OTTAWA — The Ottawa Senators have been away from home for almost a month, and a lot has happened in that time. The Senators went on a six-game winning streak, Canada collapsed at the World Juniors, the Senators lost Linus Ullmark to injury and the calendar flipped.
The Senators' nine-game road trip was built as a make-or-break trip; it certainly didn’t break the team, but it hasn’t made them either.
They finished a modest 4-4-1. A .500 road trip felt like the bare minimum, yet they did pass the trip with a B grade.
After starting the trip 3-0, they went 1-4-1 without Ullmark. They have still struggled on the road, with a 9-11-2 record during the season.
The Senators' biggest problem was a lack of offence, but it’s part of a larger trend. Their underlying numbers suggest there is reason for concern.
Data according to Natural StatTrick
The Senators' road trip could have been worse based on their play, but their goals for per game during that time ranks near the bottom of the league.
It hasn’t just been on their road trip: the Senators have the second-fewest goals since Nov. 15. The team has scored only five goals twice since the start of November. The good news is, they didn’t allow five goals in any game on their road trip either.
Until late in the second period against Detroit on Tuesday night, the team hadn’t scored a goal in over 120 minutes. Unfortunately for Senators fans, some of the team got sick midway through the nine-game stretch, including star Tim Stutzle.
Goals have been hard to come by. On the road trip, Stutzle, Brady Tkachuk, Drake Batherson, Josh Norris and Claude Giroux combined for nine goals in the nine games. Not good enough.
The question is, why has the offence dried up?
All season, the Senators have been in the bottom half of the league in high-danger chances created and have been 21st in that category since the start of their road trip on Dec. 17. When they got chances in that span, they executed with 8.8 per cent shooting, which is 26th in the league. They aren’t capitalizing on their chances, partly because they aren't generating enough. The Senators generated only 33 total shots against St. Louis and Dallas combined.
It led captain Tkachuk to make a pointed comment about his team's play after the Dallas game: “The second half was embarrassing, embarrassing hockey. Just unacceptable.”
One of the reasons for the lack of scoring is that Norris simply hasn’t been driving the play as a second-line centre, which got him demoted to the third line alongside Adam Gaudette and Nick Cousins. He has the fourth-worst shot share at five-on-five of any Senator to play 50 minutes and the sixth-worst expected goal share at five-on-five, according to Natural StatTrick. To Norris’ credit, he has been excellent defensively, especially on the penalty kill, and has been winning faceoffs at 54.7 per cent.
The Senators need more from Norris, who is supposed to be the team’s second-line centre and is making close to $8 million for another six seasons but scored just twice on the road trip.
Norris's demotion to the third line has worked. Shane Pinto replaced Norris on a line with Tkachuk and Ridly Greig. Unlike Norris, Pinto has been a play driver this season: He is fifth on the Senators in shot share and ninth in expected goals share. The new line has been excellent, scoring three of Ottawa's last five goals at five-on-five while outshooting opponents 29 to 23, according to Natural Stat Trick.
Meanwhile, both David Perron and Michael Amadio are close to returning from injury, which would bolster the third line and give the Senators a boost of depth scoring. However, neither Perron nor Amadio is fast, an issue the team struggles with and for which there is no clear solution. According to NHL Edge, they are below league average in total distance travelled and other skating categories. Outside of Stutzle and Norris, who are both in the 98th percentile in top skating speed, according to NHL edge, only Noah Gregor is a speed demon.
Can’t teach speed. Nevertheless, Ottawa will need its top players to start producing, and quickly.
After the Senators' 3-0-0 start to the road trip with Ullmark healthy, their goaltending let them down with a .883 save percentage since his injury. Anton Forsberg was out for the majority of the trip and looked shaky in his first game back from injury against St. Louis. But he was outstanding against Detroit on Tuesday night, stopping 30 of 33 shots. I wrote earlier that the Senators should be looking for a netminder with Ullmark out week to week and they still should be.
On Tuesday, however, Forsberg shut up his doubters for one night, which included a wonderful glove save on Marco Kasper. Are you kidding me? That’s probably what Forsberg is saying to fans and media who questioned coach Travis Green’s decision to start him against Detroit. The Senators will need more of that until Ullmark returns.
Some good news is that Artem Zub’s return midway through the longest road trip of the season thus far has helped Jake Sanderson’s play and should, in theory, help the Senators shut down their opponents' top players. Sanderson joked that the main difference between Travis Hamonic and Zub was the language. However, the differences extend beyond that. However, Hamonic went down with a knee injury and will be out two to four weeks; meanwhile, Jacob Bernard-Docker took a nasty fall at practice on Monday, suffering a high ankle sprain.
Nevertheless, Zub's return is massive for Sanderson and the Senators.
Five-on-five numbers according to Natural StatTrick
Against Detroit, the pair was unbelievable. When the pairing was on the ice at five-on-five, the Senators had 27 shot attempts to 10 for Detroit with an expected goals share of 76.5 per cent. With a home-friendly schedule to end the season and the last change available to Green more often than not, he will be able to throw Sanderson-Zub in more advantageous positions to thwart opponents’ top players.
The Senators find themselves one point out of the playoffs when they come home, but based on points percentage, they would hold a playoff spot. The roadie didn’t quell their playoff chances.
Ottawa will have plenty of back-to-backs in January and face high-level competition, including Toronto, Minnesota, Dallas and Washington twice. But the Senators have survived their hardest stretch of the season. If they find their scoring, and whoever is between the pipes steps up, then their pathway to the playoffs is very much in sight.
World Juniors Tidbit
Stutzle and Batherson watched Team Germany at the World Juniors in Ottawa and announced the team’s lineups. Batherson grew up in Germany because his dad, Norm, played hockey there. When Sportsnet.ca asked Stutzle whether he and Batherson talk in German, he replied, “Drake talks to me in German a lot, actually, like saying numbers.”
“If he wants to chirp someone, he just says it in German,” Stutzle said, laughing.
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