The team looks to be good enough to make the playoffs. They should at least in the mix until the end of the season.
With the additions of a high quality #1G, solid veterans in the bottom 6 and a top 4 RD, the roster is as solid and deep as it has been for many years. The big question mark is defensive depth.
The team looks to be good enough to make the playoffs. They should at least in the mix until the end of the season.
With the additions of a high quality #1G, solid veterans in the bottom 6 and a top 4 RD, the roster is as solid and deep as it has been for many years. The big question mark is defensive depth.
I expect Ostapchuk to take the 12th forward spot. - SensFan25
Not to fall into the trap of false optimism we've all made so many times before, but I'm really curious to see how this team performs with a real goaltender, and not one who lets in the first or second shot how many times?
Some real confidence in the goalie will help make such a difference, as we saw with Andy.
If Sanderson keeps developing, then we may see him getting way more minutes which will help Chabot stay healthy.
Hearing Norris is healthy, and putting him back at center makes me really nervous. He should be playing wing, and even then I'm nervous.
Pinto should be ready to play on the second line. Or maybe put Giroux back there. - david22
Part of me can understand not wanting to close the book entirely on Norris as a #2C, however it just seems irresponsible to deliberately put someone with a recent history of major shoulder injuries in a position to take 1,000 face-offs. So if they moved Giroux down to the 2nd line to play on his wing and take the majority of the face-offs, then fine. Tkachuk-Stutzle could take care of the face-offs on the 1st line (they combined for 892 last year), and Pinto was already on pace for 992 face-offs last year so the 3rd line wouldn't be a concern. That said, this scenario also presumes that it's more beneficial for the Senators to have Pinto playing 3rd line minutes for the coming year, which I would say is far from certain.
So.
Like the power play you have Giroux out there for the draws on that line and then you have them swtich as soon as the puck is droppped - Octavarium
It really depends on how they structure the PP units. If Norris is penciled in on the 1st unit, you could let Stutzle/Tkachuk handle the face-offs and have Norris focus on getting himself into an optimal position for one-timers (as showcased in his 35G season). Giroux may be more useful on the 2nd unit, where he and Pinto could be a pretty formidable pair in terms of gaining possession off the draw. Put one of Chabot/Sanderson on each unit, add Batherson/Perron however makes the most sense, and you should have at least a half-decent PP%. If they eventually sign Addison, you'd almost certainly see him moving the puck on the 2nd unit as well.
I could be mistaken, but with Stutzle, Norris, Pinto - over 82 games the Sens record looks something like this: 42 - 32 - 8.
This record would give Ottawa 92 points, which would've just knocked out WSH out of 8th spot last year to get into the playoffs.
If Norris is able to put up 25-30 goals and play 60 games - with Ullmark having a SV% above 0.912% - Ottawa will be in the running for a playoff spot and have a legit chance of squeezing in
We're going to need a few weeks before we see where all this is going. Too many players in camp right now with 3 groups practicing. But I think this team is pretty much set except for 2 forward spots, and 1 d-man spot. Its just a matter to see who slots with who and which line.
Ideally, I think they want Pinto to play 3rd line centre and Norris to be 1rst or 2nd line centre. Everybody seems reluctant to put Norris at centre. Well, at some point you have to stop "babying" him. He is either ready, or he's not ready. You can't continually tiptoe around that shoulder. He will also take as many hits into the boards if he is playing wing as well. If Norris wasn't ready, the Sens won't play him at centre. They don't want him to get injured as well. But this is hockey .... Norris has to sink or swim with the contact and rigours of playing the position. I think the Sens and the medical staff have a much better idea of where to play Norris then all of the amateur doctors and medical personnel on this board.
Regardless of where he plays, we will all be holding our breath every time he takes a hit, does a one-timer, or takes a pass. Hopefully he can stay healthy.
"The Senators and the National Capital Commission announced an agreement at a joint press conference Friday that would see the Senators purchase a 10-acre plot at the downtown LeBreton Flats site for the development of a multi-purpose facility, including an NHL arena."
