–Bryan Murray talked about the Sens being in the playoffs:
I think anything can happen. I think we can play with anybody. I’m not going to say that we want to start (the playoffs) tomorrow. But I think we can play with most teams. Craig Anderson in goal gives us a chance every night, and when you have that to start with, it gives a lot of confidence to the group. To be fair to the people, many of them, they didn’t know our group as well as we think we knew them. (The experts) looked at (Chris) Phillips, (Filip) Kuba, (Sergei) Gonchar, (Daniel Alfredsson) and even (Jason Spezza) to a degree and felt that they weren’t able to rebound to the level that they did (this year). The other thing people didn’t respect is that we had a group in the minors that won a championship. When you win … they grew a great deal in that two-month period. They weren’t the big scorers, but they came in and gave us role definition. They allowed us to play hard every night. I don’t know whether it was a rebuild or what it was, but we kept our core guys. It’s a great achievement for our group and important for our fan base. I believe things will only get better as we go forward.
–Murray was on The Team 1200 and said he hopes Mika Zibanejad will play in Binghamton’s final two games after Djurgarden’s season is over on Friday. He said it was very unlikely that Zibanejad would play for Ottawa in the playoffs.
–The Hockey News and TSN‘s power rankings are out with Ottawa 11th and 10th (“the most surprising success story for an NHL team this season“).
–Nichols has an interesting statistical breakdown of Erik Karlsson compared to the other Norris trophy candidates (he also compares him to the other Sens blueliners). I think it’s unlikely Karlsson will win the trophy irrespective of his relative merits, but the numbers are worth checking out.
–Joy Lindsay Tweets Binghamton’s lines at practice: Schneider-Cannone-Grant, Hoffman-Da Costa-Downing, Dziurzynski-Hamilton-Petersson (Lessard), Puempel-Bartlett-Cowick; Borowiecki-Schira, Henningson-Conboy, Wiercioch-Gryba.
-Here’s my profile of Sens prospect Brad Peltz.
–Ken Campbell writes about how mis-management has hurt Canadian franchises (true), but makes the mistake of downplaying the value of the Canadian dollar in the ability of Canadian franchises competing (he brings up Winnipeg without making the connection that they wouldn’t have a franchise without the higher dollar).
-Prospect updates for those still playing (their position in team scoring is noted in brackets, defence compared to defence):
CHL
Stefan Noesen (C/RW, Plymouth, OHL) 6-7-7-14 (1st) (Plymouth defeated Guelph 4-2)
Shane Prince (C/LW, Ottawa 67s, OHL) 6-4-3-7 (t-1st) (67′s defeated Belleville 4-2)
Mark Stone (RW, Brandon, WHL) 5-2-3-5 (2nd) (Brandon defeated Calgary 4-1)
Jakub Culek (C/LW, Rimouski, QMJHL) 4-2-2-4 (t-5th) (Rimouski’s defeated Val-D’Or 4-0)
Darren Kramer (C/LW, Spokane, WHL) 5-2-2-4 (t-5th) (Spokane defeated Vancouver 4-2)
Jean-Gabriel Pageau (RW, Chicoutimi, QMJHL) 4-0-4-4 (t-6th) (Chicoutimi defeated Acadia-Bathurst 4-2)
Jordan Fransoo (D, Victoria, WHL) 4-0-2-2 (t-1st) (Victoria was eliminated by Kamloops 0-4)
SEL
Jakob Silfverberg (C/RW, Brynas) 10-7-5-12 (1st) (Brynas lead Farjestad 3-1)
Mika Zibanejad (C/RW, Djurgarden) 8-3-2-5 (3rd) (Djurgarden is 2-2-4 in relegation with two games left to play)
Fredrik Claesson (D, Djurgarden) 8-1-1-2 (3rd) (Djurgarden is 2-2-4 in relegation with two games left to play)
Allsvenskan
Marcus Sorensen (RW, Boras) 6-2-0-2 (10th) (Boras is 5-2-1 in relegation with two games left to play)
This article is written by Peter Levi, be sure to follow @eyeonthesens
