-Ottawa lost 4-3 to Montreal in yet another shootout; Robin Lehner made 42 saves in the loss, while Mika Zibanejad, Daniel Alfredsson, and Patrick Wiercioch scored the goals. The Sens were down 3-1 late in the second and did well to rally back for the tie, but were pretty awful in the third period and OT and deserved the loss. Mark Stone played under six minutes, while Kaspars Daugavins and Jim O’Brien didn’t see much more ice time. I don’t think the three line approach can really work with this team and I anticipate Paul MacLean will try to role four lines more equitably going forward. Here’s the boxscore.
-The Sens signed free agent defenseman Troy Rutkowski to an entry level deal. Rutkowski (69-20-41-61) played for Portland in the WHL. The right-handed, 6’1 blueliner was drafted by Colorado in (5-137/10), but was not signed by the Avs. He played in the CHL top prospects game in the year he was drafted and was part of the silver medal winning WHC Pacific team in 2009. Under Bryan Murray the Sens have only signed one free agent blueliner like him before (Craig Schira, who did not pan out, but was another offensively oriented right-hand shot). Bobby Kelly (via Corey Pronman) says his biggest issue is skating, but the Sens have never shied away from players like that.
-Ottawa has also signed prospect Michael Sdao to an ATO so he can finish out the season with Binghamton; Sdao‘s NCAA career is over (tip of the hat to SensProspects for breaking this yesterday). Sdao (7-191/09) finished up his season by leading Princeton in points by a blueliner (31-8-7-15) for the second season in a row, but when he was drafted the 6-4 left-handed defenseman was best known as a fighter (the best fighter of his draft class; here’s a profile from the summer).
–Mark Stone was re-assigned to Binghamton, which makes a lot of sense given how little he was playing.
-Binghamton lost 3-1 to Rochester last night; Nathan Lawson made 36 saves in the loss while Derek Grant scored the only goal. The B-Sens had less than 20 shots in the game and will welcome the return of Stone to add some punch to the lineup. Here’s the boxscore.
-Here is the latest prospect update (for players with more than 10 games played I’ve indicated where they are in scoring; for blueliners they are compared to other defensemen on the team):
CHL
Cody Ceci (OHL Ottawa/Owen Sound) 67-18-44-62 (1st)
Matt Puempel (OHL Kitchener) 50-31-11-43 (3rd)
Stefan Noesen (OHL Plymouth) 49-23-25-48 (6th)
Jordan Fransoo (WHL Victoria) 65-6-14-20 (4th)
Jakub Culek (QMJHL Cape Breton) 9-4-3-7 (10th) (injured)
Jarrod Maidens (OHL Owen Sound) (injured)
Chris Driedger (WHL Calgary) 35-14-4 2.50 .915
Francois Brassard (QMJHL Quebec) 31-18-4 2.75 .910
Allsvenskan (Swe)
Mikael Wikstrand (Mora) 45-11-14-25 (1st) WJC 6-0-4-4 (1st)
KHL
Nikita Filatov (Salavat) 47-10-11-21 (6th)
NCAA
Ryan Dzingel (Ohio) – 36-14-19-33 (2nd)
Max McCormick (Ohio) – 36-12-15-27 (3rd)
Jeff Costello (Notre Dame) – 28-9-17-26 (3rd)
Bryce Aneloski (Nebraska-Omaha) – 35-5-16-21 (2nd)
Michael Sdao (Princeton) – 31-8-7-15 (1st)
Tim Boyle (Union) – 15-0-2-2 (t-7th)
USHL
Robbie Baillargeon (Indiana/Omaha) – 54-18-23-41 (1st)
One thing I take away from this is that Jordan Fransoo will not be signed–his development just hasn’t occurred in a way that I can see the team deciding to retain him.
This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)
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