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“Let’s Give ‘Em Somethin’ to Talk About. How About Terrrrrm”

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Contracts, right?

James

Bryan Murray bolts upright in bed in the middle of the night in sweat soaked pajamas, “I must give the bloggers something to talk about. I must sign another highly debatable contract!” And you KNOW he wears those weird suit pajamas. Anyway, thank you Bryan for the conversational items this summer. You know though, I think we’re kind of good now homie. You don’t need to preemptively sign each and every Ben Bishop to 4 years. It’s alright if you just cool out and wait and see on a couple of these guys…

Okay so the big thing with this deal is that it addresses a team need. With Konopka and Carkner both gone the team lacked a tough presence and aside from Darren Kramer, I don’t think Ottawa has much coming down the pike (Varada taught me that saying!) in the way of Zack Smith type guys. It would seem the farm system has truly entered its Shane Prince type guy years. What I mean by that is the vast majority of prospects in the pool are of the “top 6 or bust” variety. Sure there are a couple of big strapping dudes like Ben Blood kicking around but speaking frankly, he was drafted in 2007 and Blood probably would have made the team by now if he was going to. Nearly all the teams in the North East got tougher and I don’t think Ottawa can much afford to wait around for another Matt Carkner to emerge. Speaking of which, even though the heavyweight toughness of Carkner will be missed it’s pretty good to see that a defensive defenseman wont constantly be sitting in the penalty box serving fighting majors.

There’s been some ballyhoo so far surrounding Smith’s lack of NHL points but to base the dollar value of all contracts on points is pretty narrow minded. So is discounting the value of a guy who can punch someone’s lights out if need be *gets pelted with internet tomatoes*. I know the NHL doesn’t have room for straight up goons like it used to (WHICH IS FINE!) but to think we’re in a post-enforcer world is ignorant of Dan Carcillo/Steve Downie/Brandon Prust type guys all over the league and more specifically in our division. Isn’t that right Sideshow Patrick Kaleta?

We all want Erik Karlsson to be happy and healthy and productive going forward and anyone who watched the Sens latest playoff series knows deep down that people are going to try and stop this through physical force and intimidation. And if anyone thinks the threat of penalties and suspensions is going to stop that…what am I talking about? OH RIGHT, Zack Smith’s contract. What I’m saying is Smith is clearly not just a fighter he, like Chris Neil, is a player that can fight and this is how your tough guys have to be in 2012. Points wise, Smith’s 14 goals last season is only one short of Chris Kelly’s career high as a Senator and Chris Kelly was awesome. He has the capacity to stick up for his teammates should the need arise but he’s not going to sit in the press box until the Bruins come to town. I like that balance.

The biggest gamble here is this: Betting that Smith’s nearly complete drop off in production (12 goals in first half of the season, 2 in the second) was definitely attributed to overplay between Binghamton and Ottawa. He reproduces or bests he’s a great deal. He drops off, ehhhhhhh he still doesn’t really make all that much and still protects our wee ones. Like Varada said in a recent post (I don’t know which one I don’t read this thing, blech) I don’t really care if Eugene pays 1.88MM for a player or 600K so long as they deserve their spot in the lineup. The trick here is that it would seem is that Smith is now expected to perform his role consistently into his late 20s.

To be perfectly honest, contracts like this make me feel like I know bupkis about building and managing a hockey team (THANKS FOR READING!). A four year term for a guy like Z Smith shows there is some kind of intricate strategy at work here. My best guess is it’s The Euge saying, “Murray, make the core of this team as high quality as you can manage and make it as cheap as possible going forward.” If the Sens are to be a team operating on the cheap while avoiding being the New York Islanders, I suppose a gamble or two is in order…that doesn’t mean I get why they gave him four years though.

The funniest thing I read so far was that the deal maybe had too much $$$ mustard on it and could potentially block the future acquisition of a missing piece. Even with additional signings the Sens could still potentially through around Shea Weber money if they wanted too. With the Sens hovering at the cap floor I sincerely doubt Smith’s contract would ever get in the way of a big deal getting done and even it did a guy who can actually play AND fight will always find a home in a trade and at 1.88MM. In the event of complete failure what would a buyout on that contract look like? A drop in the bucket as far as buyouts go.

Varaaaaaaada

I’ll just start by saying that when you consider $3MM a year / 4 year deal Boston gave Chris Kelly, well, this doesn’t look too bad. And we are basically talking about the same player here, with a few minor adjustments: third line centers who play the penalty kill and can occasionally chip in with a goal. Those players are valuable, and that Smith agitates (I don’t think he really “enforces” all that much) is a plus. So it’s impossible for me to get mad about the money. Also, refer to my rambling and not-very-coherent post from a few days ago about how I really couldn’t give a shit if Eugene Melnyk is paying $500k more than he needs to for his third line center if the team is going to be $18MM below the cap. What should it be? $1.3MM, $1.4MM? How many season ticket packages have been sold so far? Who cares.

As always, it’s the term that’s just totally weird. If I had the gumption and I wasn’t writing this post in the middle of a Powerpoint presentation I’m delivering to my organization’s board of directors, I’d look up some great posts from James Mirtle on just how replaceable bottom six forwards are. I don’t want to underestimate how hard it is to draft and develop an NHL player–any NHL player–but look at the UFA market. I’m pretty sure you can find a bottom six center who can also play on the penalty kill, especially if you’re willing to pay $1.88MM for him. Also: Ottawa’s penalty kill wasn’t even all that good. It was 20th in the league last year. I don’t know, blame Chris Phillips or whoever. Probably shouldn’t have signed that dude to so many years either.

