Hoo boy is it ever hard to find hockey to write about in August. Especially given that there might not even be a season and my favorite team has decided not to spend any money—everything seems like it’s stuck in a perpetual holding pattern. Still, I managed to piece together some uninformed opinions about the league in between bouts of drinking outside in the sun.

Detroit: Can’t help but wonder if Kenny Holland’s incredible reputation as one of the best GMs in hockey is only now truly being put to the test. I mean, he had the greatest defenceman maybe of all time playing 30 minutes a night and into his 40s, and you combine that with late round steals like Zetterberg and a goalie like Osgoode, who stunk just enough in the regular season that they never had to pay him and suddenly became incredible in the playoffs every single damn year. This offseason, tasked with replacing Lidstrom, Holland did something very ordinary and predictable, not at all befitting such an apparent genius: he went after the best unrestricted free agents on the market.

This franchise enjoyed the longest sustained hand job from hockey critics the world over as proponents of “moneypuck” alternative metrics, vertical integration, and scouting proficiency. And it just resorted to the very antithesis of those things. Holland wrote a giant-sized novelty check to Suter and Parise, despite all the evidence that they couldn’t possibly provide value relative to that sort of money. And, just like all the other unoriginal big market GMs, when they miss out there’s very little in the way of Plan B.

Now I hear rumors that they’re looking closely at Bouwmeester and maybe even Gonchar, having to pay a premium in prospects or picks for mediocre talent, and I have to wonder: how did they not see this coming? How have they not been shoring up defensive prospects for the last ten years, knowing that one day their linchpin and captain would retire? Unless Holland has some kind of trick up his sleeve, or his metrics are so alternative that we can’t see how secretly good this defense corps will be, Detroit is going to regress hard this year. As a fan of a team that once lost Chara for nothing, I’m sympathetic. I think Detroit’s incredible run of playoff appearances may soon come to an end.

Edmonton: really enjoying the way certain hockey fixtures, especially those in Edmonton (obviously), are speculating on the team’s ability to possibly make the playoffs this season. This is a team that needs a 20 point bump over last year to be competitive for the eighth seed. To give you some perspective, Ottawa finished about 20 points out of the playoffs the season before last, and they were still up about 10 points on last place Edmonton that year. Now, Ottawa made a 20 point improvement on their place in the standings, but on the back of Karlsson’s Norris Trophy season, Spezza being top five in the league in point scoring, quality goaltending for the first time in forever, no injuries, Alfredsson being incredible at age 83, Paul MacLean’s system actually working, Milan Michalek shooting about 20% for a good chunk of the season, and a whole bunch of improbable comebacks. Edmonton makes no changes other than adding another very skilled teenager, a defenseman who is highly touted but has never played in the NHL, and Khabibulin being a year older. I don’t think anyone would be surprised to see Tambellini—or, god willing, someone else—sitting up there on TSN’s season-ending draft lottery show in the spring.

CBA negotiations: I don’t know if I’m being terribly naïve, but I don’t think there will be an enormous lockout this season. There’s just too much money on the line, and the NHLPA looks too well organized this time around to keep the discussions from being at least partially constructive. I know there’s a lot of posturing, and everyone is afraid of setting precedent for the next twenty of these things, but there just doesn’t seem to be that fundamental, existential discussion required this time. This isn’t about instituting a mechanism that will change every facet of the management of the game. This is basically about tweaking revenue sharing. Not to minimize the size of the differences between the two sides, but it just doesn’t seem so much more difficult than any other standard negotiation on how to split up the pie. No negotiation ever gets fixed early, after all. A few all-nighters in September and I bet we see a deal hammered out.

One wonders if there’s a way during future CBA negotiations to silo off some of these issues—say, have the main contract negotiation essentially comprised of revenue sharing methods, and then have sub-agreements for matters like participation in the Olympics. I know everything is related to revenues to some degree or another, but I can’t help but think that there will be a number of concessions made in the name of expediency if only because the scope of the discussion is so big.

In a way, I’m hoping that the first part of the season is cancelled. I’ve always thought that the 82 game NHL season is way too long, especially when you add all of those useless exhibition games which, here in Canada, are breathlessly announced and endlessly broadcast by a hockey-crazed media. I’m not above it. I watch too, and listen as Dean Brown or whoever analyses how Chris Neil, playing on the first line with all of the team’s good players sitting out because the games are meaningless, really came close to a shot on net there. By the end of every season I’m reduced to hockey exhaustion, waiting out the final 10-20 games in anticipation of the playoffs. I don’t even know how Islanders and Leafs fans feel, their seasons usually out of reach long before. If they could just go ahead and start the season on November first, I’d be okay with that. I’d prefer to trim the last 20 games off the schedule that the first, but I’m not against the concept.

