Senators' quarter-mark report: Better defence, but goalies remain an issue

OTTAWA — Once again, another slow-motion November Senators crash has come to the nation’s capital. In the bilingual town of Ottawa, Senators fans sure  understand déjà vu.  

But the frustration hits different the longer it continues.

You can quibble whether the overall play of the Ottawa Senators has warranted its poor record to start this season. Regardless, here we are once again. An 8-11-1 record, riding a five-game losing streak, is not where the team or its fans hoped they’d be quarter of the way into this season.

There is plenty of time to steady the ship but does a rebuild have an expiry date?

The general manager, coach and captain have all said their team lacked maturity at times. In previous seasons, the team’s lack of maturity was obvious on the defensive end, but this season they’ve improved in their own zone.

This season there are lapses in concentration, allowing goals in bunches, compounded with another disappointment between the pipes as their newly acquired former Vezina trophy winner, Linus Ullmark — who was supposed to be a saviour — has struggled.

Don’t blame the fans for their misery, blame the results. The Senators have underperformed.

“Well, we’re 8-9-1, and they keep score for a reason,” general manager Steve Staios said at his quarter-mark press conference last Wednesday, before the Sens’ consecutive losses to Vegas and Vancouver. “And do I think we've played better than that? Sure? You know, I think for us (we have) to figure out as a group why that's our record.”

Fool me once, shame on you, fool me a hundredth time, what do we do?  That is the sentiment of Sens Nation.

Hope is what fans yearn for — and there is hope. Tim Stützle has been a superstar; the Senators have had a fully healthy roster recently; every advanced analytic indicates that this team should be better than its record, unlike previous years.

Will the team become the sum of its excellent parts or regress to familiar form? That will be the defining question of the remaining 62 games of the Senators’ season.

MOST ENCOURAGING DEVELOPMENT: DEFENSIVE STRUCTURE

In seasons prior, the Senators were on a wild goose chase in their own end, following the puck and not the play. The team would often allow their opponents to run them ragged in the defensive own zone, generating a huge volume of high-danger chances. This season, under new head coach Travis Green, there has been a focused message: defend, defend, defend, and then maybe focus on scoring.

“We've really emphasized our defensive game from the start of the season,” said Green.

It has worked, mostly. The stats back it up.

It’s a sight to behold for a team that used to be shakier than Ottawa’s light-rail system in their own zone.

If the Senators didn’t have the sixth-worst team save percentage, we would be talking about a team that has finally learned how to defend at a high level.

MOST CONCERNING DEVELOPMENT: GOALTENDING … AGAIN

There has been a goalie graveyard in Ottawa for years and the hope was that Ullmark wouldn’t follow his predecessors there. It’s still early, but he has struggled immensely early this season, posting a .881 save percentage, which would be the worst of his career: he has never finished a season below a .905 save percentage.

This Senators team would do anything for a goalie with a .905 save percentage. Ullmark has already taken personal responsibility for two losses out of the six he’s played in this season — in the team’s first match with Vegas and again in Philadelphia.

However, it hasn’t been all bad: he played exceptionally well against his former team, the Boston Bruins, and then posted a shutout against the Maple Leafs.

TOP-SIX FORWARDS B+

If this team had scored more goals, it would have more wins in the month of November and this grade would be higher (Thanks, Captain Obvious). Nevertheless, both Stützle (24 points) and Brady Tkachuk (20 points) are on pace for a career high in points while Drake Batherson (20 points) has been close to a point per game player and Josh Norris is scoring after coming off shoulder surgery and is on pace for over 30 goals. Despite producing, it's getting ugly for the top-six. Both Tkachuk and Stützle got into fights as they let out their frustrations in their most recent loss to Vancouver.

Peel back the curtain, there have been many variations of the Senators’ top two lines, which have been mixed and matched by Green and have consistently out-chanced opponents. The Sens have the sixth-best power play after a red-hot start.

However, Ridly Greig has struggled to produce, with only five points this season, mainly playing up in the lineup. In November, the Senators have only scored 2.4 goals per game.

The next step for the top six is to vault their shooting percentage up from 9.54 percent, which is 22nd in the league, and then better results will follow individually and collectively. 

BOTTOM-SIX FORWARDS: B

When you have a hot fourth line and a cold third line it earns a B grade for the bottom-six.

The fourth line has combined for 11 goals in 20 games, mostly from Adam Gaudette’s fiery stick, which has produced eight goals. You can’t ask for much more from the fourth line, which consists of Nick Cousins and Zack MacEwen, in addition to Gaudette, and has out-shot opponents 111 to 90 this season.

However, the Senators’ third line has been incomplete for long periods with Shane Pinto out of the lineup with injury and David Perron tending to his newborn daughter’s health. In the eight games this season when Michael Amadio and Perron have played together they’ve played well, out-shooting opponents 64 to 43. But they’ve only scored one goal at five-on-five, which just isn’t enough. It led to Travis Green to throw Shane Pinto onto the top line in place of Josh Norris against Vancouver to shake things up.

If the team can stay healthy, hopefully Green will have the runway to roll four lines that, so far, have all out-shot their opponents on a nightly basis.

DEFENCE: B+

This has been the Senators’ best defensive corps since 2016-17. Nick Jensen (Dylan Demelo 2.0) has been a revelation with Thomas Chabot, outscoring opponents 18 to 15 at five-on-five. Meanwhile, the bottom pair of Tyler Kleven playing with a rotating duo of Travis Hamonic and Jacob Bernard-Docker has been steady all season.

The Senators’ No. 1 defenceman, Jake Sanderson, came out of the gates on a torrid heater with six points in five games, but hasn’t been himself since, getting some of the autumn chills, earning his first five-on-five point of the season on Thursday.

“Definitely cooled off a little bit since the start,” Sanderson told Sportsnet.ca “But I know that stuff comes and goes. You can't really ride the wave on that, or you'll get caught up in it. So, I feel all right. I feel like I can contribute a little better.”

Sens fans have sometimes dreamed of a Norris Trophy for Sanderson one day. But he knows his priority and it isn’t chasing silverware.

“If I am being completely honest, I don't think my playing style will ever win a Norris,” Sanderson told Sportsnet.ca. “And I'm fine with that. I like to be on both sides of the puck. And I feel like a lot of that Norris stuff is a lot of point stuff, too. So, I'm probably not going to be putting up 90 and 100 points, so I just want to defend hard and win games.”

Sanderson has been outscored 17-7 at five-on-five this season. Night after night he has been matched up against the opponents’ best players, from Connor McDavid to Nathan MacKinnon.

“I know my importance on the team,” said Sanderson. “I feel like I'm just maturing, and I feel like I'm an impactful player every time I'm on the ice.”

If Sanderson can take his level up a notch, it will complete this Senators D-corps that has been much improved.

GOALTENDING: C-

As mentioned above, the Senators' biggest area of concern has been in net, with the sixth-worst team save percentage in the league at .879. That is worse than last season when they had the worst save percentage in the league at .884. (For context, the league-wide save percentage has dropped this season.)

However, Ullmark’s backup, Anton Forsberg, has been fine, posting a .903 save percentage.

This was supposed to be the season that the question marks in net would be resolved. If Ullmark and Forsberg can claw their numbers to league average, the Senators would be in good stead to go on a win streak ,which they haven’t done all season.

QUARTER-MARK AWARDS

Most Valuable Player: Tim Stützle
Most Improved Player: Drake Batherson
Best Defensive Player: Nick Jensen