VARADA SAYS: 

I know it’s not a huge sample size in either games played or his competition, but after yet another unreal, masterful performance last night against the Habs you just have to ask the question. Is Anderson the best goaltender Ottawa’s ever had?

Sure, Lalime is the winningest goalie in Sens history, though behind a dominant regular season team. Hasek had that spooky, reputational aura that comes with being one of the best goaltenders of all time, and he also put on a show or two in his time here. Emery was part of a team that went the farthest in the playoffs. And all of these factors are legitimate. But Andy might be playing behind one of the weakest Senators teams of the last several years, and he’s outright stealing games.

To put last night’s game into perspective, Ottawa was without it’s number one center, Spezza, and a top four defenceman, Gonchar. They’re rolling a defensive core that includes three rookies–Benoit, Wiercioch, and Borowieki. The other three includes Chris Phillips, the hockey player equivalent of a dependable but wheezing pick up truck. Up front there are rookies and reclamation projects all over the place. The team is playing well under Maclean’s system, don’t get me wrong. But Anderson is a linchpin. Just look at the way his teammates come over to congratulate him after a big save.

Might be getting carried away here; “Best Ever” is quite a tag to heft on someone, even if it’s the Best Goaltender on a Team Generally Thought of To Have Pretty Crummy Goaltending. But Andy’s on fire right now, and it’s a joy to watch.

JAMES SAYS: 

Well, I think you sort of said it there that by looking back at those goalies’ respective careers here there are so many weird factors that muck up any attempt to determine a “best ever” designation. Just like with anything in hockey. This all goes back to the historic case of Lemieux V. Chronic Injury/Illness or Marcel Dionne V. Not playing his whole career on a horrible team. It’s not simply about who had the best GAA and Save % or most wins in a season.
Let Me Break It On Down Ima Kick it My Personal Feelings Root Down.

Hasek: To me he was a ringer in the vein of Ken Griffey Jr. on Mr. Burns’ company softball team. A bonafied legend that dominates the season and goes down with a case of gigantism from the brain and nerve tonic he’s been drinking just when you need him the most. That whole story of Daniel Alfredsson taking Hasek out to dinner to give him the whole, “Look Brosephine, I know you’re not too hurt to play. This team needs you now get in there” speech is one that I sincerely hope is not true. Look, I warned you I was going to kick my personal feelings on down so here it is…Screw Hasek. To me he’s a street cred Tom Barasshole. Flew in, didn’t do meaningful shit for the team and vanished like a fart in the wind first chance he got. Greatest goaltender to ever play on the team? No question. Greatest Senators goaltender? Not a chance. You don’t get that kind of accolade with one season and no playoff appearances in my books.

Lalime: Speaking of black marks on the career in Ottawa…So best overall numbers and even strong playoff numbers but what of those soul crushing playoff flops; do they really count that much against his very strong seasons? Absolutely they do. This guy helped give Leafs fans the most credible ammo against us in our rivalry. Yes, more credible than Stanley Cup wins (though I don’t feel like rehashing my feelings on Stanley Cups that you had to win TWO whole rounds of playoffs to win). He DID look embarrassing in that one series, he DID choke. He and the teams he played for should have done more. Just as I don’t see those as the best teams in Sens history I don’t see him as the best goalie. He is the President’s Trophy Banner of Ottawa goalies. Regardless of how impressive it is supposed to be when I look at that thing all I think about is disappointment.

Emery: Like your favorite band Sugar Ray, “Sugar” Ray is known both for having a brief but meteoric rise but also for threatening senior citizens lives and driving his orange Lamborghini off the MacDonald-Cartier bridge only to parachute out of the sunroof at the last second. I really need to stop taking percodan before doing these threads…where was I? Emery’s debut as starter was definitely a trial by fire as he was hastily anointed the number one when Hasek was sidelined with the aforementioned adductor injury. Considering how many goalies Ottawa has had shit their drawers under the pressure of being starter en générale the fact that Razor was thrust into the job and got the Sens past a round of playoffs is more many starters for this club, Anderson included, can boast. The next season, only his 2^nd in the NHL, Emery put together the playoff run that landed him on this list. If winning is all that matters in pro sport, I suppose Emery has the most to brag about. All in all though, Emery’s tenure with the Senators was surprisingly short. If we’re talking about greatness here, do great players get waived in their 3^rd season with the club (in favor of Martin Gerber)? It would seem the drama Emery brought to the club is inseparable from his performance as, in my humble opinion, it seems clear he was bought out at least as much for being a distraction to the dressing room as was due to a dip in performance. Emery’s buy out led to some grim seasons in net for many seasons to follow. Conclusion, Emery gets the nod for Groodest (combination of great and good) goalie. Best results but all too brief tenure leaves much to be desired for me.

