1) How do you feel about hockey now that it’s back? On a scale of one to ten, one being you’ve sworn hockey off and ten being that you’re so excited that you’re sitting in a Sens jersey (and nothing else) right now counting the minutes until the opening game, how are you feeling?

2) Predictions for the Sens’ season?

3) Breakout player this season / player who’ll find himself in the doghouse at season’s end.

4) What you’re most excited to see.

MINE ANSWORDS:

1) I’m at about a four. This lockout seriously dampened my enthusiasm for hockey, and obviously the NHL in particular. That’s not just the lockout’s fault, it’s a combination of the 67s stinking this year and playing way out in Kanata (anyone watched any 67s games? I’m not so bandwagony that I’ll only watch competitors but MAN is that some stinky hockey. At one point they were outshot 22-6), the AHL not knowing how to capitalize on a lockout and continuing to offer shitty feeds behind pay walls, and international tournaments taking place in Mad Max-like dystopias in the middle of a leper colony in the Prussian Empire. This isn’t helped along by the fact that I realized that when I have 57% of my life back due to no hockey I get to work on other things. I read books. I learned some French. I caught up with friends whose idea of fun doesn’t include going to a bad Irish Pub every two days to spend $75 on beer over a four hour period.

I’ll still catch games on television, but I’m not lining up for tickets, not buying much in the way of merch, not even really interested in nitpicking through every little development (Chris Neil likes chili; what effect will this have on his possession game?). Paradoxically, I will continue to be a part of a hockey blog. Democracy, not meritocracy, ladies and gentlemints.

2) I think we have some regression in store, helped along by the lack of mister 20-minutes-a-night Kuba, Cowen and Lundin’s injuries, Phillips, Gonchar and Alfie all being one year older, Michalek’s shooting percentage coming back down to earth, Karlsson probably not leading all defencemen in scoring by 20 points, and that we pretty much lucked out in not missing Spezza or Michalek or Alfie to injuries that much last year. I don’t think we’ll see a bottoming out, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find us just on the outside of the bubble looking in. I wrote earlier how if there was a year that the Sens were going to go futile on us, it may as well be this one, when I’m used to no hockey and we’d only have to live with about 50 games of sucking. Then again, wackier things have happened in a shortened season. Craig Anderson might just win the Rocket Richard trophy.

3) I feel like Turris is the natural answer to the breakout player question, though I’ve never been a huge champion of the kid and I’m skeptical still. I think he’ll do just fine as a 2nd line center, but breaking out, turning heads, stealing hearts? I dunno. Maybe. I think I’ll go with Jakub Silfverberg, who I think may be a part of the Calder conversation, thus increasing the “Is Jakub the reincarnation of the not-yet-dead-Alfie?’ chatter. As for the player in the doghouse, I’d say either Phillips or Neil, both of whom I think should have moved on a couple of seasons ago during the purge. Phillips is a serviceable second pairing guy, and obviously he’s a veteran with a great history in the city, but at $3MM per I don’t know if having both he and Marc Methot around battling for the not-quite-good-enough-to-play-with-Karlsson spot sets my world on fire. Neil gets a bit of a pass because Carkner and Konoptka are gone and as hockey savant Don Brennan will tell you, you need someone on your team who if he wasn’t playing hockey would probably be in jail. Neil will fight people, so…we need him? Veteran, pump-up guy, history in the city, blah blah blah. But his possession numbers are brutal. He also takes more penalties than he draws, making the whole ‘pest’ element a bit of a wash. I don’t know if I care much for yet another season of Neil scoring, what, 20 points?

Holy shit, I completely forgot that this team signed Peter Regin. He might pleasantly surprise.

4) I’m most excited for the Robin Lehner / Ben Bishop tandem era to start in Ottawa. I love both of these guys so goddamned much, and think they’re destined for a spirited competition for the starting role before Lehner goes crazy once and for all and poisons Bishop’s soup. I love Andy, but I think he gets left behind starting next season, with this season being the start of a saga that will be rivaled only by that part in Game of Thrones where someone brutally murders someone else and then there’s a soft core sex scene.

1) I feel pretty good actually. I’ve spent my time in my ‘being bent out of shape about everything’ phase (which if you follow our twitter –whiiiiich according to our number of followers you likely don’t – was admittedly pretty intense for a while) but for the last few weeks I’ve been in a place where I just wanted a definitive answer. It wouldn’t have been all that crushing if there was no hockey as the idea of no season felt quite normal after three months of there being no season. If there was indeed to be hockey, great, because I love NHL hockey and am glad to see that Alfie didn’t have to retire like that.

One thing that was tough to deal with for me was watching Erik Karlsson tear it up in another team’s uniform. It’s been quite some time since Ottawa had a young player who was a force and to see him using those skills on another team (THAT LITERALLY DRESS LIKE CLOWNS) was really irritating for me. Particularly after having had locked him down with a new contract in the off season. Welcome Back To Our Karlsson Years (oh boy, did you miss how awful I am).

