It’s surprising to see genuine criticism of the org’s chaos coming from The Silver Seven, as Ross attempts to decipher the team plan and comes away baffled (Trevor tries to find positives, but you can feel him fumbling in the effort; only Nichols, who seems to have given up on serious coverage, believes fans should shut up because management is hard–sunk costs, landed some veterans, good in the corners, etc). Ross is rightly terrified by Dave Poulin’s quoted idiotic comments, which echoes the out of touch commentary you get from many older ex-players. It’s a muddled mess (Ian Mendes embarrassed himself giving the team a B+ for their off-season so far).
How does what we have compare to last season? Let’s go over changes to the roster (the red and green don’t necessarily reflect my opinion, just the raw information):
2022-23 vs 2023-24
Taraesenko (31; 57-17-24-41 0.72; 5.0/1 yr; 1 Cup) -> Perron (36; 76-17-30-47 0.62; 4.0/2 yrs; 1 Cup)
Joseph (26; 72-11-24-35 0.48; 2.95/4 yrs—2 remaining; 1 Cup) -> Amadio (28; 73-14-13-27 0.37; 2.6/4 yrs; 1 Cup)
Kelly (24; 80-8-10-18 0.22; 0.762/2 yrs) -> Gregor (26; 63-6-6-12 0.19; 0.85/1 yr)
Kubalik (28; 74-11-4-15 0.20; 2.5/1 yr) -> nothing
Kastelic (24; 63-5-5-10 0.16; 0.835/2 yrs–1 remaining) -> nothing
Chychrun (25; 82-14-27-41 0.50; 4.6/6 yrs—1 remaining) -> Jensen (33; 78-1-13-14 0.18; 4.05/3yrs–2 remaining; 1 Cup)
Brannstrom (24; 76-3-17-20 0.26; 2.0/1 yr) -> nothing
Korpisalo (30; 0.890 3.27; 4.0/5 yrs) -> Ullmark (31; 0.915 2.58; 5.0/4 yrs—1 remaining)
Other facts to note: the team has replaced 8 roster players with 5 (so minus 3); the team is older (+18 years); in terms of size the team is slightly smaller (Joseph/Amadio, Kelly/Gregor are the same size, but Perron and Jensen are smaller); the team is net 1 Cup more in terms of experience (losing 2, adding 3), something I find irrelevant, but people tend to bring it up; other than goaltending, all the added players performed worse statistically. The Sens are now older, less dynamic, statistically worse (other than in the crease), and have less established depth. Alarm bells are ringing! Let’s take a look at the system:
2022-23 vs 2023-24
Jenik (23; 55-16-20-36 0.65) -> Sokolov (23; 71-21-25-46 0.65) Utah
nothing -> Currie (31; 62-12-17-29 0.47) unsigned
nothing -> Smejkal (26; 47-9-13-22 0.47) Czech league
Gaudette (28; 67-44-27-71 1.05) -> Chartier (27; 19-7-6-13 0.68) unsigned
Hodgson (28; 49-6-10-16 0.32) -> Imama (27; 53-3-7-10 0.19) unsigned
Davies (27; 66-12-23-35 0.53) -> Larsson (26; 61-7-26-33 0.54) NLA
nothing -> Thomson (23; 67-6-15-21 0.31) SEL
Roos (25; 59-2-14-16 0.27) -> Heatherington (28; 60-3-7-10 0.17) unsigned
The Sens qualified Thomson, but he’s in the SEL for this upcoming season (undoubtedly his issues with coach Bell in Belleville made the decision easy–given Staios’ track record, I look forward to his rights being traded away for nothing and let me preempt Nichols by saying ‘sunk costs/fans need to move on‘). Just like the NHL above, that’s five bodies in for eight going out (late season acquisitions Rees and Bongiovanni are not included above, with both retained). This is statistically an upgrade and a slightly older group, although I don’t know what Shawn Simpson is smoking saying there’s more highly paid veterans now when that’s not true (the BSens had so many vets last season they often had to sit one out).
What the BSens do have are players who can fill out the bottom of the lineup (besides who they’ve signed, it’s also what they’ve drafted for), particularly among the forwards, with Highmore and Gaudette being the most obvious candidates. The blueline, on the other hand, has less obvious capacity–besides Kleven, it’s not clear anyone can meaningfully fill-in. A major Chabot injury, which you have to expect, will crush the team’s ability to move the puck.
The Sens traded Igor Sokolov to Utah in return for another restricted free agents, Jan Jenik. It’s not a surprising move from Staios, as Sokolov is coming off a down year. Did he given up on the big Russian too soon? It’s hard to say. Sokolov needs to score to be an effective pro and being one-dimensional is likely what pulled the trigger for the org. As for what’s coming back, let’s look:
Jan Jenik, DOB 2000, CL, 6’1, 3-65/18
2023-24 AHL 55-16-20-36 0.65
2022-23 AHL 30-7-16-23 0.76
Career AHL 165-46-74-100 0.73
The two Europeans are roughly the same age and have similar career AHL production numbers (Sokolov is slightly higher at 0.75), and both are coming off down years. One of the things that’s been clear with Sokolov is that most of his struggles are mental (confidence) and you get the sense that if he could solve that he would take a step forward. I know virtually nothing about Jenik besides his numbers. Significantly he’s a center, not a winger, but the BSens don’t need a center (on paper they have seven in the AHL). While I can live with moving on from Sokolov (you can argue after four years maybe a change is needed), but I don’t see the vision with Jenik. Even if he shifts to the wing, he’s one of six on the left side. Where are you going to play him? It’s a baffling move as things sit.
Travis Green was hired as the coach back in May and as I haven’t commented on it yet, let’s take care of that. What are my first impressions? I’m not happy with it. Let’s go through why.
Travis Green
2023-24 New Jersey 21-8-21-1
2021-22 Vancouver 25-8-15-2
2020-21 Vancouver 56-23-29-4
2019-20 Vancouver 69-36-27-6 (lost 2nd round)
2018-19 Vancouver 82-35-36-11
2017-18 Vancouver 82-31-40-11
Career 335-141-159-35
Green was a good WHL coach (winning the Memorial Cup) and a good AHL coach (reaching and losing the Calder Cup finals with Utica), but his NHL resume is terrible. In five seasons with the Canucks he made the playoffs once and couldn’t translate that success in the seasons that followed. The only argument that can be made given his past is that he’s good with young players, but the Sens are supposed to be beyond that stage and Green (including his time in New Jersey) has shown no ability to get the best out of his team at this level. Presumably he was picked due to some comfort level Staios has with him, but I’ve seen this movie before, as the Sens have a long track record of taking risks on coaches who crash and burn in Ottawa (D. J. Smith, Dave Cameron, Cory Clouston, Craig Hartsburg, etc–no ex-Sens coach has gone on to great success). I hope I’m wrong, but this seems like a bad fit to me.
Byron Bader, who works for The Athletic, released his latest NHL prospect chart and the Sens have not changed positions (remaining 30th, although their goaltending pool is considered above average). When you continually draft for the fourth-line and bottom-six, this is the result.
This article was written by Peter Levi
eyeonthesens 