to the head in a clean hit from Mark Bell.  Alfredsson’s helmet went flying and Alfredsson had to struggle to get back to his feet.

Alfredsson came back for one more shift in the 2nd period before sitting out the rest of the game.  While the Senators are calling Alfredsson’s injury an “upper-body injury”, although Alfredsson’s injury is surely a concussion.  Team officials are saying that Alfredssson is out indefinitely and could miss many weeks.  As it is the Senators need a little bit of luck to make the playoffs if the Senators lose to the Bruins tonight.

• Leave a comment... (0)

The Ottawa Senators are currently in the 2008 NHL playoffs by a meager 2 points.   Not very impressive from a team that started the season on fire, going 15-2 in their first 17 games.  Now the Ottawa Senators are hampered by the underachieving efforts night after night.  Is the pressure getting to them?  Bad coaching?  No effort?

No matter the cause, the Ottawa Senators are currently sitting with 92 points with 2 games remaining (Thursday vs. Toronto and Friday vs. Boston).  The 2 teams that are only 1 point back are the Flyers and the Bruins.  Both teams play tonight, and if they both win the Senators will be sitting in 8th place with 1 games left to play.  The upstart Washington Capitals are tied for the division lead in the Southeast Division with the Carolina Hurricanes with 90 points.

So, lets see how the Senators can miss the playoffs.  The Bruins and Flyers each have 3 games left.  If both teams win at least 1 game each, the Hurricanes win 1 more game and the Capitals win one more game and the Senators lose out, then the Senators miss the playoffs.  While the Senators and the Capitals would be tied with 42 wins and 92 points, the Capitals won the season series with the Senators 4-0 this year for the tiebreaker.  If the Senators unable to get points in their last 2 games there is a very real possibility they will be missing the playoffs.

The Capitals play the Lightning and the Thrashers and the Hurricanes final 2 games are against the Panthers and Thrashers.  Both teams are out of playoff contention.  The Bruins have 3 games left and play the Devils, Senators and Sabers.  The Flyer’s final 3 games are against the Penguins, Devils then Penguins.

At this point in time I would bet against the Senators making the playoffs. They are playing poor, uninspired hockey right now and they don’t deserve to be a playoff team.  How would Ottawa fans take it if this talented team didn’t make it to the 2008 NHL playoffs?

• Leave a comment... (0)

The Ottawa Senators ended a 3 game losing streak against the Pittsburgh Penguins this afternoon winning 5-4.  Daniel Alfredsson put up 3 points on 2 goals and an assist and Evgeni Malkin had 1 goal and 2 assists for the Penguins.

Ty Conklin got the start and the loss for the Penguins who have now allowed 5 goals in their last 2 games, both losses.  Ottawa started Martin Gerber who got the win, but was shaky in the effort.  Neither goalie impressed in the game this afternoon.

Ryan Malone scored twice for the Penguins while the Senators got goals from Heatley, Vermette and newcomer Martin Lapointe.  The Senators are now tied for 1st place in the Eastern Conference with New Jersey, who plays tonight against the Montreal Canadians in a battle for 1st place in the Eastern Conference.

• Leave a comment... (0)

The Ottawa Senators fired their coach John Paddock in a surprising move on Wednesday, and GM Bryan Murray named himself head coach.  Paddock has led the Senators in 1st place in the Eastern Conference for most of the year, but the Senators have played horrible as of late and have fallen out of 1st place.

Assistant coach Ron Low was also fired on Wednesday.

“It comes certainly because of performance lately,” Murray said. “The results we’ve been having — or not having — was an indicator that some adjustment, some emotion had to be brought back to the team.”

Murray was the Sens coach last year when they made it all the way to the Stanley Cup Finals before losing to the Ducks.  John Paddock was hired int he off-season to take over coaching duties for the Senators.

The Senators are such a deep team with the strongest line in all of hockey, with Spezza, Heatley and Alfredsson, plus a great defense and 2 good goalies.  There was no reason for such a falloff from such a strong team, and now Murray will try and turn things around as head coach for the Ottawa Senators.  Although this was Paddock’s first season as head coach of the Senators, he had been with the Senators organization for 6 years.  Paddock was offered an undisclosed job with the Ottawa Senators despite being fired as the Ottawa head coach.

• Leave a comment... (0)

Daniel Alfredsson returned to the Ottawa Senators tonight against the Montreal Canadians and had a monstrous night with his linemates Heatley and Spezza. The Senators destroyed the Canadians 6-1, and in the thrashing, Spezza had 6 points on 3 goals and 3 assists, Alfredsson had 5 points on 2 goals and 3 assists and Dany Heatley had 3 points on 3 assists.

This is the first time the big line of Spezza - Heatley - Alfredsson has played together in 13 games, and they dominated the game. Heatley returned last game for the Senators and in his two games since he returned he has 7 points.

Most importantly for the Senators, they opened up a 5 point lead for first place in the Eastern Conference. The Senators look to continue their domination next against Buffalo on Tuesday.

• Leave a comment... (0)

Daniel Alfredsson is returning to the Ottawa Senators for tomorrow night’s game against the Montreal Canadians.  Alfredsson returns to the ice after missing the last 4 games due to a hip flexor injury.

The Senators just got Dany Heatley back, and now Alfredsson will come back to complete the most dangerous line in hockey.  The Heatley, Spezza and Alfredsson combo terrorizes every team they play against, and now that they are united I would expect the Senators to go on a roll.  Alfredsson and the Senators will host the Montreal Canadians tomorrow night at 4 pm eastern time.

• Leave a comment... (0)