With a four-day layover between the Montreal game and the Preds home game on Thursday, I get to have fun with the blog and talk about whatever Sens subject I feel like talking about. And today I want to salute our leader, and the NHL's longest-serving captain, Daniel Alfredsson.

Alfie seems to be one of the most underrated players in the NHL, and this state of fact seems to have followed him from his early days in the NHL. Picked 133rd in the 1994 NHL draft in the 6th round, Alfredsson figured he was going to "come over and, if I'm lucky, play a couple of years in this league, then go back home and finish my career in Sweden." What happened has been an incredible journey. "Way beyond what I thought", said Alfredsson.

Alfie arrived in the NHL with a bang, scoring 25 goals and 35 assists to win the Calder Memorial Cup as rookie of the year, and making the All-Star team. Since the 2000-01, the year he became captain,  Alfredsson has scored 70 points or more every season, with his high tide mark in 2005-06 where he finished the season with 103 points on 43 goals and 60 assists. He has the most points of any Senator with 930 points on 358 goals and 572 assists. Again this season, Alfie is averaging better than a point a game, leading the Senators in scoring once again.



What makes him such a good hockey player? Alfredsson is, before anything else, polishe and smooth around the ice. His quiet confidence can settle the pace of play for the Sens. He excels at controlling the puck along the boards in the offensive zone, and frequently ties up more than one player, allowing a teammate to get in scoring position. He has an incredible amount of creativity and hockey smarts. He also has a puck-handling knack for forcing defensemen to  provide the screen for his shots. Using this technique, Alfie famously scored the overtime winner to send the Senators to the Stanley Cup playoffs in 2006-07.