Ottawa is so full of excuses!

[Corp000085]

All those ottawa articles on the main page can be summed up in one or two sentences. The senators are a cocky bunch of guys who feel that they didn't lose and the sabres didn't win... They just gave the game away. I remember this cocky attitude during the 1999 playoffs. I think its time for the sabres to dial in the defense and put together a nice 3-1 effort on monday. I can't stand the dirty play of philly, but i really can't stand the smug attitude of ottawa. I believe i now know why so much of the country hated the buffalo bills.

[Kristian]

Well, the fact remains that we didn't really learn anything from game 1 other than both teams can skate, which we already knew.

 

In fact, both teams seemed to intent on skating that they completely forgot about playing D.

 

Whichever team is able to tighten it up a bit tomorrow will certainly have an edge.

[Stoner]

Good call Corp.

[sargenthulka]

Totally agree. Just one look at Brian Murray's face confirms that. Also, he was quoted as saying he'd let Lindy worry about matching lines, he'd just put his best players out there. The Senators are a team in desperate need of some humility.

[hopeleslyobvious]

All those ottawa articles on the main page can be summed up in one or two sentences. The senators are a cocky bunch of guys who feel that they didn't lose and the sabres didn't win... They just gave the game away. I remember this cocky attitude during the 1999 playoffs. I think its time for the sabres to dial in the defense and put together a nice 3-1 effort on monday. I can't stand the dirty play of philly, but i really can't stand the smug attitude of ottawa. I believe i now know why so much of the country hated the buffalo bills.

 

Honestly I think there is some merit to what the Sens are saying. The Sens played a great game and picked apart our defense, and limited our offensive chances. However, the Sabres capitalized on almost every good chance that they had. So the Sens SHOULD be concerned about that.

[Dump & Chase]

Murray is smart to rally his crew by saying they simply sucked and still almost won the damn game. They will charge out again. But Emery looks very weak. He was bruttal. Our defense simply has to play better. My god, only Tallinder and McKee showed up. The other 4 were in lalaland. Ottawa will win the next game 4-2. In Buffalo, we will win both with smashmouth Ruff style hoceky and then win in Otttawa to finish these guys off. Muckler will get Murray to settle the Sens down for game 2 however. NO way they loose 2 in a row at home. Unless Miller is a freak, which he is not.

[MartyHavlatismyGOD]

All those ottawa articles on the main page can be summed up in one or two sentences. The senators are a cocky bunch of guys who feel that they didn't lose and the sabres didn't win... They just gave the game away. I remember this cocky attitude during the 1999 playoffs. I think its time for the sabres to dial in the defense and put together a nice 3-1 effort on monday. I can't stand the dirty play of philly, but i really can't stand the smug attitude of ottawa. I believe i now know why so much of the country hated the buffalo bills.

 

 

Links??? - I personally think the sens lost the game more than the Sabres won it.

 

http://www.nhl.com/news/2006/05/271572.html

Senators must limit turnovers to even up series Monday night

 

OTTAWA (CP) - The Ottawa Senators spent part of their practice Saturday on breakout drills.

 

As in getting the puck to the players wearing the same jersey.

 

There were 13 goals scored in Friday night's series-opening win by the Buffalo Sabres, and the Senators created about 10 of them.

 

 

"I can't make as many mistakes as I did," Ottawa rookie defenceman Andrej Meszaros said after practice. "It was one of those nights and I have to make sure it never happens again."

 

Meszaros and fellow Senators blue-liner Anton Volchenkov, in particular, could not have enjoyed Saturday morning's video session. They would have seen a couple of young defencemen handling the puck like a hand grenade, Volchenkov's last gaffe leading to Chris Drury's overtime winner Friday night.

 

"I think the guys understand - it was a sloppy, careless game," Senators head coach Bryan Murray said after practice. "We gave goals away last night."

 

As the Senators watched video of Game 1 on Saturday, they came to the realization they had only themselves to blame.

 

"We gave them most of their goals," said winger Peter Schaefer. "It was frustrating to know that we outworked and outshot them but then just gave it to them."

 

That was the general message from the Senators dressing room Saturday, and while there's some truth to their analysis, it carries a hint of danger if they don't realize the lightning-quick Sabres had something to do with what happened as well. The fastest team in the NHL initiated some of those turnovers.

 

"They got a lot of speed," agreed star Ottawa defenceman Wade Redden. "What they're really good at is creating chances off turnovers. There were times last night when we did make a mistake and they were ready to pounce. We have to limit that."

 

The Senators did outshoot Buffalo 33-23 and easily outchanced the Sabres, but the visiting team was lethal when handed a turnover or scoring chance. Want proof? The Sabres had only four shots on goal in the second period but scored on two of them - both 2-on-1 breaks thanks to turnovers.

