Remember when this man was head coach of the Senators in 2007?
John Paddock played the shit out of the top line.
If it was humanly possible, Spezza, Heatley, and Alfredsson would have stayed on the entire game and played all six positions. Given the goaltending situation at the time, he probably would have even tried throwing one of them in net.
Little surprise, then, that they were worn out by Remembrance Day.
This kind of production from the third, fourth and even second lines has been unheard of in past years. Now we've got a coach who's rolling four lines and, surprise surprise, getting production out of all four lines.
In fact, Heatley's trade request might not be the worst thing to happen to this team this year.
Now I'm not going to be as delusional as some of the other crazies out there who now say this team is better without him. I'm all for being positive and that, but let's be reasonable about this. You simply can't replace that kind of production.
And even though what we got for him has to this point done sweet fuck all (Cheechoo and Michalek have one assist between them before Monday's game against Pittsburgh), it still means that coach Clouston can't just rely on the one line anymore.
So tonight it's the Stanley Cup champs and, you know, it's kind of nice not knowing who (if anyone) is going to put the puck in the back of the net tonight.
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