The Last Place Senators GM Bryan Murray Vocalizes His Frustrations

Added on Oct 20, 2010 by J Merrill in

NHL

The stat sheet is not the friend of the Ottawa Senators. In the young season, they seem to be struggling with just about every category you could come up with. Currently in last place, with a winning a percentage of .250, the 1-4-1 Sens may be coming to a crossroads. Some people may argue its too soon to make some changes, or at least drastic ones, but the GM of the Senators would disagree with them.

General Manager Bryan Murray doesn’t sound like he is willing to sit around and let things get worse. He had no problem mincing words about how things were looking. “We’re not moving the puck up from the back end, we’re not defending very well and we’re giving up far too many chances,” said Murray. “I just think we turn the puck over in our own end and we haven’t battled defensively the way we should and the way we’re capable of doing in my own opinion. The result is we’re scrambling for the puck too often.” Ouch!

The goals against stat has them in 29th place, and the goals for have them in 21st in the NHL. Murray’s annalysis makes a lot of sense. “I can’t say that one of our Defencemen have played to where I thought they were going to be” Murray continued, “They are struggling big time.”

When asked about changes he said “It’s up to all of us to improve things, this is a team,” Murray said. “It’s not the coaches or players only, it’s me doing anything I can. I’ve talked to a number of people, I talked to (Minnesota Wild general manager) Chuck Fletcher for a long time yesterday and said, ‘Can I help you, you help me’ type of thing, so we’re talking to management of other teams, trying to find if there is a need and a possibility of making a move.”

Head coach Cory Clouston says they need to focus on the defense. He said thats the main story the first six games tell him. He also said “The games showed us the areas that we need to work on and get better at and it shows that when we don’t play the way we should we’re not a very good team, We have to play with a lot more sense of urgency. In panic nothing positive comes from that, but urgency we can turn that into a positive.”

The players are also feeling the pressure, and the leaders trying to remain positive in the light of what the season has brought to them. “We definitely feel we can turn this around, but we obviously have to start sooner rather than later,” said captain Daniel Alfredsson. He continued “We also need to remain positive, and not dwell on mistakes…You don’t want to be the guy that makes mistakes and that’s dangerous because you can become too passive, It felt that way in Pittsburgh where instead of being aggressive at times we were giving them too much time with the puck.”

It seems pointless to tell the Sens that they need to step it up at this point, especially when you hear the GM saying things like what Murray has been saying. They play the struggling Buffalo Sabres, who are also struggling, this coming Friday at home.