So what's changed?

Let's see:

• New coach
  
• New system
  
• New discipline
  
• New drive to win
  
• New low on the Futility Meter at -15
  

...uh, yeah.

Now to be fair, expecting an instant, 48-hour turn around is totally unreasonable. You really have to give the new coach a dozen games to see what the team he can really do. And I listened to last night's game on the internet -- it's hard to tell for sure, but the Senators sounded a lot more together than they have in the past. Good or bad, last night was a close hockey game and the Senators were genuinely in it for a change.

The problem is that we don't have a dozen games, not if we are going to make the playoffs -- in fact, such a turn around inside the end of the year will only drag us out of the prime draft positions, prolonging our misery.

Build for the future -- and I don't mean the '09 playoffs.