Recent NHL results

Tonight was another good night in the NHL's Northeast division. First, the now chugging along smartly Ottawa Senators put a nice solid win on the board versus the New York Islanders, who are just a little above them in the Eastern Conference standings, around the 8th place playoff zone. The Senators are now more or less in a virtual tie with the Toronto MakeBelieves, who lost yet again tonight.

This must have been a painful reminder for the Maple Leafs of last Thursday's 5-0 humiliation at the hands of the same Atlanta Thrashers (powered by ex-Senator Marian Hossa.) Meanwhile, that same night, Ottawa, now storming along, whupped the Florida Panthers 6-0. I love scores like those on the same night ( I kinda lost the blog opportunity amid the lead-in hype to the Liberal convention )

The game recap, which I linked you to, contains a typical hockey quote from Dany Heatley:

"This is what we knew we were capable of," Heatley said. "We're a good team and we skate well. All we're doing is playing well as a team, which we weren't doing early on."

This is of course pretty much what I figured about the Senators' early difficulties: the composition of the team has changed, with the departure of Zdeno Chara from the Defence, and changes to the attack, too, with the departure of Martin Havlat. The Senators have taken some time to gel as a unit this fall. Looks to me like they have their unity and their systems up and running now. As I have noted, injuries to leader Wade Redden have not been helpful. Back to tonight, slight concern about Alfredsson's ankle, however, in the footage I saw, he skated off on his own power. So, rest him the rest of tonight, rest him tomorrow against the Washington Capitals, if necessary.