Is it jut me or has this season been an endless emotional roller coaster for fans so far? First there was the high of the Leclaire signing, then the downer of the Healtley affair, then the high of the Kovalev signing, the mixed emotions of the San Jose trade, the high of the newfound depth and the season's start and the clobbering of the Lightning, the low of the clobbering from the Lightning, and since, the slow descent into "what the hell will make this team click?"



Last night's game against the Oilers seems to encompass the entire season so far: brilliant play coupled with brain farts, amazing goals with embarassing giveaways, spectacular saves and followed by "swiss cheese" syndrome. Alexandre Picard made some major mistakes, including a giveaway at his own blue line, only to redeem himself by a neat play that fed Chris Neil for the Sens' third goal.

Jason Spezza who couldn't get it going throughout the game, only to show amazing patience and tremendous moves in the shoot-out to win the game. Oilers goalie Deslauriers was so stunned that he actually did a double-take trying to figure out how the puck had managed to make it behind him.

Pascal Leclaire was brilliant, then porous as outlined elsewhere in this blog. Alexei Kovalev was amazing in pickpocketing Visnovski to set up Jonathan Cheechoo ( who strangely probably had his best game yet), but was dismal on the defensive. Even mighty Daniel Alfredsson, while skillful on the offensive, was pickpocketed by Penner in the defensive zone.

It's a topsy-turvy world! I expected the Senators to dominate in shots on goal against the Oilers, somewhere around 34-27. Instead, we saw 34-25 the other way. The mighty offensive Sens, who are usually soft on defense, are in the bottom half of the league in shots on goal, while only allowing an average 27.8 shots on goal, 6th best in the NHL.It's strange that, having gotten rid of coach Craig Hartsburg, the Sens seem to have bought in to a more effective defense. Weird!

I miss the high-scoring Senators, and I'm hoping it's still team adjustment that has negated the depth of scoring they have on paper. The U.S. military had a term to describe the Soviet military forces in the late 70s and early 80s, they called it the "rompin' stompin, Red Army", and were worried as hell about those forces pouring across the Fulda Gap in Germany. Kind of like the high-scoring Senators of old. I know they can be back in that zone. With a better defense, it would be very sweet nectar. Whatever their style of play, I am, despite all my rants, 100 percent behind the Red Army.