 

"They're a team that when you give them a 2-on-1 - which we did three times - they score on them," said Murray. "Lots of teams don't score on those. We know that Tim Connolly and Chris Drury and Daniel Briere, in particular, make great plays around the offensive net."

 

The Sabres have been doing it all year. Give them a chance, and they're off to the races, and they rarely miss.

 

"We've got good team speed, we've been able to be creative enough with very good scoring opportunities to take advantage of teams," Sabres coach Lindy Ruff said Saturday from Buffalo.

 

"It wasn't that we filled the chance sheet up with chances last night - but of the very good chances we got we made sure we finished."

 

The Sabres are adept at making that finesse pass from in-close, with the soft hands of Drury, Briere and Connolly leading the way. So when Drury had the puck in overtime Friday night, Ottawa goalie Ray Emery was thinking pass. Instead Drury shot it and caught Emery leaning.

 

"I may have been cheating a little bit," Emery admitted Saturday.

 

The 23-year-old Emery had the largest media contingent waiting for him after practice. The questions were obvious: did he sleep well, was he too nervous Friday night, does he remain confident?

 

"I slept pretty good actually," said the unflappable Emery, flashing a smile to the TV cameras. "Hey, it's a long series, I'll learn from my mistakes."

 

He watched video both Friday night and Saturday morning and thinks he's got a better handle on his opposing shooters.

 

"You realize the other team's tendencies after the first game," Emery said.

 

Star winger Dany Heatley said it wasn't fair for Emery to take all the heat, feeling the players had "let him out to dry" with their poor defensive play.

 

"And he doesn't let anything rattle him anyway," Heatley said. "That's his personality."

 

The seven-goal barrage on Emery prodded some media members into asking Murray for the latest update on 41-year-old Dominik Hasek, out since the Olympics with a groin injury. That's probably going to happen every time Emery has a shaky game.

 

"I haven't seen him on the ice," Murray said of Hasek. "So I assume Ray Emery will be our guy for the entire series and that's OK."

 

Even if Hasek went up to Murray in this series and pronounced himself healthy, just how effective would he be after missing half a season at his age? The reality is that the Senators will live or die with the rookie Emery in net, and must better protect him come Game 2 on Monday night.

 

"We won't play that sloppy again," promised Murray.

 

Notes: Murray gave defenceman Zdeno Chara and Chris Phillips the day off ... Forward Chris Kelly also missed practice after suffering an eye injury Friday night. "Kelly has swollen up pretty good but he should probably practise tomorrow and play Monday," said Murray ... Ruff wasn't totally pleased with his team's effort in Game 1 despite the win. "We've gone through the game (video) and I've got 41 clips to show. So I think everywhere from special teams, power play, penalty killing, to our pursuit, to our play in our defensive zone - we need to sharpen up in a lot of areas."

[Orange Seats]

Links??? - I personally think the sens lost the game more than the Sabres won it.

 

 

 

If that means that one team felt all full of itself and didn't even try hard enough to get an empty netter while the other team saw every little rebound as a chance to win, then I guess you're right... the Sens really lost that game.

 

Oh, and, you know... the Sabres won it.

[hopeleslyobvious]

Unless Miller is a freak, which he is not.

 

Miller has the ability to come up big in games when the rest of the team doesn't show up (Loss to Ottawa that started the slump). I think tomorrow he steals one for the team.

[deluca67]

Links??? - I personally think the sens lost the game more than the Sabres won it.

 

http://www.nhl.com/news/2006/05/271572.html

 

The most important word in your post is "lost". The Sabres played their worst game of the playoffs and still won. Their defense over played and Miller was not on his A game. And the Sabres still won.

 

It is more then possible that each team plays better in game two and the Sabres win. ;)

[MartyHavlatismyGOD]

The most important word in your post is "lost". The Sabres played their worst game of the playoffs and still won.

 

Game one was a feeling out process - i fully expect a dominating Sens win tomorrow.

[topshelfcookies]

Miller has the ability to come up big in games when the rest of the team doesn't show up (Loss to Ottawa that started the slump). I think tomorrow he steals one for the team.

 

I've felt all along that if Buffalo was going to win this series, Miller would have to legitimately "steal" at least 1 game...perhaps more.

 

The team itself stole Game 1, despite of Miller's play.

 

I'm not too upset by the apparent cockiness that the Ottawa media is showing towards the Sabres. The Ottawa media should be cocky. The Sens were the best team in the East for most of the entire season. They flat out dominated the East for the first two months. From December on, Buffalo might have been playing as well as Ottawa, but don't forget, even though Buffalo was playing as well as they were, they still were unable to catch the Sens.

