Game 11: Sens 6, Thrashers 4 – The Highs, The Lows, The Creamy Middle

I have a vivid recollection of an Ottawa-Atlanta game played last year. It was a Sunday afternoon in early December. The Sens had just finished the worst opening two months since the Dark Ages of Expansion. The mob, torches and pitchforks in hand, was out at 1000 Palladium Drive howling for the blood of somebody, anybody to exorcise the demons. Mucks, Murray, Alfie, a vestal virgin, it didn’t matter. Sacrifice was needed to pacify our gods, dammit! In that game, Ottawa went up 4-0 with about twelve minutes to go in the third. They yarked up the lead the way my cat throws up a hairball, all spit and convulsive gagging, and lost 5-4. As I watched the third last night, I couldn’t help but think on that. Thankfully for all concerned, especially the virgins, the cat managed to hold it in this time. Barely.

The Highs:

• Randy!! True to my fearless prognostication (see below), our future 112 goal scorer pots his first two of the year while replacing the Seven Million Dollar Groin (see above) on the top line! Almost had the hat trick too, before getting dazed and contused by a borderline shoulder.

• Nicky!! Spawn of Mike gets his second career goal in a cute, if futile attempt to stay with the big club now that Dean McAmmond’s “shoulder” has healed. Trust your coaches, son. Another year in the “A” won’t be fatal. Just ask Jason. Hell, get him to buy you dinner too.

• Alfie!! 300 career goals, pushing Yash ever further down the first page of the team record book. A grateful Nation’s capital turns it’s lonely eyes to you.

The Lows:

• The Senators PR department. Granted, it wasn’t as big a milestone as, say Gretzky surpassing Gordie Howe, but c’mon. Did absolutely no one in the organization realize Alfie was sitting at 298 coming in? Stopping the game for a curtain call on his 300^th wouldn’t have killed you would it? Let’s see if we can give 400 a bit more fanfare than Stuntman Stu screaming into a PA system, shall we?

• Paging Mr. Neil. Mr. Chris Neil to the white courtesy phone please. Chris, Chris, Chris. For future reference, if you’re fighting an opponent whose team we are currently crushing, do not, under any circumstances, humiliate said opponent by playing to the crowd during the fight. I believe my point was made most eloquently by Mr. Kovelchuk in the third period and one Mr. Cherry will no doubt make tomorrow night, provided of course he can tear his lips away from Darcy Tucker’s ass long enough to articulate it.

• The 3^rd period. You got away with one boys. Don’t ever do that again.

The Creamy Middle: We'll take the win, third period near-catastrophe and Rayzor's general shakiness with occasional flashes of brilliance notwithstanding. There is still the small matter of our continuing (and baffling) inability to play a full 60 minutes, something Coach Paddock is no doubt losing sleep over. Hey, at 10-1, A-type personalities need something to worry about.

Up Next: Home-and-home this weekend with the Beantown Bears. Riddle me this: If a Chara falls in the forest and nobody hears it, does it make a sound?