Greetings Sens fans, I hope your body clock is prepared for some strange start times this week.<\/p>\n
For our fans in the Eastern Time Zone, our next four games will roll out as follows:<\/p>\n
Monday in Los Angeles \u2013 9 p.m.<\/p>\n
Wednesday in Vegas \u2013 10 p.m.<\/p>\n
Friday in St. Louis \u2013 4 p.m.<\/p>\n
Sunday in Dallas \u2013 6 p.m.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a six-hour range in start times, which will likely leave you feeling a tad discombobulated. The good news is that you\u2019re probably starving for Senators hockey and willing to put up with the quirky start times, considering we only played two games last week.<\/p>\n
And the lack of action made it easy for me to pick my favourite moment from the past seven days.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t Tim St\u00fctzle\u2019s game-winner on Saturday<\/a> in San Jose, a rare play that saw all five Ottawa players touch the puck before the goal. Nor was it Drake Batherson\u2019s late-game heroics<\/a> in Anaheim on Thursday, when he deflected a Jake Sanderson shot in for the winner with less than two minutes left in regulation.<\/p>\n Instead, my favourite moment from last week came during Stephen Halliday\u2019s NHL debut in Anaheim. I loved the TSN cameras catching him doing the rookie solo lap and watching his family soaking in every moment from the stands inside the Honda Center.<\/p>\n Halliday\u2019s second intermission interview with TSN<\/a> \u2013 after he notched his first career NHL point \u2013 was really special too as he acknowledged having his parents there for the moment.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019ve been there for all the ups and downs of my career,\u201d Halliday said during the intermission. \u201cIt means a lot for them to fly across the country and see my first game.\u201d<\/p>\n It was a great reminder that Halliday\u2019s path to that moment was anything but easy.<\/p>\n He moved away from his family in Maryland when he was 15 years old so he could face better competition in the Greater Toronto area. He was passed over for two straight NHL Drafts before Ottawa took a chance on him \u2013 as a 20-year-old \u2013 in the fourth round of the 2022 NHL Draft.<\/p>\n It took my mind back to a long feature I did with Stephen<\/a> when I was a reporter with The Athletic a couple of years ago.<\/p>\n Stephen\u2019s dad James has always been a die-hard Maple Leafs fan and there was a memorable family bet back in 2013, when Stephen was just 10 years old.<\/p>\n \u201cMy dad loves Toronto, but I would just cheer for any team that was playing against the Leafs on a given night,\u201d Stephen told me. (That quote alone should endear Stephen to Senators fans).<\/p>\n The terms of their bet were simple: There was a hat Stephen wanted to buy from Dick\u2019s Sporting Goods and if the Leafs won Game 7 against Boston, Stephen would have to cough up the $25 for the hat. But if the Bruins emerged victorious, James would have to buy the hat for his son.<\/p>\n Toronto took a 4-1 lead in the third period, sending a young Halliday into a puddle of tears.<\/p>\n \u201cI remember bawling my eyes out,\u201d laughed Halliday. \u201cThe Leafs were up by three goals in Game 7 and I was thinking I had to pay him back for that hat.\u201d<\/p>\n The Bruins then authored an epic comeback, which flipped the script inside the Halliday household.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter the game, I was jumping all over him. I was laughing at him,\u201d says Halliday. \u201cMy dad was in total shock. His head was down and he was really upset.\u201d<\/p>\n I love re-visiting these old anecdotes and stories because they seem really timely this week. It gives you a little window in the Halliday household and the competitive fires that burned within. And if you read that entire feature article, you\u2019ll realize the dedication and perseverance it takes from an entire family to have their son reach the NHL.<\/p>\n After the magic of watching his son make his NHL debut last week, I\u2019m assuming James has switched his allegiances now to cheer for Ottawa.<\/p>\n And if we have to convert fans over to the Senators one at a time, this is a pretty good way to do it.<\/p>\n Trivia time:<\/p>\n The Sens are on a season-long road trip that will take them to games played in three different time zones: Pacific, Central and Eastern. So here is a fun (and weird) two-part trivia question for this week:<\/p>\n Can you name the last Senators player to score a hat trick outside of the Eastern Time Zone? <\/p>\n Can you name all four Sens players to score a hat trick outside of the Eastern Time Zone in the salary cap era? (Since 2005-06).<\/p>\n Answer at the bottom of this column.<\/p>\n Jon Cooper predicted this Atlantic Division logjam<\/p>\n Going down memory lane with that Stephen Halliday story got me thinking about another old story I wrote that has some relevance this week, especially when you look at the standings. The Atlantic has morphed into the most tightly contested division in the NHL and as we wake up on Monday, only four points separate first place from sixth.<\/p>\n It reminded me of a conversation I had with Lightning head coach Jon Cooper<\/a> when I was a reporter with The Athletic two years ago.<\/p>\n I asked Cooper, Steven Stamkos and Victor Hedman to look at the Senators and the rest of the Atlantic Division and how they saw the division playing out in the next couple of years.<\/p>\n Cooper was somewhat prophetic when he said, \u201cI think it\u2019s going to get more and more muddled. Maybe we come back to the pack a bit more and they\u2019re going to close the gap. And there will be a big mess.\u201d<\/p>\n Cooper also said we would be asking the question, \u201cWho\u2019s coming in first and who\u2019s coming in sixth?\u201d<\/p>\n In hindsight, Cooper nailed it.<\/p>\n Media roundup: Looking back at some interesting and fun Senators stories you might have missed over the past seven days.<\/p>\n Want to know how our video team would have flagged that offside goal for the Sharks in the first period on Saturday night? Our latest Breakaway feature profiles our video coaching staff<\/a> of Mike King and Josh Mallory. Our lead videographer Ben Coles spent roughly 48 hours straight with our video crew in late October, documenting their crazy schedule and the immense pressure they are under to get calls right. If you\u2019ve got 20 minutes to spare, I highly recommend you watching this feature because you\u2019ll have a whole new respect for the video coaches.<\/p>\n Shane Pinto joined NHL Network\u2019s \u2018Players Only\u2019 segment last week, for a fun and candid 15-minute interview<\/a>. The highlight (pun intended) was watching Shane break down an old picture of him with frosted tips. \u201cI don\u2019t know what I was thinking,\u201d laughed Shane.<\/p>\n Drake Batherson is off to a fantastic start this season, racking up a team-leading 13 assists despite missing the first three games of the season. Our Andrew Wilimek spent some time with Drake<\/a> before the road trip to find out about his quiet confidence. (And there is a great lesson in here for younger players, as Drake talks about being passed over for the QMJHL draft when he was a teenager because he was barely five-foot-five).<\/p>\n I really enjoy it when two reporters take a stab at a similar story. Case in point: Last week, both Alex Adams of Sportsnet and Julian McKenzie from The Athletic wrote about Tim Stutzle\u2019s prolific scoring pace since switching the tape job on his stick. Read Alex\u2019s version here<\/a> and Julian\u2019s account \u2013 which includes some insight from Kris Knoblauch, Cole Caufield and Paul Maurice \u2013 can be found here<\/a>.<\/p>\n