–Bryan Murray is putting the Sens first round pick (#15) up for grabs.  “There are people on this team who we are not really interested in trading. But it may well happen that we would try to do something to either add a player or a higher pick. We’re very open minded. So if it gets out there that other managers would like to call, I’d be very open with that. There aren’t a lot of contracts I’m trying to dump. I think the people that have them, have a chance to play on our hockey team. During the training camp process, or after that, if some young player steps up and is really showing that he is ready to play now, I have to try to look after that at the time.  It’s always been my theory that you pick the best player … at that time. And if you have to move him to get what you need later on, you probably can do that.”  This isn’t an unusual or unexpected sentiment for Murray, who has made trades every single draft as Ottawa’s GM.  Mind you, it’s one thing to be ready to deal and it’s another to find a dance partner.

–Pierre Dorion is also talking about the draft, “With the way the 2010-11 season ended, with us trading away a lot of assets, we approached last year as a very big draft. I think we go into this draft with a different mindset in that we know we’re not going to pick as often as we did last year. But we still go into it with the mindset that you never know what’s going to happen. We’re dealing from a position of power now when it comes to the quality prospects we have. A number of these players won the Calder Cup (in 2011), and a number of them played and contributed on our team this year. I think at every position we have what I would call blue-chip prospects. Some are playing right now, some will be playing down the road. There are some bigger names at the top [of the draft], but I see quite a few good players. Whether they make it next year, or whether it will take them one year or three years to make it will depend on their learning curves, physically and mentally. If you get caught up in drafting by position, you’re not drafting the best asset.”  To me these comments compliment Murray’s desire for wheeling and dealing quite well.

-Not surprisingly Murray doesn’t expect to be very busy when it comes to free agency.  There’s a need to fill a hole on the blueline, but otherwise nothing is certain.

–Alan Panzeri offers the names of six players the Sens might be eyeing for the draft: Sebastien Collberg, Hampus Lindholm, Pontus Aberg, Ollie Maata, Cody Ceci, and Radek Faksa.  It’s an interesting list, but Panzeri doesn’t indicate whether it comes from his best guess or from talking to the organisation, so take it with a grain of salt.

–Sportsnet provides their list of top-five players rising in the draft: Tom Wilson, Derrick Pouliot, Teuvo Teravainen, Cody Ceci, and Lukas Sutter.  The only nonsensical member of this list is Ceci, who was highly regarded at the beginning of the season.

-Mock drafts abound and THN see’s Ottawa selecting Hampus Lindholm.  The NHL website has three mock drafts posted.  Mike G. Morreale has Ottawa picking Matt Finn, Adam Kimelman see’s Ottawa picking Cody Ceci, and Steven Hoffner follows the trend of Ottawa picking Hampus Lindholm.

-The Sens have posted video of their amateur scouting meeting.  The best part of this to me is watching Vaclav Burda’s expressions.

-For those of you who want a refresher on the various draft resources that I’ve looked at, here are the links:
International Scouting Service (ISS)
Red Line Report
Future Considerations
Hockey Prospects
Mckeen’s
The Hockey News
Hockey Prospectus

June 15, 2012
Categories: Binghamton Senators, Ottawa Senators . . Author: Eye on the Sens . Comments: 1 Comment

-The Los Angeles Kings put NHL fans out of their misery by winning the Stanley Cup.  The Kings hammered home the point that the regular season means nothing with the victory.  The unwatchable final produced the third lowest ratings since 1995 (dropping 29% from last year) and NHL purists can pat themselves on the back for sucking excitement from the game.  I’m not sure a team has ever won the Cup with less adversity paired with a complete lack of excitement.  Even the 1995 New Jersey Devils, the poster childs for tedium, struggled to win the Cup.  Call me a pessimist, I predict the NHL will make no meaningful changes for fear of “hurting the game” or some similar nonsense.

–Nichols reports that Shane Prince has been signed, although official word has yet to confirm it.