 

I think that the Ottawa media feels that this Sens team is finally different from teams in the past (gee, sound familiar?). The main reason for this is because the Sens escaped Tampa, after the Bolts won Game 2 and returned to Florida with a split. Instead of mulling over a bad game and self-distructing to a hot, yet inferior team, the Senators finally figured out how to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and win a series while facing some heavy controversy and criticism.

 

I think that Sabres fans have every right in the world to still be flying hight after Game 1...I know I am. The hard part of the argument between the two sides of Game 1 is this. Did Ottawa lose Game 1, or did Buffalo win?

Well...both are right. Ottawa dominated play for the most part. Buffalo was unable to get any type of consistent pressure in the Ottawa zone, the Buffalo PP didn't look great, Ottawa was able to get 2 PP goals. Buffalo really had no business even being in the game, let alone winning.

 

THAT being said...kudos to the Sabres. To me, a sign of a truly great team is their ability to win games even when they don't play their best. This team has done this all season long. Even on nights when they seem to be getting outplayed, they work hard enough and skate fast enough and receive "good enough" goaltending to give themselves a chance. Very rarely is this team blown away...the Sabres are a hard team to get more than a 2 goal lead on. A huge part of this is the fact that they are absolutely deadly when given the opportunity to convert on opposition mistakes. The Senators found this out the hard way Friday night.

 

Much of the cockiness that people are referring to I think is really self-preservation more than anything else. To me, the Senators don't sound that different than the Sabres did after Games 3 and 4 vs. Philly. To a man, Buffalo pretty much just summed those losses up to some lucky bounces...couldn't that be considered cockiness?

Ottawa just lost a game they had no business losing, yet they realize that they played well, scored 6 goals, picked apart the Buffalo D and outskated Buffalo for most of the night. Almost every Buffalo goal was the result of a pretty crappy/flukey Ottawa turnover. Give the Sabres credit for converting those opportunities...to me, that's another sign of a great team, but what do you want the Sens to say? Admit that they let the Sabres hang around, that their goalie let in at least 4 crappy goals and the fact that their rookie defensemen played like rookies? All after Game 1 in a best of 7 series, when they still have 3 home games? Ottawa is far from done in this series and I think we might be wise to use a little caution.

[hopeleslyobvious]

Game one was a feeling out process - i fully expect a dominating Sens win tomorrow.

 

With Ray Emery leading the domination right? ;)

[MartyHavlatismyGOD]

With Ray Emery leading the domination right?

 

Nah - Zdeno Chara and Anton Volchenkov... With Briere having an "upper body ailment" or injury or whatever, expect him to be pounded more relentlessly than usual.

 

I expect Emery to play better. The Key to Ottawa winning the series is that Emery doesn't need to play well enough to steal any games - he just can't lose too many. (one is too many imo - but we will see).

[gregkash]

people can say whatever they want to the media, but you dont' think anyone in the locker room is going, crap, we have Emery?

 

I mean, speaking of winning and losing games..

 

How many games did Emery win for the Sens? I don't think he actually was the cause. THe Sens just outscored people. They'd win games 4-3 or 8-4 #%^$#! like that. I mean, that's not good goalie play, that's just flat out an offensive juggernaught.

[inkman]

How many games did Emery win for the Sens? I don't think he actually was the cause. THe Sens just outscored people. They'd win games 4-3 or 8-4 #%^$#! like that. I mean, that's not good goalie play, that's just flat out an offensive juggernaught.

 

playoffs

 

reg season

 

His numbers in the playoffs are deplorable. Regular season, his numbers are okay but his save % is a little low at .905. Normally, teams and goaltenders step up their games in the post season but he seems to have regressed. Maybe he will make me eat my words, but I have my doubts.

[deluca67]

Nah - Zdeno Chara and Anton Volchenkov... With Briere having an "upper body ailment" or injury or whatever, expect him to be pounded more relentlessly than usual.

 

I expect Emery to play better. The Key to Ottawa winning the series is that Emery doesn't need to play well enough to steal any games - he just can't lose too many. (one is too many imo - but we will see).

 

If Buffalo scores first? Chara and Co. will be looking back over their shoulder wondering whats going on.

 

All the pressure is on the Sens who have a history of not facing challenges well. As soon as a team bloodies their nose a bit they lose interest. The Sabres have bloodied the Sens :rolleyes:

[jad1]

Nah - Zdeno Chara and Anton Volchenkov... With Briere having an "upper body ailment" or injury or whatever, expect him to be pounded more relentlessly than usual.

 

I expect Emery to play better. The Key to Ottawa winning the series is that Emery doesn't need to play well enough to steal any games - he just can't lose too many. (one is too many imo - but we will see).

