Natural Stat Trick<\/a>, the Senators are 23rd in save percentage in that time, at .881 save percentage. Despite Linus Ullmark\u2019s poor performance against Montreal last week, he has 1.84 goals saved above expected and with a .897 save percentage since returning from his leave of absence on Jan. 31 to tend to his mental health.<\/p>\nPlus, the penalty kill that burdened the Senators has jumped up to a good short-handed unit (11th) since they changed their penalty-kill coach from Nolan Baumgartner to Mike Yeo on Jan. 24.<\/p>\n
The Senators have been playing excellent hockey to get back in the race. Ottawa\u2019s only way of securing a playoff spot is repeating that in its final 16 games of the season.<\/p>\n
Pinto finding his footing<\/p>\n
Sometimes all you need is an empty-net goal to inject some confidence. That’s what happened on March 5 in Calgary for Pinto.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
It\u2019s been an up, down and rich season for Pinto, who secured a $30-million contract. Yet, his hot start cooled off.\u00a0Before he got hurt on Dec. 4, he had 12 goals in his first 27 games. After returning from injury on Dec. 29, Pinto scored three times in 23 games while mustering nine points.<\/p>\n
Since his empty-netter, however, Pinto has seven points in his last six games and shut down Macklin Celebrini on Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst comes team defence. And then if you contribute, it’s nice. Hopefully, the floodgates open. (And) I score a few here in the next 18 or 19 games,\u201d said Pinto.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere’s been a little talk about Pinto not scoring, or that line not producing,\u201d said Green.\u00a0“But they always play a real good game, and they create enough. I’ve been happy with their game.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also harder to produce when Pinto starts the fewest number of shifts of any Senators forward in the offensive end: 35 per cent of them start in the o-zone. Juxtapose that to Tim Stutzle, who has 78 per cent of his shifts start in the offensive end. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Pinto is slowly becoming one of the best third-line centres in the NHL. There\u2019s a reason he\u2019s paid like it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Michael Amadio is smart, has a great stick, a good shot, and can penalty kill and produce some offence.<\/p>\n
Amadio leads the team in takeaways with 24 at five-on-five.<\/p>\n
His linemate, Pinto, called him underrated.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, he’s not underrated to us,\u201d said Green. \u201cYou can always tell how the coaching staff likes a player by how much they play and what role they play in. He plays against the top players in the league. He’s a big part of our penalty kill now. He plays when we have a lead. He’s an extremely smart player.\u201d<\/p>\n
Amadio scored a deft goal against Anaheim on Saturday and followed up with two assists Sunday, which pushed the winger past an important personal milestone.<\/p>\n
Amadio broke one of the strangest stats this writer has ever seen.<\/p>\n
He had 27 points in each of the last three seasons. After a three-point weekend, Amadio reached a career-high 29 points. The 27-point curse is broken.<\/p>\n
He and Pinto have created two of some of the best lines in hockey, analytically, paired with Claude Giroux earlier in the season and now with Nick Cousins. Ottawa\u2019s third line of Cousins-Pinto-Amadio sits sixth in the league in expected goals share (minimum 100 minutes played).\u00a0The line held Celebrini to one assist Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe didn’t have a lot of real high-end, Grade-A chances, and that’s hard to do when he’s a tough guy,\u201d Green said about his third line limiting Celebrini.<\/p>\n
Since Warren Foegele was acquired at the trade deadline, Ottawa\u2019s fourth line has gone from limited trust to major contributors, with Foegele tallying three points in five games.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’re blessed to have four good lines,\u201d said Green.<\/p>\n
When you throw out a fourth line with two former 20-goal scorers in Fabian Zetterlund and Foegele and a veteran Stanley Cup-winner in Lars Eller, that\u2019s depth.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey might not be playing quite as much as they’d like to. We talk to them a lot. There’s going to be a time where they’re going to come up (big) for us,” Green said.<\/p>\n
Against San Jose, the fourth line played the second most of any line, routinely facing San Jose\u2019s second line. The trio has averaged over nine minutes a night in five games.<\/p>\n
In Ottawa’s win versus San Jose, the fourth line got Ottawa back in the game via great plays by Zetterlund and Foegele to score timely goals while both set up Tyler Kleven\u2019s goal. Foegele adds an element of speed that is sorely lacking in Ottawa\u2019s forward group.<\/p>\n
Batherson has eight goals in as many games.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s known for being a little streaky,\u201d said Green.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know when he\u2019s not scoring, he\u2019s in one of those little streaks, you know when he is scoring.\u201d<\/p>\n
A bruised forearm is a nice little price to pay for a game-winning goal on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Jersey of the season candidate<\/p>\n
Ottawa loves back-to-backs<\/p>\n
Ottawa is 19-5-4 during weekend back-to-backs under Green. The Senators have two more weekend back-to-backs this season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OTTAWA \u2014 “We Want Playoffs” chants were loud and clear over the weekend. \u201cLove to hear,” said Ottawa…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":540762,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194295],"tags":[49,48,20739],"class_list":["post-540761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ottawa","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-ottawa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=540761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540761\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/540762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=540761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=540761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=540761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}