So this brings us to Anderson. One thing is for sure Andy is never going to be remembered for Greatest Mask in Sens History *bass slide*. Though the sample size here is admittedly small at 87 games played in Ottawa baring injury or unmitigated disaster by even this short season’s end Craig will start closing in on Emery’s total of 134 regular season games. I realize I just talked about how short Emery’s stay in Ottawa but to build on that, it definitely shows what an impact he had in such a short period of time. I think to address the title of this post, “Not About Jason Spezza’s Back Surgery” I think, yes, we’re starting to head into that conversation with Anderson. Starting.

To speak to his impact, for me, the greatest love of all, was his debut as an Ottawa Senator where he posted a 47 save shut out (including a shootout!) against Toronto at the ACC no less. In that one game Craig handled two things the Ottawa goalie rotisserie seemed to wilt in the face of: Games against Toronto and shootouts.

As much as people might to try to speculate to the contrary, since his arrival Andy has established himself as the undisputed #1. I always find it interesting that there’s talk of hot streaks and cold streaks with him. Consider that the rebuild almost perfectly coincides with his signing, his record of 59-27-8 shows that those cold streaks must have been pretty short. Again, 59-27-8 on a rebuilding team shows that it’s starting to get real with Anderson. As rightly mentioned by Varada, aside from Hasek’s one year and one cup final appearance “greatness” is not exactly a hallmark term to through around when it comes to Sens goaltending history. Will Andy shape up to be franchise great? Too early to tell but so far Craig Anderson has slayed one important dragon: From his debut he established himself as number 1 starter. If he is to truly make his mark his mark here he has to slay another dragon that’s dogged him his whole career: Winning a playoff series.

When you comin’ back Spezz? Turris I don’t know when / We’ll get some burgers then / i know we’ll get some burrrrrrgerrrrs theeeeeen

There was a moment shortly after Alfredsson scored on the powerplay against the Habs and Mika Zibanejad scored his first NHL goal that “Cats in the Cradle” started playing in my head. The color guy picked up on it right away too. Torches had been passed, etc! They were both Swedish! Somewhere Bobby Butler  eats a frozen pizza over the kitchen sink! It was a nice moment for everyone (except Bobby Butler).

Well, I guess more passing of torches needs to happen, because Jason Spezza is out for about two months, leaving the team without its number one center. This could be a body blow to the team’s momentum. Kyle Turris has been playing well, but having two dynamic centers with strong two-way games gives Maclean the opportunity to line-match. Add to the uncertainty Peter Regin’s inability to get going this season, appearing invisible even when given the chance to anchor the top line, and the fact that Zibanejad is 19 years old, and you have  some serious questions.

Might this be enough to actually torpedo the season?

In a word: no. This isn’t the end of the world, though the team is going to have to keep getting points from the likes of Jim O’Brien and Chris Phillips if it hopes to win games, and I don’t see 20 goal campaigns in either of their futures. With continued strong play from Anderson, and those rookies on the blue line continuing to play over their heads, I think this is still a little bit better than a .500 team.

And that’s really all they need. Even if they go .500 for the rest of the season, that gives them 52 points. If you need 91 points to make the playoffs in a regular season, pro-rating that to a 48 game season means you need about 53.5 points. Ottawa is currently 6th in the league with 3.43 goals per game (tied with Chicago). Even with a dip in production, they’re 3rd in the league in goals against–better than Boston or St. Louis. So basically: this is doable, thanks in large part to the 5-1-1 start.

Another option is trying to find a center on the trade market. Let’s look at the worst teams in the league right now and see if they have any centers Ottawa might be interested in:

Florida: Dale Talon has shown a willingness to part with guys he didn’t draft, and Stephen Weiss is on an expiring contract. He’ll be due big money I don’t know if Florida wants to pay out. This would be a great option for Ottawa, though with the Panthers already struggling, I’m sure Talon would rather wait for the trade deadline and see the price jacked on his central trade piece.

