Ottawa Senators goalie Pascal Leclaire is easygoing and playing well to start the season. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)Could it be that the Ottawa Senators are now finally free to focus on improving the play of their forwards and defence?
Ottawa heads into Thursday's home game against Nashville having won five of seven games, thanks in large part to solid work between the pipes.
Senators fans a have grown accustomed in recent years to some degree of uncertainty from their goaltending, ranging from the Ray Emery melodrama, Dominik Hasek's unpredictable health, and the frequent on-ice hiccups of Martin Gerber.
It was often hard enough having one goalie who was worry-free, let alone two.
With Pascal Leclaire and Brian Elliott, the Senators may finally have the tandem that is easygoing and high-performing.
Leclaire has shown no ill effects from a lengthy injury absence last year while with Columbus, winning four of six games in net for Ottawa. He sports a 2.17 goals-against average and .920 save percentage.
"The big thing for me coming to Ottawa was getting used to new defencemen," Leclaire told Hockey Night in Canada Radio earlier this week. "We worked pretty hard in training camp to talk a lot to each other, to try and figure out what guys were doing in certain situations like two-on-ones .… "
Backup Brian Elliott also played well in his lone appearance and will likely get some gamework soon with the team playing five times in the next 10 days.
Leclaire said the team is putting in the effort ahead of him to help limit opposition chances, led by Anton Volchenkov.
"Anton is great," said Leclaire. "I'd heard about him before, but playing with him has been a delight. He blocks a lot of shots. He's always in good position.
"Not only him, a lot of guys do it on our team .… Our penalty-killing has been great so far, because guys block a lot of shots."
Ottawa is coming off a 3-1 victory in Montreal on Saturday, in which captain Daniel Alfredsson former Canadien Alex Kovalev contributed a goal and an assist.
Jason Spezza is banged up with an undisclosed injury and could miss Thursday's game. If so, the Senators will look to some others to step up offensively, including Nick Foligno, Jonathan Cheechoo and possibly Peter Regin.
Ottawa meets a team Thursday night that hasn't won its last six games.
The Predators will try to avoid matching a 1999 franchise record with their seventh-straight loss. Ottawa will be seeking its sixth victory in seven games.
Nashville (2-5-1) has not scored a power-play goal since the season opener on Oct. 3. The season ledger is a woeful 1-for-27 with the man advantage, or 3.7 per cent.
Making matter worse for the Predators, leading scorer Jason Arnott was placed on the injured reserve Monday with a left arm injury and is expected to be out for up to two weeks.
With Arnott sidelined, Patric Hornqvist is the only healthy Nashville player that's scored more than one goal this season. The second-year winger scored both his goals in a win over Colorado on Oct. 8.
The clubs have met just once in the last two years, a 2-0 Ottawa victory on Feb. 16.
The Senators will return to action on Hockey Night in Canada on Saturday when the Boston Bruins pay a visit.
With files from the Associated Press
