When he met with reporters on Feb. 16, Pierre Dorion said he would be monitoring the next seven games to determine the Ottawa Senators‘ trade deadline status.
Five games deep, the Sens general manager was probably hoping for more clarity by this point.
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After beating the Montreal Canadiens Saturday night at the Bell Centre, the Senators improved to 2-2-1 since the Dorion declaration, about as close to the middle of the road as a team could be. Earning five points in five games has the Senators roughly where they started this thought process — they’ve been producing about a point per game for most of the season.
With 58 of 82 games played, Ottawa has a record of 28-26-4.
At times, the Senators have looked like a team that should be better than that win-loss-OT loss record. Other times it seems like a proper fit.
It is this mercurial nature of the club that must give Dorion pause for thought. For every rousing victory (Calgary! Toronto! New York Islanders!) there have been setbacks (Chicago. Carolina. Edmonton). At 6-3-1 over their last 10 games, the Senators have been progressing, but not at a clip they will need to reach the post-season.
Still, welcome to the world of ‘meaningful games.’
In the immediate term, the Senators’ season boils down to two games against the Detroit Red Wings to determine whether the Sens can think of themselves as wild-card contenders over the final weeks of the regular season.
A sweep of the Detroit Red Wings — on consecutive nights in Ottawa, Monday and Tuesday — would be significant, because they would pick up four points on a team ahead of them in the standings. They would be tied with Detroit at 64 points.
Anything less and it looks like a bridge too far.
The math is challenging no matter where you look. To earn 60 points in 58 games, Ottawa has picked up 1.035 points per game to this point. That projects to 85 points for a full season, which wouldn’t be close to a playoff spot.
So, a sweep of Detroit, if the Senators could pull it off, would have to be the start of a serious run. Given the number of teams aiming for those two wild cards, and three-point games among the contenders, the Sens will probably need 30 or more points over their final 22 games. That would lift them to 95 points.
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Further complicating matters, the eastern wild-card race is insanely crowded. Six teams (the Islanders, Penguins, Sabres, Wings, Panthers, Capitals) are sitting at point totals between 64 and 67. The four at 64 — Buffalo, Detroit, Florida, Washington — are all outside of a playoff spot on Sunday morning.
The picture changes on a daily basis. It is Ottawa’s goal to join the mayhem, as the Sens sit just outside the entanglement at the moment.
Of Ottawa’s 22 remaining games after the Detroit contests, just nine are at home, 13 on the road.
To this point, the Senators are 16-12-2 at home and 12-14-2 away from the Canadian Tire Centre.
Bottom Six kind of night
The Senators didn’t have a great start in Montreal, but managed to grind out a win, as they have in every other meeting with the Habs this season.
Unusually, the bottom six showed the way, with goals from Derick Brassard, Austin Watson, Shane Pinto, Drake Batherson, and Julien Gauthier, his first in an Ottawa uniform.
Of those five goal scorers, only Pinto and Batherson are top six skaters.
Though Brassard scored the game’s first goal, the Senators had to fight back from a 2-1 deficit to score the final four goals of the game for a win that looked easier than it was. Rookie goalie Mads Sogaard stopped 30 of 32 Montreal shots. Sogaard also picked up an assist on the Batherson goal.
“They scored two quick goals and we’re down by one, I don’t think we panicked,” said the veteran Brassard, playing in his 997th career game. “That’s a sign of maturity that we can play in those games. We came back in the third and won by three, that’s a huge win for us.”
It was a victory the Senators had to have to make these upcoming games against Detroit meaningful. The previous night, Ottawa was in tough against the Carolina Hurricanes and fell 4-0, for a second straight loss to an eastern team. The Sens lost in Boston 3-1 on Monday.
Saturday was a big night for a couple of the Quebec natives on the Senators roster. Mathieu Joseph of Laval was conspicuous all evening and was awarded the team goggles, symbolic of the player of the game for his blue-collar effort. Gauthier, who came to the Senators in the Tyler Motte trade with the Rangers, displayed a big shot as he ripped a high wrister past Sam Montembeault in the Montreal net.
“Absolutely no better feeling than that,” said Gauthier, who had lots of family and friends in the stands at the Bell Centre.
You can be sure the mood was light on the trip home from Montreal. Sunday brought a day of rest before the Sens get back to work.
Bring on the Red Wings. The Senators hope to have a playoff atmosphere at the CTC on Monday and Tuesday in a pair of games that could set the course for the rest of the season.
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