If I were to give it an out-of-10 rating I would say I am actually at about a 7 at this point. Probably a 7.5 in two weeks time when the season starts. But like Varada pointed out, I was 10/10 excited pre-lockout and that dulled considerably. Life went on. Now the NHL’s coming back and I’m up for some hockey, why not. My performance expectations are pretty low and I think it will be fun to see how it all plays out for better or worse. I’ll likely be in the cheap seats at the home opener…alone.

2)  I predict an entertaining and competitive season that falls just short of a playoff berth. I am not quite as cautiously pessimistic about every element of the team as tends to be convention in these discussions. Last season was educational like that. Sure a lot of things went right but credit where it’s due. Suffice to say, defence has people legitimately pretty worried. People talk about Gonchar like he’s the worst player on the team but will no one give him credit for putting up 37 points in 74 games last season? I get that he makes too much money but he’s been playing and playing well overseas and I think that’s promising. Cowen and Kuba will be missed but I don’t know if a Methot-Karlsson, Phillips-Gonchar top four and a Borowecki – Wiercioch / Benoit / eventually Lundin  as bottom pairing will necessarily destroy the team. Methot is clearly the wild card as who is an authority on anything Blue Jackets related. What I see is a Norris winner paired with what’s supposed to be a fast shut down guy, two past their prime but still very serviceable guys and, yes, a green 3^rd pairing but at least it’s the third pairing. Sub standard overall but could potentially get the job done. I could be wrong but remember, as of right now, our divisional rivals in Montreal, Toronto and Buffalo have not improved hence my prediction of competitiveness and entertainment. That said, given the sword of Damocles that is injury, the team’s competitiveness could unravel quickly. There will be little room for error in this short, half assed season and it would be foolish to think that Ottawa’s game will be free of such error. I give Ottawa an up and down, fun to watch 10^th  place in the East finish.

3)  Breakout season: NikitaFilatov.com Just………joking. Turris is the logical answer but after putting up 29 points in 49 games with Ottawa combined with his handsome new contract to me Turris done broke out already. He will continue to be a solid top 6 contributor and put up a similar rate of numbers, I think. My true breakout prediction goes to Jakub Silfverberg. Anyone who has witnessed his post-getting used to the North American game majesty in Binghamton knows he looks like a guy playing in a league below his skill level. I don’t expect him to dominate but I think he will crack the top 6, possibly top 3 and stick for the short season. I think if Colin Greening could quietly have a 17 goal rookie season hanging on the first line I am confident that Silfverberg will be able to perform similarly. Unlike Greening though fans will actually notice how impressive that is. A silfver lining (ugh, booooo, me) of the lockout is that Jakub got to adjust his game away from the scrutiny of the Ottawa Sun comment section types and will arrive at camp in a better mindset than if he was just thrown into the pool back in October. I think essentially it’s like Silfverberg has had a 3 month training camp and will hopefully be able to capitalize on that warm up this season. I’m trying to think of what constitutes a break out season in 48 games, hmmm…I guess 9 or 10 goals.

Goat of the year in the Year of the Goat: Have we simply entered an age where Phillips is just basically permanently on the fans’ bad side? Since he signed that deal after a brutal campaign on a brutal team fans seemed to have decided to just hate the guy. Damned if you do damned if you don’t. Like Kuba before him: “Play a good game, go unnoticed, play a bad game and get torn apart.” I predict Big Rig will take on Kubinian amounts of blame this season. He’s not the same guy he used to be but, like Gonchar, in my opinion, he’s not exactly losing the team games but not winning them either. With a weaker D squad look for Philips to be run out of town when the going gets tough. That was basically the case last year and that was on a playoff team.

4)  I am excited about two things and they are quite divergent. First, just could not be more excited to see Erik Karlsson play again. Norris win and point avalanche definitely a contributor but not necessarily the sole reason for excitement. With Kuba gone and if Methot indeed pairs with him we should expect a lower rate of production from EK but goddamn do I miss how fun it is to watch that kid skate like the wind and launch bombs from the point. Though I didn’t get to watch him play, his point totals indicate that he didn’t seem to miss a step in Finland and how can you not be pumped to watch the team’s best young player. The second (and admittedly very, very weird) thing I’m excited about seeing is what Guillaume Latendresse is. This guy is a mystery wrapped in a riddle wrapped in an awful goatee. Case in point, I didn’t even know he spent the vast majority of last season injured (ALREADY EXCITING!!!). I have no idea what to expect. Aside from tearing it up for a while after being traded to Minnesota from the Habs this guy has always seemed to have a rep as a guy with good top 6 potential who couldn’t really put it together. From what I gather, this is his last kick at the can in terms of being re-signed in the NHL. I like the idea of him  being in direct competition with Peter Regin who from what I gather is being given his last kick at the can in terms of being re-signed in the NHL. Am I expecting something huge from I already hate spelling his first name Latendresse? No, I am just very interested to see how that story line plays out. Look for him to become a goat if things don’t pan out.

JAMES ON!