Post-mort

Update (10:10 AM)

Look, at the risk of sounding overly anti-Kovalev, I've really really really wanted to love the guy. I remember all those times when he used to drive the Senators defence nuts in an opposing uniform and was hoping he might be able to bring some of that to the Senators offence. I was even willing to forgot the transgressions, like the rumours of a poisonous attitude that have followed him around for his whole career.

But really this is getting ridiculous. The guy looks downright awful out there, which I would be okay with as long as he was still doing his best. But it's kind of hard to mask the fact that you're dogging it out there when you go around praising the other team at every opportunity.

And while I'm at it, send Karlsson back to the minors. Good lord. He looks like a 10 year old kids who shows up at the outdoor rink ready to play with the 30-somethings. He really has displayed very little upside during his tenure with Ottawa, and we're now getting to the point where having a 19 year old not only hurts the team, it also hurts the player's career.

I've always been a big fan of letting players develop in the minors before bringing them up, which is one of the reasons why the Sens had such a good development system in the late 90's. I'm not sure what Brian Lee's done to piss off Bryan Murray this time (the man must be the most sensitive person in the goddamn world), but it would be nice for a change if the latter would swallow his pride and do what's best for the team instead of trying to build a team of his own personal rec-room buddies.

Original post

Okay well it turns out this prediction was wildly incorrect. Maybe Kovalev was still feeling a bit too sentimental about playing against the Bleu, Blanc, et Rouge, or maybe he was distracted by promoting his fitness video.

I guess Spezza must have been busy promoting a fitness video too, huh?