It probably doesn’t come as any surprise at this point in the season to hear that Ottawa’s biggest weakness is its defence, or lack thereof. 28^th in the league in shots allowed per game—only last-place Buffalo and made-a-deal-with-the-devil Toronto are worse. 28^th in the league in goals allowed per game—only Edmonton and the Islanders are worse. They have decent, or at least average possession metrics. (Possibly as a result of slowly working Karlsson to death.) But when they’re outshot, they’re outshot badly. And when they get outshot badly, they can’t keep the puck out of their net.

It becomes truly worrisome when one considers there’s really no relief in sight. Ottawa’s best defensive prospect, Cody Ceci, is already up with the club. He’s acclimatized well, though is still a couple of years away from the team knowing what it has on its hands. Even when he maxes it, he’s thought to be more of an offensive defenseman.

Look at this depth chart from Hockey’s Future (number rating is self-explanatory; letter rating is probability of them having success, which I take to mean applicability of their skillset to the NHL game. I don’t really know how it’s determined, though it seems conservative enough):

Troy Rutkowski is our fourth best defensive prospect! Ugh.

Beyond Mark Borowiecki, who’s demonstrated that he can play replacement level minutes, and some promising output from Mikael Wikstrand, there’s nobody that projects as a top four defenceman, and certainly nobody who projects as a top four shutdown defenceman.

The UFA market doesn’t look much better (courtesy of Capgeek):

Yeah, I stopped at Nick Schultz. I considered stopping further down the list at Douglas Murray, but I think you get the point. Even if there was anyone desirable on that list, Ottawa would be easily outbid by Philadelphia, who are basically a bunch of nihilists bent on crashing the market system at this point.

Chris Phillips—he of the fresh new contract—is clearly in decline. Marc Methot is only 28, but hasn’t had a great season, and could be on the verge of his own decline. Wiercioch doesn’t seem to have earned the trust of his coach, spending every other game in the press box, even if he earned a contract at $2MM per from Bryan Murray. And to make matters worse, without a first round pick this year, Ottawa misses out on the chance to draft a defenceman in the top ten. (Assuming they continue to perform at their current output.)

Bryan Murray has put all of his chips on Jared Cowen developing into a top four defenceman. It may have been a reasonable enough bet; drafted top ten, big guy, you know the drill. And it’s the sort of gamble small market teams have to make to get players at good value—trust your projections, get them under contract, and pray. But if Cowen doesn’t round into form, and Ceci takes a step back, Murray is going to need to find a solution elsewhere.

After all: we only have five seasons left of Karlsson’s prime after this year. I suppose it could be worse. Imagine if Karlsson had turned out to be an Anton Babchuk-like offensive specialist instead of the tiny beast we know and love. Where would Ottawa be in the standings today?

So where does that leave Ottawa? It does have a few decent if not outstanding NHL-caliber forwards it can dangle as trade bait, including captain Jason Spezza. Its prospects on the front end are also respectable, with players like Mark Stone, Matt Puempel, and Mike Hoffman at what might be the peak of his trade value.

Who could Ottawa target? There are a number of small fish like Dimitri Kulikov, or pending free agent Tom Gilbert, but this is depth at best. Christian Ehrhoff’s name has been bandied about, though the 175 years left remaining on his contract may be an issue. We can fantasize about getting Shea Weber from the offensively starved Nashville Predators for Jason Spezza, but I don’t see two captains with no trade clauses waiving to swap mid-level teams and go play in a system that doesn’t suit either of their skillsets. You might see a transaction on the Foligno-for-Methot level, but the truth is that there just aren’t many options out there for a team without blue chippers, without their first round pick, without money, and without being an appealing contender in an appealing market.

…which is to say that, in the short term, it’s Cowen or bust. Let’s hope that in the next couple of drafts Murray concentrates on the blueline.