Senators News: May 28th

Jason Spezza returned to playoff action with a torn meniscus and will have surgery to repair it in the off-season.

Jakob Silfverberg talked about what he wanted to improve for next season:

I want to score more goals, I guess. You’ve got to take (the puck) to the net, you’ve got to drive the net hard and that’s one thing I’m trying to learn every day. You’ve got to be able to be tough (at the) net and go through some guys and be harder around the net.  You’ve got to go faster, they’re so quick. That’s where we want to be in a couple of years and that’s where I want to be in a couple of years, too.

Mark Parisi comes out swinging in his final Ups & Downs for the final week that was, criticising Craig Anderson after the fact, but even in the criticism he tries to offer excuses.  I don’t know why the blogging community struggles so much with pointing out that Anderson wasn’t good against the Penguins–it doesn’t make him a bad goaltender, it just means he was in the series (and the regular season).  The fact that Andy himself was offering up excuses bothers me a lot more than his performance (has any other Ottawa goaltender gotten away with that?).  Mark’s other arrows are all over the place and I’m not going to go through them all.

Dave Young makes the assumption that because an injury-rattled Sens team couldn’t score in the playoffs against Pittsburgh they need scoring depth (Ken Warren makes the same assumption).  Do they?  I really don’t know–the full team only played five games together and that’s not enough time to mean anything.  Every team could use more goal scorers, but Ottawa won’t land any prime fish in free agency (Warren is smoking something to think the Sens could land David Clarkson) so they are going to have to look within for goals.

-The WTYKY lads got together for a round table of death (no one died) to discuss the season that was for Ottawa.  The fellahs are positive about things going forward.  They debated keeping Sergei Gonchar, but I agree with James that it’s a no-brainer that they let him walk.  James pats himself on the back for predicting Jean-Gabriel Pageau to break out, but his argument that this is definitely different from Bobby Butler, Peter Regin, or the cast of thousands who have looked good over a short period of time isn’t convincing.  I think Pageau will remain a useful player, but the sample size is too small to be certain.

Jeremy Milks offers his roster decisions (let’s recall that Jeremy thought Zenon Konopka and Matt Carkner needed to be retained last season) and decides Jim O’Brien, Guillaume Latendresse, Peter Regin, and Mike Lundin are likely gone (agreed), while (surprise!) he thinks Matt Kassian should be retained.  He’s unsure about Sergei Gonchar (my thoughts above) and Andre Benoit, but with Benoit wanting a one-way deal I suspect he is gone as well.

-Speaking of Benoit, he believes he has proven he’s an everyday NHL player.  That may be true, but I don’t think it will be with the Sens.

Bryce Aneloski‘s Allen Americans won the President’s Cup (the CHL championship), although he never suited up after the first round.

Jordan Fransoo (along with Aneloski) are on the clock for their rights to be reliquished by the Sens.

-ISS has released its latest 2013 draft rankings (for their previous list go here):

Rank Name Pos. Birthdate Shot H W Team League Last Rank
1 Nathan MacKinnon C 9/1/95 R 6.00 182 Halifax QMJHL 2
2 Seth Jones D 10/3/94 R 6.03.5 208 Portland WHL 1
3 Jonathan Drouin LW 3/27/95 L 5.10.75 185 Halifax QMJHL 3
4 Valeri Nichushkin RW 3/4/95 L 6.04 202 Chelyabinsk Traktor KHL 4
5 Sasha Barkov C 9/2/95 L 6.03 209 Tappara FinE 5
6 Darnell Nurse D 2/4/95 L 6.03.5 189 Sault Ste. Marie OHL 6
7 Elias Lindholm C 12/2/94 R 6.00 192 Brynas SweE 7
8 Nikita Zadorov D 4/15/95 L 6.05.25 230 London OHL 8
9 Sean Monahan C 10/12/94 L 6.02 186 Ottawa OHL 9
10 Bo Horvat C 4/5/95 L 6.00.25 200 London OHL 10
11 Rasmus Ristolainen D 10/27/94 R 6.04 207 TPS Turku FinE 11
12 Curtis Lazar C 2/2/95 R 5.11.75 193 Edmonton WHL 12
13 Hunter Shinkaruk C 10/13/94 L 5.11 175 Medicine Hat WHL 13
14 Ryan Pulock D 10/6/94 R 6.00.5 211 Brandon WHL 14
15 Alexander Wennberg C 9/22/94 L 6.01.5 190 Djurgarden SweJE 15
16 Andre Burakowsky LW 2/9/95 L 6.01.5 178 Malmo SweAl 16
17 Steve Santini D 3/7/95 R 6.01.5 207 USA Under-18 NTDP 17
18 Frederik Gauthier C 4/26/95 L 6.05 210 Rimouski QMJHL 18
19 Valentin Zykov RW 5/15/95 R 6.00 210 Baie-Comeau QMJHL 19
20 Kerby Rychel LW 10/7/94 L 6.01 200 Windsor OHL 20
21 Josh Morrissey D 3/28/95 L 5.11.75 182 Prince Albert WHL 21
22 Madison Bowey D 4/22/95 R 6.00.75 200 Kelowna WHL 22
23 Anthony Mantha LW 9/16/94 L 6.04 190 Val d’Or QMJHL 23
24 JT Compher C 4/8/95 R 5.10.5 184 USA Under-18 NTDP 24
25 Max Domi C 3/2/95 L 5.09.25 193 London OHL 25
26 Nicolas Petan C 3/22/95 L 5.08.5 163 Portland WHL 26
27 Dillon Heatherington D 5/9/95 L 6.03 196 Swift Current WHL 27
28 Michael McCarron RW 3/7/95 R 6.05 228 USA Under-18 NTDP 28
29 Chris Bigras D 2/22/95 L 6.00.5 189 Owen Sound OHL 29
30 Samuel Morin D 7/12/95 L 6.07 200 Rimouski QMJHL 30

Almost no positions changed except at the very top.

This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)

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