Washington: George McPhee has already said he isn’t budging on the team as is; he’ll wait for them to turn it around. But they do have Mike Rebeiro making $5MM on an expiring deal. He has a limited NTC.

Calgary: Jesus, no. They spend an awful lot of money to be the worst team in the West right now, and the only player on an expiring contract I’d be interested in is Jarome Iginla–a winger.

Philadelphia: who fucking knows what’s going on with this team. They’d trade for a defensive prospect in a heartbeat, but they don’t have any centers that aren’t 1) signed long term, or 2) young players they’re going to build around. Plus they probably still think they can win the Stanley Cup this year.

Colorado: I’m sure they’d like to unload Paul Stastny’s $6.6MM per. Not a likely occurrence, especially with another season left on his contract, unless they took some baggage back–and Ottawa doesn’t have much baggage. Colorado might exercise the new CBA’s ability to trade only part of a player’s salary, ditching Stastny and opting to pay some small part of his salary. Obviously Duchene isn’t going anywhere.

All of this is complicated by the fact that Ottawa doesn’t have a 2nd round pick next season. It’s still too early in the season to know where the team’s first rounder is going to land. (Thank you Brian Burke, Cautionary Tale.)

On PK Subban and the salivation over Ottawa potentially trading for him 

I don’t think anyone is seriously thinking this could happen, though it’s fun to consider. Putting aside likelihood, should Senators fans even want this to happen?

First of all is the absolute king’s ransom it would take to pry him away from a division rival. Forget that a team like Philly, who’ve been throwing bags of money and draft resources at defencemen and goaltenders for what seems like years, are sure to drive up Subban’s price; Ottawa would need to absolutely wow Montreal with an insane offer. Ottawa has the assets in their system, but trading them for a premier player only happens once in a franchise cycle. They were deep in the Rick Nash talks—that’s the sort of player Ottawa’s assets will buy them some day. Do we want PK Subban to be that player, knowing we only get one shot at improving the club? Even if they do trade for him,would they want to sign him to the kind of deal he deserves? It would probably resemble the team’s actual top pairing puck-moving defenceman: between five and seven years, in excess of $5MM per.

Sure, Subban is an exciting player, and he fits Ottawa’s system, which emphasizes skating and puck possession, and he eats minutes up. He’s a bona fide top pairing defenceman, and I like him a lot. But looking at Ottawa’s areas of need, he might upset the apple cart a bit too much. Ottawa already has a go-to puck moving guy playing 25-30 minutes a night (can’t remember his name…Carling or something?). Subban wouldn’t compliment him on the top pairing, where you need a Methot or Kuba with a steady hand on the wheel. Which means you’d have Subban playing diminished minutes with Phillips as basically a very expensive upgrade on Gonchar. Furthermore, you’ve already got guys in the system who project as second pairing puck-movers—Patrick Wiercioch and, a few seasons from now, Cody Ceci. Finally, Ottawa JUST traded a blue chip puck moving defenceman, David Rundblad, for Kyle Turris. Why then turn around and throw resources out of the window to bring in another player in that mold? (Mould?)

I know there hasn’t been a legitimate peep about Ottawa actually going out and getting Subban—it’s all blog speculation right now. But even this fantasy scenario doesn’t hold up too well under scrutiny. Someone make this trade happen in NHL 2013 and tell me how it works out.

On Karlsson and expectations

There’s a weird narrative, which James has pointed out in previous posts, that Karlsson flew under the radar last season and that’s why he was able to score so many points. To buy into this you have to ignore all of the scouting and video coaching happening in the NHL, where I’m sure someone probably would have asked, “Hey, who’s THIS little guy with almost a point-per-game and playing 25 minutes a night at the halfway mark? Maybe we should cover him.” Dellow also had a post last year (he promised a second part concluding his logic, but as far as I can see it never came) which I thought had some telling skepticism in it. He suggested that Karlsson received a number of incidental assists on a high-scoring team. As those in the comments point out, incidental assists are something every player on a team like that might receive. To put it diplomatically, I think Dellow’s comments belied a broader skepticism of Karlsson’s abilities, and he was suggesting that Karlsson would regress. That doesn’t seem unreasonable; what, is he going to score 20 more points than the next highest-scoring defenceman every year?