–Scott reminds us that Filip Kuba could be retained, although he points to Corsi numbers to show that Erik Karlsson was more important for Kuba‘s performance than the other way around.

–Bruce Garrioch speculates that the Sens are interested in retaining Matt Carkner and Jesse Winchester.  I can imagine how difficult it would be to find replacements for a fourth-line center with concussion problems who can’t score and a seventh defenseman with two bad knees who couldn’t keep up with the pace before his injury problems.  Garrioch can’t offer the same assurance for Zenon Konopka, which is about as clear a sign as you could ask for that he won’t be retained.

–Wayne Scanlan wonders how close the Sens are to the Kings (assuming that’s the pattern to follow), but doesn’t really spend much time breaking down the comparison other than to say the Sens need internal growth to match them.

–Rob Brodie runs down Ottawa’s first round picks throughout the organisations history (including Kyle Turris for no particular reason), which is fun only in that you can remember that Pierre Gauthier and Marshall Johnston thought Mathieu Chouinard was worth selecting twice.

–Bob McKenzie confirms that Chris Kelly has re-signed with Boston which mercifully ends the pointless speculation about a return to Ottawa.

June 13, 2012
Categories: Binghamton Senators, Ottawa Senators . . Author: Eye on the Sens . Comments: Leave a comment

-Things are very quiet on the Sens front.  I expect the signing of Shane Prince this week or next, but otherwise things will likely remain quiet until the draft.

-Not surprisingly, Don Brennan wants Zenon Konopka and Matt Carkner resigned.  Scott has fun deconstructing Brennan’s argument for bringing them back and the smart money won’t see either retained.

-As a sign of how slow things are right now, Jared Crozier jumps into Chris Kelly rumour mode just as Bob McKenzie is closing that door with word he’s about to be re-signed by the Bruins.

–John Henkelman looks at the playoff performances by Senator prospects and recent graduates, largely regurgitating stats and inexplicably calling Darren Kramer a defensive prospect.

-Capgeek has their provisional salary up for Jean-Gabriel Pageau (613k).

-Here’s my look at Red Line Report’s 2012 NHL Draft Guide.

June 11, 2012
Categories: Binghamton Senators, Ottawa Senators . . Author: Eye on the Sens . Comments: Leave a comment

-The Sens signed Jean-Gabriel Pageau to his ELC yesterday.  Tim Murray said “If he has a big summer this summer and comes to training camp in good shape and looks like he can play in the American league, we’ll give him every opportunity to do that. If it doesn’t look like he’s ready for that level yet, we’ll have to talk to him and go through our options. He’d be a star in (the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League), in my opinion, as an overager (next year). But hopefully, he’s strong enough and good enough to play in the American league for us next year.”  Pageau himself talked about his opportunity, “That’s a great offer they gave me and I very much appreciate it. I think that’s a good motivation for the future and for my summer. I think I have a big training season (ahead) and I’m ready to make the sacrifice to be in the organization earlier.”

-Bryan Murray (in the above link) indicated that Shane Prince would be the last prospect signed.

–Tim Murray was on The Team 1200 yesterday and commented on free agency and Ottawa’s RFA’s.  In respect to the latter he said, “The RFA guys will be after July 1st but certainly we’ve got a strategy with all of them and we’ve got our comparables, as do the agents have their comparables. So they’ll all get done in due course but there’s no cut-off date and they’ll all get done after July 1st.”  Murray talked about their process with UFA’s where they use a 7-point system to assess players.  More interesting to me was his comment about the glut of forwards in the organisation, “it certainly puts us in a great position to trade quantity for quality and you’re not often in that position but as you said, the drafting has gone very well over the past few years. So we’ve had a lot of signings in the last two years that gets a little worrisome with the 50-man roster, reserve list and all that but we’re in a position where if we can plug a hole or trade quantity for quality, we’re quite willing to do it but again, we need a dance partner.”  To me quantity over quality screams Bobby Butler and more for a defenseman.