In any case, I wonder how much longer we’ll have to wait before Melnyk weighs in with another one of his “this team needs to make it to the second round to break even” panic attacks.

Hello readers,

This July marked the two year anniversary of Welcome To Your Karlsson Years, once The Cory Clouston Fashion Review, and before that a whole bunch of Gmail threads. We had a vision way back in 2010: to talk about the Ottawa Senators without access or insight, as only several other Ottawa Senators blogs were capable of and already doing.

Since that time, it’s been pretty remarkable to watch our little readership and community develop. I don’t have any doubt that we’re a very small fish in a very large sea of opinion, but nonetheless it’s been gratifying, humbling, and boner-inducing to see our traffic go steadily up. In July we beat our best ever month for site hits. That’s right: July. That blows my mind.

We do have to thank a couple of sites in particular for helping us along the way. Both Silver Seven and Puck Daddy have linked to us many times, shunting a segment of their literate and larger readership in our direction. That’s very gracious of them. By linking to them here and shunting at least tens of readers back, we consider that debt repaid.

I’d like to thank Erik Karlsson for being amazing and making us look smart for naming our blog after him, and the NHLPA for not suing us, despite the tenuous value and borderline damage this blog brings to Karlsson’s considerable brand leverage. Someday we hope to be folded into the young man’s synergy strategy and, as a result, learn Swedish.

But most of all, we have to take a moment to thank you, dear reader, for returning to our site every day, or at least every couple of weeks when you think of it because Jeremy Milks hasn’t been updating as much lately and seriously I wish he would. Because of you we get to live our dream, until such time as we develop superior and more lucrative dreams.

Even though by the time this posts it will be August – the month known in the hockey universe as That Scene in Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey Where They Play Board Games with Death – we’d like to clue you in to what we have planned for the blog in the coming weeks and months and years and centuries.

First, we will continue to write. About whatever comes into our heads. James will be funny. I will pretend that I have any idea what I’m talking about, using a cursory glance at BehindtheNet to suggest that Bobby Butler should have been named assistant coach.

We are still planning, and working on producing, a podcast, which I’ve learned is some kind of online radio show for cyberpunks and horrible loners. In our heads it is awesome.

We’re gonna get Steve producing some more of those magical images that are basically our bread and butter, including, possibly, some nice new site design elements. We will continue to abuse Steve in this way with little recompense for how very much our friendship has cost him.

We are also working hard to get James a press pass for a solitary game. He will write the Ottawa Senators Blog equivalent of Dr. Zhivago, and then we’ll sell the site to BF Goodrich or Subway so that we might recoup some small portion of the value our employers lose as we write about hockey on their dime.

And finally, we guarantee that the Ottawa Senators will win the Stanley Cup this season. Stephan Da Costa gets the Conn Smythe. Bank on it.

But until then…thanks again for reading. Go Sens go!

– Varada

As has been reported by news-starved hockey outlets all over Canada, Ottawa bought out Bobby Butler a couple of days ago.

From The6thSens post on the topic:

“The Senators will pay Butler $200,000 per season in real money but according to Capgeek, the cap hit on a potential Butler buyout will be $50,000 in the first year of the deal and $200,000 in the second. (Note: Steve Lloyd has reported that the Butler’s cap hit will actually be $75,000 in the first year of his deal and I’m not sure what accounts for the discrepancy. Nor am I interested in going through the CBA to find out the reasoning, if true, since that $25,000 difference is inconsequential to this team’s cap situation.)”

Inconsequential is right. $25,000 is as inconsequential to this team’s cap situation as $200,000, or $2,000,000. If Bobby’s buy-out somehow had a cap hit of 10 times his full salary, it would be inconsequential to this team’s cap situation. They’re currently about $20MM under the cap, spending less than all but the New York Islanders and Phoenix Coyotes. They’re being outspent by financial juggernauts like Nashville, Florida, Anaheim and Columbus, with no players left to re-sign, no quality UFAs left on the market, and no room in the forward ranks for new players.

