The SBP Archives - Your less than frequent dose of SBP!

Last night I attended my final live regular season game for the Ottawa Senators. If you recall, I predicted that SBP would not attend any more than two games for the entire year. The biggest reason being that, since becoming a homeowner, there is simply not as much wiggle room in the budget to spend on frivolous activities like hockey games.

Well, I went to a total of ten. But it can be just justified:

1. No less than two games were free
2. Most games were viewed from the 300 section. The 100 level game I went to was free, the two 200 level games were 50% and 25% off, respectively.
3. I never paid full price for any game.

I plan on going to, on average, one game per round in the playoffs. Although I will probably sell off my Round 1 tickets to fund the later rounds.

Anyway, it was a good game to go to last night, when Zdeno Chara touched the puck for the first time in what seemed like forever, a big roar from the crowd erupted no doubt glad the best defenceman in the NHL or at least in the Eastern Conference is finally logging some minutes. It makes a huge difference when your top three D are out, and it looks like all would be good to go come April 21 when the playoffs start.

Ottawa just needs one point to lock up 2nd place in the East and will need to win the rest of the way to get 1st overall while Carolina breathes down their necks. With Florida, the Leafs and Rangers next on their agenda, there's no reason to think they can't get all six points if they play their game. Marty Havlat will hopefully be back tomorrow, although Saturday seems to be the most likely scenario.

If everyone is healthy going into game 1 of the playoffs, the person who should get the moniker of "healthy scratch" is Tyler Arnason. While there were some flashes of brilliance in the 15 or so games he's played so far, he has yet to score a goal and seems rather unmotivated on the ice. His reluctance to play physical and get the "dirty" goals that are common in the post-season are too evident. I just hope John Muckler doesn't put his ego ahead of what has turned out to be an awful trade and demand Bryan Murray suit him up for the games. Here's what I think the forward lines will look like:

Alfredsson-Spezza-Heatley
Eaves-Smolinski-Havlat
Schaefer-Fisher-Neil
Varada-Kelly-Vermette

And I'd rather bring in Christoph Schubert, the alternate defenceman/forward than Arnason should someone go down. In any case, Murray will have some tough decisions to make when picking his final roster. A good problem to have, to say the least.