I do not know what to say about the Ottawa Senators this season. After unloading a whole lot of players last season, including crowd favourites, and signing up mostly players who fans of other teams have never heard of, it was no wonder that most critics & experts picked the team to finis last in the league come the end of the 2011-12 season. Let’s face it – after top line trio Daniel Alfredsson, Jason Spezza & Milan Michalek, who else did you expect to provide a steady stream of goals? So as I, like many other Sens fans I suppose, looked at a lot of star players being signed up by other teams and wondering when was it that my side was going to get 2 or 3 big name players, the Sens management signed 2nd & 3rd string players.

Doomed for this season? Playoff chances? Yes and None respectively were the answers that came up in my mind. So after the top 3 forwards our most known players are Chris Neil, defencemen Philip Kuba, Chris Philips & Sergie Gronchar. Two goalie who, let’s face it, are actually competent back goalies for any other team in Craig Anderson & Alex Auld. Not the stuff of champs! And when the season started it looked like exactly what it was – a solitary win in their first 6 games, which was a 4-3 win against the Minnesota Wild. 5 Loses to Detroit (3-5), Toronto (5-6), Colorado (1-7), Washington (1-2) & Philadelphia (2-7) were devastating but not unexpected. But then; things changed.

5 Wins in a row. 4-1 vs Winnipeg, 4-3 against Columbus, 3-2 against Carolina, 4-3 against Florida & a 5-4 win against New York Rangers. Admittedly things are tight as we are leaking goals and 4 of those games were won by a 1 goal margin. But we are also scoring goals. Spezza & Michalek have 7 goals each, Alfredsson with 4 and Colin Greening with 3. With 12 points after 11 games played, Ottawa should now crack the top 8 in the East and if they build on these wins, who knows what can happen this season. But it’s way too early to say as we have another 71 games to go. Go Sens Go!