 

Rather than worry about 'pounding' on the Sabres, the Sens defense better worry about stopping the Sabres transition game, because they got roasted by it in game one. 5 of the 7 goals came on odd-man breaks. It was a very Flyer-like performance by the Sens defense, although Emery couldn't carry Esche's jockstrap.

 

By the way, doing this is going to be easier said than done, seeing how the Sabres fast break is the main reason they've won 57 games (and counting) this season, which by the way, is one more than the Sens have won this year.

[Spandrel]

Tonight's game is going to be very telling. I mean if you take away Ottawa's fast start to the season, they are now 2-4 against the Sabres since losing that first game in the shootout right before the Olympic break. It is tough to know, still, whether Game 1 of the playoff series was an abberation or an example of how evenly these teams might be matched.

 

The problem for Sabres fans like myself is that we got roughed up so badly in the first 3 games this season, that I still feel like we are not in the same league as Ottawa, but I'm not so sure. I agree with MHimG that the first game was a feeling-out game for both teams (although with 8 games against each other over the season, they should know each other pretty well). I don't know how much we can glean from either team's performance. I have to think Emery is going to bounce back, and that we will have more trouble scoring tonight.

[TM8-PL16]

Ottawa has only lost two games all year (including playoffs) when they scored 4 or more goals.... both times it was to Buffalo. Ottawa may start thinking too much, this team isn't supposed to lose games when they score at least 4, they may start looking at eachother like "this isn't supposed to happen? what's going on?"

 

ya never know....

 

should be interesting

[Dagwood]

Certainly a situation tonight where both teams step up and limit the others chances.

It will be very telling. I'm still in awe of the fact the Sabres pretty much scored on every opportunity given them. Still, the OT loss will serve as fuel for the Sens no doubt but they still need to actually do it on the ice.

 

Let's hope for another good game tonight, but with a lot less mistakes on either side and see which team brings a complete game from top to bottom and then we'll have a better opportunity to really compare these two great, skilled teams. I'd say the pressure is just as much on Miller as it is Emery to turn things around so it will be very interesting to see how both these goaltenders react tonight.

 

Let's look at it this way. Brodeur lost 6 - 0, Theodore lost 2 games by 3 - 0 with shutouts going to the Ducks Rookie. So Emery and Miller don't look so bad now after all when you factor in the lack of success by Brodeur and Theo. :o

[apuszczalowski]

I'd say the pressure is just as much on Miller as it is Emery to turn things around so it will be very interesting to see how both these goaltenders react tonight.

Everyone keeps saying Miller had a bad game. He wasn't dominator style, shutdown, nothings getting past him game like we were all used to with Dom, but he played pretty decent considering his opponents. He faced 33 shots and made 27 saves (.818 sv%, not great but not horrible) If he didn't give up a bunch of rebounds, and his defencemen cleared the puck, he may have only given up half of those goals. Emery face only about 23 shots and made about 16 saves (.696 sv%, that is not going to win you any games) That is definitly not numbers a goalie should have in the playoffs. When you face only 23 shots all game, you gotta save atleast a couple of them.

 

If Ottawa gets their defence back in the game, they will have a very good chance to tie the series, but I have a feeling Ottawa will not have as easy of a time getting to Miller this game either.

[Dagwood]

True enough...but I would like to simply say that the goals scored on Emery, except the OT were of real fine quality shots by the Sabres. The one to tie the game was a direct result of Emery not finding the handle and too many sticks jabbing at the puck which caused it to squirt loose.

 

So yes, his save percentage was horrible, but the goals scored were real quality shots which any goaltender might have a hard time on.

 

It certainly is hard to predict anything with these two teams right now until one of them establishes thier game on the backend.

[scottnc]

He faced 33 shots and made 27 saves (.818 sv%, not great but not horrible)

 

.818 isn't horrible? Yes it is. I'm not saying it was all his fault, as some pucks could have been cleared, but we need a couple of more saves from Miller. There was a couple of rebounds that should have been gobbled up. If Emery covers that puck with 10 seconds left, we'd be here talking about how the Sabre's can rebound in game 2. Of course no one really seemed interested in playing defense in game one, so maybe he was just going with the flow.

[MartyHavlatismyGOD]

His numbers in the playoffs are deplorable.

 

He had a .92 save % before game 1, much like Miller's was much higher as well.

 

 

All the pressure is on the Sens who have a history of not facing challenges well. As soon as a team bloodies their nose a bit they lose interest.

 

 

I didnt realize john Tortarella was on these boards! Believe it or not,

 

 

EVERY TEAM IN THE NHL PLAYOFFS FEELS PRESSURE