So, let me be straight here: I’m not complaining about having a potentially competitive team who is spending less money than most. That’s great. I’m not advocating a $114MM offer sheet to PK Subban. (Strokes chin thoughtfully for a moment, vomits in wastebasket.) But that still doesn’t make this buy-out make much sense.

Butler had 37 points in 94 games, a 0.39 PPG average, which ain’t great and ain’t terrible neither. His Relative CORSI for the season wasn’t bad (3.5), though it was terrible in the playoffs (-22.1). In a nutshell, he’s a young player (25) who doesn’t cost much, has okay possession numbers, has okay point production, and has room to grow.

So…exactly the type of player a rebuilding club might want to keep around, if only for depth?

I know Butler spent his share of time in the press box last year, and the team probably didn’t want to pay him 15 grand per game to watch hockey (though paying him $400K over two years to get absolutely nothing has got to sting), but I also think Ottawa got through most of last year relatively unscathed on the injury front. They go into this year with players like Alfredsson (gods willing), Latendresse, Michalek, Spezza, and Peter Fucking Regin in their top six. Some or all of them could be missing for long stretches. And the message management sends is that they’d rather go in with an $800,000 Regin who hasn’t played hockey in about two years than pay Butler money they clearly have in the event that maybe, just maybe, they’re going to need someone who’s played some NHL games to put the puck in the net somewhere down the line.

I’m okay with the team not spending as much money as the big clubs. It’s the economics of the league, and I’ll take smart management and prospect development over whatever it is exactly that Brian Burke does any day. But I’m also okay with inexpensive depth. What exactly is a team this far below the cap floor doing buying young players out?

As far as I can tell, there are two potential subtexts to this thing: Murray has something expensive planned, or Melnyk is hoping for at least one season of high-sales/low-payroll to maximize his return on a team which, he insists, loses money.

I’ve taken issue with Melnyk’s math in the past, but even if it’s true that he needs to run a bargain basement franchise just to make a few bucks, I wonder if there’s a point at which fans start to look at the team’s bottom line and strategy and become less forgiving of cost-savings measures. Butler’s not a game changer, and the odds were long on him making a sustained impact on this lineup. But the point is that the team could afford, both in terms of cap space and revenues, to take a wait-and-see approach to his development. A tough season–one in which he received about three minutes less ice time per game–is not unheard of. If the team presumably saw enough potential to sign him to that deal in the first place, I’m curious to know what changed. Shitty exit interview?

If this is purely about the dollars and cents, then it leaves a sour taste in my mouth. Not because I liked Butler so much. But because I wonder if this move implies an era of cost-cutting and the challenging hockey that comes with it.

In any case, good thing we didn’t name this blog the Ballad of Bobby Butler. May your legend live on, you wonderfully-named, collegian shooting star.

LOL

Varada

I don’t think we’ve really weighed in on the whole Rick Nash to Ottawa thing here. I mean, we have in an off-beat “oh yeah and that’s also happening” kind of way, but we’ve never really dedicated a post to it. Part of it is that the 6^th Sens guys have been pretty serious about covering every aspect of the potential trade (and then adding “please don’t” at the end of every post). The other is that Scott Howson’s asking price was so high that it was hard to imagine the rumored prospects-and-picks-and-Nick Foligno package actually getting it done.

But of course there’s going to be an element of regret the day after Nash is finally traded to the Rangers, especially seeing how relatively little Sather had to give up. Dubinsky is a quality, two-way top-six player, but as the cornerstone of a trade package he’s lacking. He’s a 50 point player who put up 34 points last year. Artem Anisimov is skilled and improving, but is a one-dimensional goal scorer, sort of like the Kristian Huselius that Columbus just got rid of. Tim Erixon is a quality prospect, though one that New York didn’t have to give up very much to obtain (two 2^nd rounders and a shitty prospect, as Erixon was refusing to sign with Calgary, who drafted him 23^rd overall back in 2009). Finally, they gave up what’s going to be a late 1^st round pick.

So, three nice guys and a lottery ticket for a franchise players and captain who will pay his own salary in jersey sales. And Columbus had to send back a 3^rd round pick and a prospect, albeit a minor leaguer, to make it happen. It’s sort of incredible.

Also incredible that Howson managed to get that package without any of New York’s truly high end prospects or up-and-comers. You’d think he would almost prefer a one-for-one, Nash-for-Stepan-or-Kreider-or-Del Zotto trade, if only for the cost savings. Instead he adds depth to a lineup that’s all depth at this point. This brings us back to Ottawa’s rumored package for Nash, and the pervasive feeling among the blogging community that Nash isn’t worth it.