Panic meter is on full with Norris right now. All the "I told ya so's" coming out of the woodwork on day 2 of camp.
Quick question to the GM's out there. Why would you play Norris in a scrimmage in the first few days of camp. He hasn't played hockey since Feb/Mar. All you want at this point is for Norris to get his conditioning/skating/shooting up to snuff. You can worry about scrimmages and preseason games later. Just saying .....
And again I ask ..... why would the Sens waste the money (unless you all wanted to donate a substantial sum of the cost from your own pockets .... its pretty fun to spend someone else's money, eh) to buy out Norris, and take the cap hit for another 12 years. Or .... door number #2 says if he gets injured again you can throw him onto LTIR and have insurance pay for the salary and open up all the cap space.
Panic meter is on full with Norris right now. All the "I told ya so's" coming out of the woodwork on day 2 of camp.
Quick question to the GM's out there. Why would you play Norris in a scrimmage in the first few days of camp. He hasn't played hockey since Feb/Mar. All you want at this point is for Norris to get his conditioning/skating/shooting up to snuff. You can worry about scrimmages and preseason games later. Just saying ..... Oh, and why aren't you all worried that Ullmark didn't play in today's scrimmages? Stop reading too much into preseason.
And again I ask ..... why would the Sens waste the money (unless you all wanted to donate a substantial sum of the cost from your own pockets .... its pretty fun to spend someone else's money, eh) to buy out Norris, and take the cap hit for another 12 years. Or .... door number #2 says if he gets injured again you can throw him onto LTIR and have insurance pay for the salary and open up all the cap space. - OttawaB
Drives me crazy that Nick Jensen is called 33. He is 34 years old !! He is about the 30th oldest D-man in the NHL. Chychrun is not even in the top 170.
After 1 year, only about 10 D-men play at that age (Burns, Johnson, Vlasic, Letang, Martinez, Shattenkirk, Smith, Cole, McDonagh, Schenn)
Playing him with Chabot for some reason didn't sit well with me. I think it's possible but having Zub and Sanderson on separate pairings makes sense
Drives me crazy that Nick Jensen is called 33. He is 34 years old !! He is about the 30th oldest D-man in the NHL. Chychrun is not even in the top 170.
After 1 year, only about 10 D-men play at that age (Burns, Johnson, Vlasic, Letang, Martinez, Shattenkirk, Smith, Cole, McDonagh, Schenn)
Playing him with Chabot for some reason didn't sit well with me. I think it's possible but having Zub and Sanderson on separate pairings makes sense - AlfieisKing
Chychrun was not a good fit for Ottawa, and not a good d-man while he was here (-31 thank you). Is he a "better" d-man then Jensen. Sure. But Jensen seems to be a better fit for what Ottawa needs. Forget about the age factor. Stop dwelling on it. In 2 years both Chychrun and Jensen will not be in Ottawa anyways (had Chychrun stayed). Yakemchuk, and some other minor league d-men will rise to take their place. Neither Jensen nor Chychrun were long term answers. Chychrun was a "Dorion toy idea (he always liked bright shiny new things)" so just let it go.
Jenin made it 1-0
Tanev to Marner to Knives - made it 1-1
Few goals later in OT... with Marner, Mathews, and McCabe on the ice, Carter Yakemchuk all by himself showed incredible poise. It's just preseason, not a huge goal but I'm impressed with his ability to read the play, skating, and just the again the poise: it looked like he played in the league for a year or 2 already.
