Travis Green is getting energy from the bottom of his lineup. He\u2019s also getting buy-in, and lately, he\u2019s been getting scoring.<\/p>\n
Lars Eller, Fabian Zetterlund, and Warren Foegele joined forces after Foegele was acquired at the deadline from Los Angeles. The trio clicked almost instantly as a fourth line and has provided forward depth that few teams in the league can match.<\/p>\n
On Sunday, that became very apparent. With the Sens trailing San Jose 2-1 in the second period, Foegele took a pass from Michael Amadio fresh off a line change, barrelled towards Sharks goaltender Laurent Brossoit and tied the game at two through an exposed five-hole. It was his second goal as a Sen in his fifth game with his new club.<\/p>\n
Later in the frame, with the Sens trailing again and on the power play, Zetterlund wired home a one-time feed from Jordan Spence past Brossoit to tie the game. Just over a minute later, Zetterlund dished a beautiful pass to a cutting Tyler Kleven which the defenceman buried to give them their first lead of the night.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been going in for us,\u201d said Eller after the Senators practiced on Tuesday morning before departing for Washington, where they will play Wednesday night.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve had a little bit more puck luck maybe than we had earlier. We\u2019re three good players, and I think when we\u2019re having a strong forecheck and we\u2019re forcing some turnovers, we\u2019re going to get some good quality looks, and we all have the capability to put the puck in the net. So yeah, I like our line.\u201d<\/p>\n
When combined with a checking line of Nick Cousins, Shane Pinto, and Michael Amadio, the bottom six is giving Green options \u2014 that much is for sure.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like the look of our lines right now,\u201d acknowledged Green earlier in the week. \u201cI\u2019ve played that fourth line a little more lately. From a coach\u2019s standpoint, when you put your line out and who you put them out against matters, and I think that line can play in a lot of different roles. It\u2019s not just the scoring, but capable of playing certain times in the game, certain moments against certain lines.<\/p>\n
\u201cLars is a good faceoff guy, he\u2019s very responsible at both ends of the rink. Z, Foegs, can both skate. They can both score. That line should really be able to go on the ice at any time in the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that our depth on our forwards is unreal,\u201d said Kleven, the beneficiary of the aforementioned dish from Zetterlund.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think every line\u2019s been playing great, we trust every line,\u201d said Dylan Cozens. \u201cWe\u2019ve had lots of guys step up and produce with less ice time, and I think just, everyone on this team\u2019s bought in and knows their role, and it\u2019s leading to success. The biggest thing is just the buy-in from the group and just doing what\u2019s best for the team.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAbsolutely, I think any time you can roll four lines, it just kind of gives everyone a little more energy,\u201d said Amadio, asked if having all four lines rolling was fuelling their recent 5-1-0 stretch.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think last game was a good sign of that, how we just rolled them and didn\u2019t worry about who\u2019s going out there.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re good players, nothing more, nothing less,\u201d said Travis Green about the team\u2019s forward depth after Sunday\u2019s win.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey want to win, they understand \u2014 especially the guys on the fourth line \u2014 that they might not be playing quite as much as they\u2019d like to, we talk to them a lot. But there\u2019s going to be a time when they\u2019re going to need to come up for us, and we have faith in them, and they were big [on Sunday].\u201d<\/p>\n
The Senators finish the season with a stretch of five back-to-backs in the span of a month. The first was completed successfully, with wins over Anaheim and San Jose. Green says in addition to added workload from the back-to-backs, the team\u2019s heavy style of play requires contributions from their depth players.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt this time of the year, it\u2019s not just the back-to-backs, it\u2019s the effort that you have to put out to play,\u201d said Green.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think our team plays a slow game, we don\u2019t play a soft game, we want to be a physical team, and that takes energy. In a perfect world, you can have four lines that can play the same amount of minutes. It never ends up like that, but having a four-line team is important.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnytime you watch playoff hockey, it\u2019s very rare that you see a team playing just three lines. If you have to hide a fourth line, it\u2019s not very advantageous for your team, and you\u2019re probably going to run a few other lines too hot. Having four lines is important at this time of year.\u201d<\/p>\n
After the win over San Jose, Green also admitted that by this point in the season, it was \u201cno secret\u201d that his Senators were a forecheck-heavy team.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe good thing is, our guys really understand our game, they understand how we have success, and that\u2019s important to get buy-in. I thought we did a good job on our forecheck. Most nights when we like our game, a big part of it is our forecheck,\u201d said Green.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s a big part of our game and our identity, is we want to manage pucks and make them go get it,\u201d said Cozens, who leads the team in hits with 183 and is set to smash his career-high of 205, set last season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been part of the forecheck and I think as games go on, we wear down other teams and make it tough on them going back. So just another part of the buy-in for the group, we\u2019re not scared to dump pucks in.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cI think we\u2019ve been pretty successful at [the forecheck] this year, I think that\u2019s why we\u2019ve been so successful [as a team],\u201d said Amadio, who, with 28 takeaways, is tied with Tim St\u00fctzle for the second-most on the team, behind only Jake Sanderson.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think when we play behind teams and get pucks in deep it kind of grinds them down. I don\u2019t think a lot of teams, or defencemen, or forwards, whoever, not many teams want to go back and get pucks, they want to make plays with it, so I think that\u2019s been a huge reason of why we\u2019re so successful on the forecheck.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Senators\u2019 next back-to-back is their final that will be split between two different cities. They begin in Washington on Wednesday night, fly back after the game, and then play less than 24 hours later at Canadian Tire Centre against the Islanders.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cJust enjoy the challenge that\u2019s in front of us, just have our mind on the game tomorrow in Washington, try to continue the strong play we\u2019ve had recently and keep riding that wave,\u201d said Eller about the approach for those two games.<\/p>\n
\u201cBe hungry, be detailed, be excited about the opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Travis Green is getting energy from the bottom of his lineup. He\u2019s also getting buy-in, and lately, he\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":543234,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-543233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543233","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=543233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/543234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=543233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=543233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=543233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}