Let’s look at the criticisms of Nash. I don’t dispute any of them, though I wonder if they matter.

He’s past his prime: Yup. Completely. You’ll start to see a steady decline in his numbers, and by the end of the remaining six years you’ll be lucky to have a top six forward. But this production is only disappointing relative to that of the package going back and the salary cost. Let’s say the package going back would be Foligno, Lehner, Zibanejad and a 1^st round pick. Two prospects, a borderline top six player, and a pick which, granted, could land just about anywhere. That package could certainly outproduce a declining Nash, but if you’re a GM and you have to plan around your team’s projected performance, you can’t pencil in anything around prospects. There’s too much variability. I like Zibanejad a lot, but MacLean’s already calling him out at prospect development camp, he’s got concussions, he underproduced in the SEL last season, and Ottawa is already including him in trade packages. I’m not putting my chips on Mika just yet. Lehner has looked great at times, but he’s a goalie. How on earth you predict their performance is a mystery to me. Foligno is entering his prime, but is a 50 point player in the Dubinsky mould. You’re giving Columbus some choice lottery tickets there, but what you’re getting back in certainty, even if it’s certainty around declining performance, is something you can plan around. And in the short term, you basically get another Milan Michalek to play on the other side of Spezza.

Which brings us to…

He costs too much: Again, yup. His performance will probably not be worth $7.8MM a year. My question is: when would this possibly matter except in a scenario in which Ottawa is spending to the cap? At this point, Ottawa is struggling just to get to the cap floor. If Melnyk doesn’t get his money’s worth from Nash, why would I care? There are bargains up and down the lineup. An expensive and aging power forward being paid, what, about $1.8MM too much? I’m not going to lose sleep over that. It’s not like having Nash is preventing us from being in on some other high end free agent, or from re-signing a quality player. Having Nash is not paying Kovalev $5MM per. Not only that, but if there’s a salary rollback in the new CBA, Nash’s salary could perfectly align with his production, at least for the next two to three seasons.

Complaining that Nash costs too much on a non-cap team is like complaining that there was a cheaper scoreboard out there or that the team is paying too much to re-pave the parking lot.

He’s never done anything in the playoffs: Eh, neither has half our team. If Alfie retires, I think the Senators’ average age dips down to about 14.

I don’t think Nash is a sure thing—despite his performance on the international stage, chemistry with Spezza, and ability to produce on a team that has consistently been one of the worst in the league every year of its existence—and all of the criticisms of him as a player and his contract are perfectly valid and uncontested here. But what the New York Rangers gave up to slot Rick Nash alongside a premier playmaking center—hey, we’ve got one of those!—should have at least a few fans wishing Nash had considered putting Ottawa on his list.

As for Columbus…well, I do a lot of jumping up and down on Columbus on this blog, and it’s not likely to stop. But look at this lineup. It is hockey we’re talking about here, so I won’t be surprised if the team goes on some unlikely run and outperforms expectations, but which team is going to be intimidated by group of players?

Poor Nick Foligno.

James

Scotty, Scotty, Scotty…how did this happen? I’m trying to figure this out. It’s really hard to make sense of how Howson went from big timing offers at the deadline from what I would imagine to be all of the teams on Nash’s list (which I can only believe are all good teams gearing up for a playoff run and as such all have good players to trade) and then some (non-list teams like Ottawa and Toronto) and ended up trading for what’s essentially Nick Foligno, Zack Smith plus 10 points and minus all toughness, Patrick Weircioch and what could end up being 30^th overall pick (STILL A FINE PICK BUT NOT IN EXCHANGE FOR RICK NA$H!). My best guess is that Howson played chicken with Nash’s list thinking it was going to expand if he waited long enough and he lost. Perhaps widespread interest dried up and Nash’s list remained intact. Again, that list being presumably full of good teams that may not necessarily have been particularly “desperate” to obtain a Rick Nash as they are already good teams and trade options got a bit thin. I could be (likely totally am) wrong about how this whole thing went down. It’s just a guess. One thing I do know is that these blockbuster trades pretty much always end up looking disappointing, especially when an NTC is involved. I survived Cheechoo for Heatley 2009! For Columbus’ fans sake I hope they do too. The Blue Jackets now have three 1^st round picks (same amount Murray DIDN’T have to trade Jeff Carter and Rick Nash for!) in next year’s draft. One would think that for their franchise’s future that it’s crucial that they get something exciting going quick. Anyway, congratulations to the New York Rangers, I wish you nothing but less success than the Ottawa Senators in future endeavors!

