The opening roster decisions are nearly complete. As expected, Josh Bailey was released from his PTO (despite the injury to Norris, there was never cap room for him so this was simply an audition for the league), while Max Guenette and Jiri Smejkal were sent to Belleville. The latter’s fate is probably not deserved (albeit expected), but Smejkal was always in a difficult spot because of the cap situation–anecdotally he made a good impression and both the wingers ahead of him on the fourth-line aren’t NHL players, so are easily displaced if the team ever gets out of cap hell. Smejkal was skating with the team as part of the lineup at practice the same day he was re-assigned due to an injury to MacEwen. These changes occurred the day after Roby Jarventie, Mads Sogaard, Dillon Heatherington, and Tarun Fizer (who I guess had only been re-assigned on paper previously) were cut. None of these moves are surprises, although like Smejkal, Jarventie deserved a better fate (albeit, I’ve argued there’s no point in keeping him in the NHL as a depth player).
Speaking of the lineup, if Ottawa sticks with the lines D. J. Smith was rolling yesterday my hopes are dim indeed. His comment that everything changes without two of his top-three centers is reasonable and I don’t expect him to have Joseph on the second line (how could he?). You could argue the Sens are entering the season with three AHL-centers and that just won’t get it done. Dorion’s self-inflicted cap problems are making a mess of what’s supposed to be an exciting opening to the season.
Marc Methot, known for his bold predictions (that he sometimes abandons), has said without Josh Norris this season the Sens don’t make the playoffs. That’s a reasonable opinion to have. For the Sens to thrive without Norris they’d need Pinto and Greig to take a step forward (or a prospect to take a giant leap forward). My theory is that Rourke Chartier escaped AHL-oblivion by serving as a placeholder for Pinto. Along with the gap in the #2 spot, the team also has an embarrassing fourth-line and those wasted minutes do add up.
As expected, the Ducks have put Lassi Thomson on waivers entering the regular season. The question fans will have is: will the Sens claim him back? I would [and four hours after I posted this, so would the Sens], but that aside, I don’t know what the Sens will do. This reminds me of is the Wade Brookbank saga, which goes back a long time (before I was writing about the Sens). Brookbank was a big (6’4), tough, undrafted defensemen signed as a free agent by the Sens in the summer of 2001 (the Marshall Johnston-era). Brookbank, who could only fight, was claimed by Nashville off waivers in 2003; he was traded to Vancouver two months later, claimed back by Ottawa from Vancouver two days after that, and then traded to Florida for nothing less than two weeks later. Brookbank‘s career in the NHL tallies just 127 games over 5 seasons, so in the end it’s much ado about nothing–Thomson is a much more talented player irrespective of what happens to him at this level. The similarities are simply the (possible) back and forth that could occur.
This article was written by Peter Levi
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