Sens Finish Pre-Season 7-0

Say what you will about it being the pre-season, it is nice to come out of it with a record like that. It tells us a few things about our team, and while they need to be taken with a grain of salt, it is nice to know.

First - our future is not as bleak as it may have previously seemed. No, we do not have any legitimate first liners coming through the system, but If we can hang onto Spezza, Heatley, or both, we should have a good supporting cast for them in the years to come. Nikulin, Zubov, Foligno, and Lee all looked good in the pre-season. These guys likely won't be stars, but we already have those.

Second - even if it is meaningless games against weakened opponents, it showed that the players on this team do want to win. I was worried about a finals hangover, but after the pre-season I'm not. Even though we didn't play our best hockey every game we did manage to find a way to win them all. If we manage to get winning results on nights where the team isn't great in the regular season it could be one hell of a year.

But like I said, take this all with a grain of salt, it is just the pre-season. Two days until we beat the Leafs!

Foligno and Lee shine in pre-season action

Well Ottawa finally opened up their pre-season tonight in London, Ontario with a 4-0 win against the Philadelphia Flyers. As expected, most of the established players were scratched, including Heatley, Spezza, Alfie, Phillips, Volchenkov, and Emery.

This did allow some of our prospects to shine though. Lee looked like a rock on the blue line. He made some great passes, had some great shots, and aside from a few brain cramps looked good. Lee looked good enough to surpass Richardson in the depth charts, at least on this night.

On offence, Foligno and Zubov looked good. Zubov started the night off with an early goal, and continued to have chances through the night. Foligno managed to pot a goal and two assists, looking perfectly in place alongside Kelly and Eaves.

The nicest surprise of all had to be Martin Gerber. He was an all-star tonight. His positioning was stellar, and his reactionary saves were incredible. He faced over 50 shots and managed to get a shutout.

I really hope we do not get rid of Gerber early on in the season. I have been a supporter of his since day one, and if Emery falters or goes down Gerber will be extremely valuable.