I have had many a discussion with friends about obtaining Rick Nash since Ottawa made their intensions clear. I always found it important to couch everything with, “Before I start, let’s not for a second pretend that having Rick Nash on your team is a shitty situation…” The Rangers are obviously more dangerous now with him in the lineup regardless of the knocks on his career.

That out of the way, let me now say that I am firmly in the camp of being very relieved that Ottawa did not do this. Frankly, I’m a bit shocked that they were apparently quite aggressive in pursuing him. I suppose it is a GM’s job to explore all avenues to make their team better and that there is due diligence to be do’ed when a player like this is (sort of) on the market, but this early in the rebuild? I think Varada makes very valid (and terrifying!) points about Zibanejad but as fun as potentially fleecing a team by trading them a prospect that ends up being nothing is, I think given the Sens absolute wealth of them during an admitted rebuild they should hang onto them, let them play and get a clearer picture of who has what to offer. This is a rare opportunity where the franchise has the time to do this. I’m okay with Michalek-Spezza-Greening for another year to find out if Ziba/Stone/Infinity is the real deal! Did we all kiss Dave Poile’s ass for not trading any picks or prospects for years for nothing? Murray has made moves this summer and not given up shit. I commend him for it. In my opinion, Rick Nash simply never was the type of guy for what should be this team’s strategic plan.

So would I have done the “essentially Nick Foligno, Zack Smith plus 10 points and minus all toughness, Patrick Weircioch and what could end up being 30^th overall pick” deal it ended up being? Still no. It is wayyyyyy better than Foligno/Zibanejad/Lehner/1^st (holy FUCK typing that out really drives home how much of an overpayment that is) but let me express how much I HATE HATE HAAAAAATE that contract (so much!). It’s a Columbus banking on Nash being their franchise player contract. I gotta say, on the whole ‘Im not paying him so who cares if he’s not a high end top six forward in a few years?’ thing?.I’ll tell you who’d care, fucking EVERYONE would. Sergei Gonchar played over 20 minutes a night, put up nearly 40 points and had a very solid playoff performance and people in this town want to launch him into space! We’re a tough crowd when it comes to they money players make, roll back or no roll back. The team is at the floor now but in all goes well in a few short years Turris, Cowen, Silfverberg, Lehner/Bishop and who knows whatever other player that emerges will all be looking for new deals. A tough side effect of having an exciting young team I suppose. Now that’s not even to mention if less marquee names like Greening or Smith really start performing their respective roles effectively and command more money as well. If that sounds preposterous now look back at how the Sens got in all that cap trouble in the first place.

Ottawa hasn’t been a strong team in a number of years and I have watched them miss out on sweepstakes after sweepstakes and it’s taught me a lot. For one, it’s taught me that I haven’t felt like I’ve necessarily missed out as a fan most of the time. I didn’t feel like the Sens blew it when they missed out on Ilya Kovalchuk and I certainly don’t feel they missed out here. This isn’t to say I’m against grabbing an established guy to make the team better faster, it’s just that this seemed like such a wrong fit from the start. For me, the smart money would be Bobby Ryan. Comparable production, comparable pedigree, younger, more playoff experience, something something probably also scored a bunch of goals against Estonia internationally, and most importantly a shorter, cheaper deal if things go south. As happy as I am that Murray did not land Nash I’m equally disappointed that if he wanted a quality forward so bad that he was willing to give up top prospects that he didn’t go all in for Bobby Ryan.

Well, that concludes a week of Free Agent Frittatas, and let me say, it’s been almost as boring to write these things as it’s been for you to read them. Thank you, good night! Roger Federer is fucking amazing!

Nicky Foligno – Nicholai Foligniani’s new deal gives us a pretty good sense of what he would have signed for in Ottawa. Three years, $9.25MM, makes him about a $3MM/year player—or about what Marc Methot makes. Ottawa looked at their forward depth (and for our purposes here, I’m using “depth” to mean a very good number one center, a goal scorer with bionic knees, a 40 year old who might not come back, a reclamation project, and a bunch of rookies), and then at their back end, and decided to switch one out for the other. Not a terrible idea, though it seems to confirm that Ottawa plans on not just competing on a budget, but on being a cap floor team heading into next season. Unless Murray has something schneeky up his sleeve.