Chychrun was not a good fit for Ottawa, and not a good d-man while he was here (-31 thank you). Is he a "better" d-man then Jensen. Sure. But Jensen seems to be a better fit for what Ottawa needs. Forget about the age factor. Stop dwelling on it. In 2 years both Chychrun and Jensen will not be in Ottawa anyways (had Chychrun stayed). Yakemchuk, and some other minor league d-men will rise to take their place. Neither Jensen nor Chychrun were long term answers. Chychrun was a "Dorion toy idea (he always liked bright shiny new things)" so just let it go. - OttawaB
I'm not "dwelling on it" but selling our assets for pennies on the dollar, not developing players beyond top 7 picks over the past 7-8 years is a recipe for disaster
I'm not "dwelling on it" but selling our assets for pennies on the dollar, not developing players beyond top 7 picks over the past 7-8 years is a recipe for disaster - AlfieisKing
Pennies on the dollar? Did you ever stop to think that maybe we dramatically overpayed for Chychrun? A d-man who was a -31 worst on the team. A guy who essentially played on the 3rd pairing and never really played well when paired with Sanderson, Zub or Chabot. A guy whoose stats got worse as the year progressed .... his stats with DJ Smith were better but once the Sens brought in Martin and Chychrun was asked to be more defensive minded, his stats go worse.
Maybe we received exactly what he was worth. I think too many fans overvalued the worth of Chychrun. I'm just glad the salary is gone, and the player is gone. We didn't have to eat any salary. We get a player instead who appears to be a better fit on what we need and only has 2 years left at a reasonable contract. It is a player, Jensen, who will be replaced in the top 4 by Yakemchuk in 2 years.
I'm not "dwelling on it" but selling our assets for pennies on the dollar, not developing players beyond top 7 picks over the past 7-8 years is a recipe for disaster - AlfieisKing
Not sure why there's such a theme of negativity when the team is finally starting to show signs of progress. It's true that the DeBrincat/Chychrun returns weren't great in terms of raw asset returns, but in both cases a significant amount of the value was accounted for by what they avoided - including mid-season distractions, team culture issues, and long-term cap problems. Case-in-point, the Jensen trade probably saved them at least 3-4 years of severe over-payment for one of the UFA options, or an even more severe over-payment via trade. At worst, Staios did a good job of using one problem to solve another, while protecting the assets he valued most. Meanwhile, the Ullmark trade has the potential to be one of the best in team history, which all shows more strategic direction than we've seen from the team in years.
As for not developing players beyond the early first round, Chabot, Norris, Batherson, Pinto, Greig, Kleven, and Bernard-Docker fall outside that range, and account for 1/3 of the active roster. Beyond that, they have at least a half-dozen AHL players who will likely see NHL games at some point in the season, they just had one of the better quality drafts in recent memory, and the Bourgault/Jenik trades may even have yielded some NHL-potential supporting talent. That said, the team that won the Stanley Cup last year had just 3 drafted players who played at least 50GP... 2 of whom were drafted more than 7-8 years ago. The Stanley Cup champion from the year before had just 2 drafted players who played at least 50GP. I'm not trying to downplay the importance of drafting well, but developing your team culture and managing your salary cap are even more important.
Jenin made it 1-0
Tanev to Marner to Knives - made it 1-1
Few goals later in OT... with Marner, Mathews, and McCabe on the ice, Carter Yakemchuk all by himself showed incredible poise. It's just preseason, not a huge goal but I'm impressed with his ability to read the play, skating, and just the again the poise: it looked like he played in the league for a year or 2 already.
Very interesting game... this was not supposed to be anything other than a bottom-6 audition for most of the depth forwards and a chance to see what the 3rd D-pair might look like, and they more than exceeded expectations. Jenik/Reinhardt certainly made a case for a longer look at training camp with 4 points each. Gaudette fell just short of the Gordie Howe hat trick, but scored a big goal and showed he could handle himself in the faceoff circle (7/12). Yakemchuk obviously had the benefit of playing beside Chabot for most of the game, but certainly showed his potential as a future top-4D. Despite polar opposite skill sets, I thought the 2nd D-pairing of Kleven-Addison were pretty effective, and played quite well to each other's strengths. Sogaard could have played better in the 3rd, but they were under siege for much of the period and he made a couple of key saves in OT.
If nothing else, the top-down team effort showed the kind of messaging and expectation that Travis Green has brought to this year's training camp. It will be interesting to see how it translates to the rest of the roster.
