Through two games, the Montreal Canadiens have completely dominated the Ottawa Senators. According to scoring chance data collected by Olivier Bouchard (thanks Olivier for your hard work), the Habs out-chanced the Sens 21-11 on Thursday and 19-10 on Friday.
To put +9 and +10 on even-strength chance differential in perspective, I looked to Olivier’s chance data for 2009-2010, 2010-2011, and 2011-2012. Over these three years, the Habs only out-chanced their opposition by 9 or more in five games. In fact, the Habs have outplayed the Sens so badly thus far in the series that I’m actually starting to get offended by the optimism I’m seeing from Ottawa fans. The Habs put up one of the more monstrous performances of the last couple of years on the Senators while missing their second best centre, best right wing, and best left wing, and these chumps are talking about the winnable nature of the series!
In fact, I want them to feel despair equivalent to what Oilers fans felt when Steve Tambellini spoke in public. A win tonight would go a long way towards spurring these negative emotions.
To stimulate discussion leading into tonight’s game, I’ll leave you with some thoughts from our fine commentariat to go along with my celebration of our early series performance. Be sure to join us in the game thread at 6:00 ET to prepare for tonight’s 7:00 ET puck drop.
Here’s Olivier and Stephen on the culpability of Raphael Diaz with regards to the Eller hit:
@stephancooper30 Players do crappy passes all the god damn time. If Diaz was responsible, guys would get out on stretchers every games.
— Olivier Bouchard (@oli_bou) May 3, 2013
Here’s Stephen and Roke celebrating P.K. Subban’s majesty:
Subban has outchanced Karlsson 7 to 1 on the head to head match
— Stephan Cooper (@StephanCooper30) May 4, 2013
Per @oli_bou PK subban is +19 / -5 in scoring chances at even-strength so far.Incredible.
— P. Guay (@p_guay) May 4, 2013
Here’s MathMan and Roke on the impact of matching Gorges-Diaz against the Alfredsson line:
@p_guay @oli_bou As Olivier points out, they’re used against the lower 3/4ths of the Sens lineup, who can’t cope. But it’s hard on 61-26.
— Mathieu Roy (@Le_Matheux) May 4, 2013