Here’s where it gets sort of interesting for me. There’s a lot of moaning when a franchise signs a player to a bloated contract. But unless you’re a team who spends to the cap, and intends to do the most with every inch of space, then who cares? It’s not my money. This is why I think it’s completely fair to expect the team to go after the occasional UFA, even if it requires inflating spending, if you’re not a cap team.

There’s a big difference between giving Kovalev $5MM a year when the Sens were spending like mad and the money could be used more effectively, and giving, say, Semin an inflated deal this year, when it probably still means being about $15MM-$20MM under the cap. (Just as an example. I’m not a particularly big fan of Semin.)

That’s why I’m happy to hear, even if it comes from notable Twitter-trash-talker Blech Garrioch, that the Senators are in on Bobby Ryan. Like any billionaire pharmaceutical magnate, Melnyk needs to spend some money. I don’t necessarily think they’ll get Ryan, and I’m anxious just what needs to go back the other way. But I do hope that Melnyk is willing to spend—not necessarily as much as he can, but just a little bit more than he is now.

Melnyk writes emails to the Sun guys – You have to wonder how much Melnyk is helping when he calls the other teams’ managers “idiots” for spending wildly. Once again, with feeling: Ottawa ain’t won shit yet, Mel.

Shea Weber – you’ve got to think that there’s no way Poile puts his other franchise defenseman on the block right after losing Ryan Suter. The team is obviously way better with him than without, and it would be a real step backward, almost to the point of necessitating a rebuild, to trade him for players and prospects.

…still, it’s fun to fantasize, amiright? Imagine a blueline with Erik Karlsson AND Shea Weber? My pants just popped open and I peed all over my desk.

The debates around trading for Rick Nash often revolved around the player’s ability or inability to reach lofty expectations. I agree with the notion that a $7.8MM-a-year, aging power forward is something to be wary of. But I sort of couldn’t believe people would be against trading Nick Foligno and a couple of prospects and picks for him.

So naturally, the question is, what would Ottawa (not just management, but the fans) be willing to part with for Weber?

My opinion? Whatever the hell Nashville wants. Really, short of Erik Karlsson, they can have whoever. They can have half the team. They can have Alfredsson. They can have the Scotiabank Place and we’ll go back to playing at the Civic Center. If Shea Weber is actually on the block, you do what you’ve got to do to put in a competitive bid, and then sign him for the rest of his life.

Okay, have a great weekend everyone!

Matt Carle – another day, another quality free agent off the market. Tampa signed Matt Carle to a six year, $33MM contract that will pay him a $5.5MM cap hit. This makes him the highest paid d-man on the team. 

Six years may seem like a lot for a 3-4 defenseman, as does that hit, but he is only 27 years old. The Lightning get themselves a stalwart who they can count on to provide NHL quality defense for years. Can’t complain too much about that.

They’ve also quietly assembled an interesting defense corp, though it’s one with a lot of question marks. You have Carle, Victor Hedman, Eric Brewer, twin grampas Matt Ohlund and Sami Salo, and our boy Brian Lee. If Anders Lindback works out for them–and by works out, I mean provides NHL replacement level goaltending–they should return to the playoffs in the typically weak South East. Also worth mentioning that the usually poor Lightning now have the ninth highest payroll in the league. The honeymoon is going to be over for Yzerman if they miss the dance again.

Tim Murray interview – the boys over on 6th Sens did their interview transcribing thing with Tim Murray, and Timmy said a few confusing things. First, he thinks Latendresse will score differently than Foligno because he goes hard to the net. I don’t think I ever saw Foligno score a goal that wasn’t the greasy, in-the-crease variety, and he took about a million goaltender interference penalties last season to prove it. Murray then goes on to cite injury and conditioning concerns for Latendresse. Well, I’m psyched.

Timmy also gets a dig in on Columbus, and how Methot should be excited he doesn’t have to play there anymore. Eaaaaaasy Studebaker: Sens finished fifth last a couple of seasons ago. We’re not exactly heavyweights here.

Finally, it sounds like the team is pretty much set on a defensive corp of Karlsson, Methot, Phillips, Gonchar, Cowen, Lundin, and Borowiecki. Here’s hoping Cowen takes that next step…one also has visions of a Gonchar trade dancing in one’s head.