–Don Brennan keeps his streak of dumb ideas alive with “Chris Phillips could replace Kuba on the number one pairing, alongside Karlsson, and the Senators wouldn’t miss a beat.”  That makes no sense on any level, as Kuba is a better player than Phillips (for the simplest of statistical comparisons, Kuba‘s 32 points this year is 6 more than Phillips‘ career-best in 06-07, while Kuba‘s -1 rating in four years with the Senators is much better than Phillips‘ -29 rating over the same period).

June 7, 2012
Categories: Binghamton Senators, Ottawa Senators . . Author: Eye on the Sens . Comments: Leave a comment

–Pierre Dorion talked about the draft, “Our mindset is totally different. With the way the 2010-11 season ended, with us trading away a lot of assets, we approached last year as a very big draft. The biggest thing is last year we were picking sixth and this year we’re picking 15th. So you understand the quality of the prospect will not be of the same value. We drafted a lot of skill last year. What we’ve done in last year’s draft and the three previous drafts is we really improved the depth of our prospects. When Bryan and Tim (Murray, assistant GM) took over, we had three players returning in Binghamton (AHL) and a few players in junior we were going to sign, so the cupboard was really bare. We’re dealing from a position of power now when it comes to the quality prospects we have. A number of these players won the Calder Cup last year (in the AHL), a number of them played and contributed on our team this year. For instance, you look at Jared Cowen coming in from Spokane, and we don’t win the Calder Cup without him. So that experience of winning the Calder Cup was a huge factor in him being able to step into the league this year. I think at every position we have what I would call blue-chip prospects. Some are playing right now, some will be playing down the road.”  He added a thought about the NHL combine, “As far as making a big change, no team that I’ve ever worked with has ever done that based on the combine.”

–Ian Altenbaugh ranks Ottawa’s prospects as third best in the NHL.  “Strengths: The Senators have top-end skill at all forward positions led by Mika Zibanejad, Jakob Silfverberg, Stefan Noesen, and Shane Prince. Despite graduating five prospects and trading another key one this season, the team still has a group of players who can provide depth at the NHL level including Stephane Da Costa, Jim O’Brien, Andre Petersson, and Robin Lehner. Ottawa has a very young NHL team so the organization has the luxury of giving their future prospects more time to fully develop properly for the NHL.  Weaknesses: The organization has no goaltending prospects behind Robin Lehner at any level of hockey and needs to address this hole. The Senators have a lack of high-end talent on defense with the graduation of Jared Cowen and the trade of David Rundblad, but do have a good quantity with lower potential.  Top 5 Prospects: 1. Mika Zibanejad, C, 2. Robin Lehner, G, 3. Jakob Silfverberg, LW/RW, 4. Stefan Noesen, RW, 5. Mark Stone, RW. Lost to Graduation: Bobby Butler, Erik Condra, Jared Cowen, Kasper Daugavins, Colin Greening. Lost to Trade: David Rundblad. Added: Cole Schneider.”

–Wayne Scanlan writes about the style of hockey which has dominated the playoffs, “clogged shooting lanes, skaters restricted from skating freely, with or without the puck, defencemen latching onto forecheckers like airport security personnel doing a full body search.”  Scanlan hopes that the NHL’s “posse of general managers, coaches, players and officials to discuss the state of the game and how rules are enforced,” which will help change the game.  I have my doubts.  Players are conservative, GM’s are conservative, and coaches are incredibly conservative when it comes to change.  What’s more likely to happen is that the defensive trend will continue for another season or two until ratings and attendance begins to tank, then action will be taken.

-Speaking of bad ratings, the Cup final has dropped 25% from last year and I expect that decline to continue.

-Here’s my look at The Hockey News and Hockey Prospect‘s 2012 NHL Draft Guide.

June 2, 2012
Categories: Binghamton Senators, Ottawa Senators . . Author: Eye on the Sens . Comments: Leave a comment