Re: Ottawa Senators
I agree. The goalies are the reason we are 4-1, not Chris Phillips, Legwand or anyone else. TB should not have been a win and we could of very easily lost the FLA game without Anderson, hell the CLB game could of went either way. I wouldn't call Phillips a difference maker but he has done what has been expected. He's battled hard and hasn't had too many of the turnovers he had last season but the lack of speed concerns me. A couple times he has backed away letting the opponent get the puck for a rush when he could of just as easily stepped up and got the puck himself.
I disagree about the Veteran thing with forwards. The only really young forwards are Lazar and Zibby. Hoffman is as old as Turris and Stone is 22 years old. Michalek has been invisible out there and seems like an average bottom 6 forward. That is a waste of $4.3 million for a budget team. Legwand is slower than Zibby so having him on that 2nd line would be even more of a disaster.
The reason the Oilers have been bad is they have had a combination of terrible defence, terrible goaltending and to a degree bad luck. They also play in the Western Conference. If Ottawa played in the West they are likely finishing with CGY and ARI at the bottom of the standings. That being said Ottawa has won 4 games and you can't take that away from them but we are going to have to see some improvements if the team wants to sustain a winning pace.
20 Team Keeper (H2H, Keep 15)
Roster: 2 C, 2 RW, 2 LW, 3 F, 5 D, 2 G, 4 BN, 3IR
Catg: G, A, +/-, PPP, SOG, Sh%, H, Blk, W, GAA, Sv%, Saves, SO
C: Craig Smith, Brock Nelson
LW: Benn, Ryan, Andrew Ladd, Tanguay
RW: Vanek, Saad, Hemsky, Mark Stone
D:Yandle, Gardiner, Goligoski, Kulikov, Girardi, Daley
G: Scneider, Anderson, Svedberg