Three games is a tiny sample size, but it’s been incredible to see the jump in Karlsson’s game so far. He’s a Norris winner who’s actually surprising his hometown fans. He’s not just jumping into the play, he’s consistently playing up at the opposition blue line creating turnovers. You only need to look at his disgusting goal against Florida last night to see it in effect. Two nights ago, again against Florida, he had a number of breakaways and quality chances, and could have broken that game open by himself. (We had to be satisfied with a 4-0 win.) And of course his shot from the point remains laser-like.

Something that bears mentioning: he’s leading the team in shots at the moment with 14 through three games. Turris (who sports an unreal 30% shooting percentage) has 10. For context, Alfredsson has nine and Spezza has three.

Last year’s Norris-winning Karlsson reminded me of Lidstrom (hold on, hold on, lemme explain!) because, to be honest, he wasn’t flashy and noticeable out there. He was just sort of effortless about it all. He had a great outlet pass, he could get back into position when caught, and his shots seemed to get in, seeing-eye style, from the blueline. This year he has all of those same traits, except he’s also seemed to develop a game-breaking ability. I don’t know how many times through these first three games I’ve seen Ottawa execute a textbook breakout play only to suddenly find everyone, Senators and opposition alike, looking up ice at number 65, who’s snuck up on the play, stolen the puck, and broken in on his own. He’s got just unreal vision and anticipation.

All this to say: this is going to be a fun year to be watching Karlsson. Like last year’s Ottawa Senators, he might just trump expectations if he can keep this up. It will be interesting to see what he can do against the Pens later in the week because, hey, let’s be honest: we have played the Panthers 66.6% of the time so far this year.

Latendresse is snakebitten

Yup. The penalty shot in last night’s game made it official. He’s getting in position plenty, and his pass to Turris in game two was beautiful, but does anyone else have the feeling that this guy is one goal away from the dam breaking? It’ll come, The Tenderness. Just let it happen.

Kyle Turris looked pretty good in his first game of the season, getting a few quality chances, driving possession, and scoring a wonky goal to help ruin Winnipeg’s home opener. While I’ll continue to reserve judgement until he consistently plays without the team’s best all-around player, some dude I’ve never heard of named Daniel Alfredsson, he’s a young player entering his prime, and he looks like a threat out there on every shift. I’m really excited to see what he can do this year.

I wasn’t always excited about him, though. I wasn’t a huge fan of the trade that sent David Rundblad and a second round pick to Phoenix in exchange for Turris, simply because I think Rundblad could have been a key piece in a much better deal. But as Rundblad continues to develop in the minors and Turris contributes key minutes in Ottawa, it will feel natural to compare the two and their career arc. We might forget how Ottawa got Rundblad in the first place.

Ottawa traded their first round pick in the 2010 draft, 16th overall, straight up for Rundblad. St. Louis, having given up the smooth puck mover, proceeded to draft a skilled Russian forward. At the time, the deal looked, if not like a steal, then at least a clear win for Ottawa. They brought in “Mecha-Karlsson” (TM Silverseven), who had already put in a year’s development, and St.Louis used the pick to take a kid who might never leave the KHL. Add to that that a premier puck moving defenceman will be more valuable than a pure scoring forward any day of the week, and it seemed like a schrewed move. The very next year, Rundblad led the Swedish Elite League in scoring for a defenceman, had the second highest season totals in SEL history, and was top three in all scoring. Bryan Murray looked like a genius, and with Karlsson becoming the force he is today and Cowen developing nicely, the team looked set on the blueline for the next decade. Instead, Murray dealt from a position of strength and overpayed to bring in the second line center the team needed.

Now, granted, Ottawa might not have taken Tarasenko even if they’d kept the pick that fetched them Rundblad. But as the kid makes his NHL debut this season, it would be interesting to compare his and Turris’ numbers. I know that they’re different players, on different teams, in different conferences, and at different stages of their development. But it’s a useful contrast to look, Bizarro style, at what could have been. You always, always give something to get something.

Tarasenko’s KHL numbers have been pretty bonkers. He was a point-per-game player there last season, put up 11 points in seven games at the World Juniors last year (also five in six the year before, and 15 in seven (!) in 2009…though he stank this year). And he had two goals in his NHL debut on Saturday, helping St. Louis rout the Red Wings 6-0.

So what say you? Who will have the better point totals and possession metrics this season? Kyle Turris of Vladimir Tarasenko?