Wednesday night was a night most NHL fans (especially Ottawa Senators and Detroit Red Wings fans) have anticipated since the summer to see. Daniel Alfredsson announced that he was leaving the Ottawa Senators after being on the team for 19 years, being captain for 14 of those 19 years.
The Red Wings welcomed the Senators to the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, MI hoping that the former Senators captain would lead the team to their seventh win (in 11) games of the season. But as shown just in the first period, that was not going to be easy and ending out in a loss for the Red Wings. The new Captain of the Senators Jason Spezza led the team to defeating the Red Wings 6-1 in the first of their few meets this season.
When Alfredsson decided to leave the team, he wanted to go with a team that he thought would give him his first Stanley Cup championship ring, but as of right now though it is still early in the season many fans are questioning that decision. Everybody wants to know if he made the right choice, and if we’re solely basing on just the two teams from just last night’s game, there is a possibility he did not make the right decision.
In the first period, Eric Gryba scored the first goal with assists from Mika Zibanejad (called up from the AHL) and Erik Condra. The next goal was a power play goal from new Sens captain Jason Spezza with assists from Phillips and Karlsson. Again, the power play strikes again for the Sens where Bobby Ryan scored the third goal for the team with Joe Corvo and Kyle Turris on the assists. A short while later Detroit tried to answer back and Todd Bertuzzi scored a power play goal which was the one and only goal for them. The assists went to Henrik Zetterburg and Niklas Kronwall.
Second period, Spezza scored the one and only goal for that period with Erik Karlsson and Mark Methot with the assists. In huge third period, Jared Cowen scored with the assist for Smith and Ryan scored again with the assist from Clark MacArthur and Turris.
The Senators did not take it at heart that their Captain left the team. Instead they are taking it as a new challenge and hoping their team will be lead to a high ranking spot in the season.
As for Alfredsson, I don’t think he made the right choice. I know he wanted a change, but he should have gave a bit more warning and not using the wanting to win the Stanley Cup as an excuse. We will see at the end of the season who made the better choice but I am happy that Spezza is getting the opportunity to wear the captain title for Ottawa. He has learned a lot from Alfredsson and will use that knowledge to lead his team through the seasons.
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Main photo credit: article.wn.com, CC
