If there’s one thing you can count on with the Sens it’s inconsistency. They balked at signing prospect Colin White to an ELC for fears of burning off a year of his eligibility…and then signed him to an ELC as injuries began to mount. The bizarre mix of needing to make the playoffs and save money creates a lot of wonky situations for the org. As everyone has pointed out White is an upgrade to the Sens bottom-six forward group and his arrival in Ottawa at this time of year is an echo of Jakob Silverberg‘s playoff debut back in 2012–let’s hope a terrible trade for a fading star isn’t also in the his future.
Speaking of prospects, remember how Thomas Chabot wasn’t ready for the NHL? In typical Dorion fashion he’s now the best defenseman outside the NHL (!). I wish the org would cut down on the hyperbole–it does them no favours. I agree with Nichols (his link above) that the Sens never should have sent him back to the QMJHL…or at least should have looked into the rule on recalling players from the CHL before the trade deadline (pretty embarrassing that they had to ask the league for how that worked when it was already too late).
I want to reflect a little on the Nichols’ piece cited above: the august delineator mentioned how little impact AHL call-ups have had for Ottawa (with the exception of Freddy Claesson), and that parallel’s what ECHL call-ups have done for Binghamton: excluding Jack Rodewald these players are an accumulated 74-4-4-8 (I know Chris Rumble started the season in Wichita, but he was on an AHL-contract). As I’ve said many times before, the org struggles to assess talent. Here’s a great example of Dorion (and Randy Lee) being off their rocker for what’s important from a player:
The thing where he’s [Ben Harpur] improved the most is his level of compete. Last Wednesday when we were there, he fought twice
This idea that fighting matters at all is painfully outdated, but it does give you an idea of what Sens management thinks “competing” is (and also why they have much more rope for bigger/”meaner” players than those with skill)–thus irrelevant praise for Michael Blunden whose in the midst of a very disappointing season.
Travis Yost looked at round-one playoff match-ups and concluded the Sens want to avoid Washington and Toronto, but should want Montreal. For entertainment value I’d take either rival, albeit each would have louder fans in Ottawa’s arena than their own.
With the call-ups to Ottawa the BSens have had to do some roster moves, adding ECHL (South Carolina) forward Steve McParland (59-19-29-48) and a pair of defensemen: ECHLer (Adirondack) Kevin Lough (51-4-14-18) and CIS grad (New Brunswick) Jordan Murray (30-14-26-40). Along with this trio Marcus Hogberg has arrived to play in what will be an interesting trial by fire for him. Other roster moves: from a couple of weeks ago they loaned call-up Alex Krushelnyski back to the ECHL (but to the Allen Americans rather than Wichita); about a week later the always disappointing Ryan Rupert was returned to Wichita.
This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)
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