Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Trouble on the Backend

With the prospect of a playoff series against either the stingy Devils or, more likely, the high-powered offensive juggernaut Penguins the focus will be on how the sens D matches up. In the case of the Devils they would need to be able to match the opposition's shut down capabilities while the Penguins series would put them under significantly more pressure.

So it is definitely not encouraging to see that the senators have three players in the bottom 15 in terms of defensive deficiency (glove tap to Mirtle) which looks at a team's goals against average when a player is on the ice compared to when he is off of it. The list includes the shot blocking machine Meszaros (Edit: I mixed up my euro-sens. Volchenkov blocks shots and I guess Meszaros has no redeeming qualities.) and Wade Redden. It is a little confusing to see him on that list as the senators' record is so much better with him in the lineup than without. Maybe the rest of the team picks up their level of play knowing that they have to cover for his mistakes in the same way that kids' team play that much better when there is a new kid in net.

As an aside, Tom Preissing is among the best players in the ranking as is Carlo Colaiacovo.

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