What? Oh, what we’re talking about, right: four years for a replaceable player is totally weird. I don’t know if the team thinks that Smith can stand in occasionally as a top six center during injuries, but remember when we didn’t have a second line center last year? Who got that spot? Nick Foligno…a winger. Smith stayed right where he was, getting 14 minutes a night. Then again, this is a team that pays Chris Neil a couple million bucks to be Chris Neil. It has a lot of affection for putting $8MM-$10MM on the third line, if only to balance out getting value from Colin Greening, I guess. Also, look at the structure of Smith’s deal. He’s making $2.35MM in the last year of his deal! What exactly does the team think he’ll be doing that year? If he ends up losing his job to 2014-15’s version of Kaspars Daugavins, Murray is gonna look plenty stupid. (From his cottage.)

Maybe Melnyk is feeding Bry-Bry super-secret information from the totally mature and completely reasonable CBA negotiations currently taking place in Cold War Russia. If there’s a salary roll-back, or increased escrow, or ow my brain hurts, then maybe this team is just locking the fuck up out of everyone knowing they’re about to get downsized and shipped off to India to answer technical support questions for confused white people who don’t know how to search for documents.

Sens Address Hole in ‘Comparisons to Mike Fisher’ Dept & $ign Kyle Turris

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Kyle Turris and his twin brother Tyle Kurris enjoy an afternoon of whatever this is…Rich people stuff? These guys look alike.

The Mighty Varada 

I guess we should analyze, huh? AUGUUUUUST.

Hard not to like a low-spending team getting a pretty decent second line center for $3.5M for the next five…presuming he’s a second line center and not a fourth liner the way Phoenix used him. I’m excited about locking in a young player with great pedigree, someone who’s primed to grow with this team and hopefully become a core member. On the other hand, it would have been nice to take a year to see what we really have on our hands here. If he ends up surprising the hell out of everyone and putting up 60-70 points or something, well then that’s the kind of problem every team wishes they had, and the risk seems far less than Turris becoming what he was on his last team and us counting down the days to his contract coming off the books.

I guess what I’m saying is that this team has become pretty great about taking players with flashes of brilliance–Bobby Butler playing with Spezza two season ago, Regin against the Pens in the playoffs way back in 1977– and giving those players guaranteed contracts that will look brilliant if the player’s success translates into a full season and cost nothing if they don’t work out. Turris’ deal looks the same on the surface, but is different in a few important ways. Obviously, it’s more money and more term. But also Turris has a body of work to analyze, where Butler and Regin didn’t.

Turris played two relatively full season in Phoenix, getting about ten minutes a game as a depth player. He played against weak competition, and had respectable possession numbers. In Ottawa, he proved that with an extra four or five minutes a night and against better competition, he can at least maintain those possession numbers–even improve on them relative to competition.

So I guess what I’m saying is that this is a totally reasonable contract by a team that can more than afford it, and it takes one of their prime chips for the UFA period next season off the table. All of this is great if Turris keeps up the good work. If not, well that five year term looks a little bit foreboding. If anything, you can tell the economics of this game have gone wacky when we all agree that paying $3.5M a year for a 23 year old player whose career high in points is 29 and career PPG is .403 is a crazy steal.

James

Well sir…if the pressure was on Turris to perform this season now it’s “iz-on” like old people say. And for 5 seasons. Comparisons to Mike Fisher and fans’ perennial displeasure toward him never quite reaching the nearly unreachable expectations put on him are to be trucked out upon his first dry spell. A huge difference is though, is that Mike Fisher was making an average of 5 million per which was too much.
Should Turris falter some or be usurped for 2nd line centre (good problem) and slip to 3rd line centre, his 3.5MM annual hit is a not impossible to digest.
Sidebar: Imagine Kyle Turris as 3rd line centre facing off against the Tom Pyatts of the world because some Mika Zibanejad or Stephane Da Costa (what?) turns out to be a 60-70 point pivot? I would take that.

Put it this way: If things were to go South and Turris were to end up a 3rd line centre, he’d be making 500K more than our beloved Chris Kelly currently is and for just one more year….except Turris is 23 to Kelly’s 31. Oh and has way, way more scoring touch.

This deal seems to work well for both sides of the table. Despite reports of his reputation in Phoenix (which you never know what the full story is / how much of it is Agent vs. Management  more than Player vs. Management, etc), Turris genuinely seems very eager to play for the Sens and to be part of this team’s core going forward.
Seeing as we are not and will ever be New York City (and who is in this work-a-day world?), getting players who want to be here for the long haul likely proves tough. People criticize how Murray seems to always give out that year or two more term than seems necessary such as on deals like Anderson’s 4. I think in the cases of quality players like Andy or Turris a franchise like Ottawa has to give a little extra than others would to lock them down, especially during a rebuild, . Makes me judge teams like Calgary a little less for giving Jay Bouwmeester a billion dollars a year for a little too long. A liiiiittle less I judge.

Turris wants to be here and conversely Murray and co have  shown him clearly that they are ready to make him a big part of Ottawa’s future. If he was underutilized before in his past life in Phoenix a five year deal shows those days are long over. Obviously, at this point in his career this is a gamble deal but so far Turris has shown in his time with Ottawa that if you give him the ball he’ll run with it (it’s a sports metaphor…I know, I don’t get it either).

As far as the gamble element of the deal goes, as we learned during my recent post on pedigree vs. performance in Ottawa’s lineup…….you DIDN’T read it? Well I want you to know that just because I litter my posts with diarrhea on toast jokes it doesn’t mean I don’t put time into them…ANYWAY, we learned(ish) that the safest round to gamble on is the first. That said, its important to note that Nikita Filatov was taken in the same draft as and way ahead of Erik Karlsson so, life is like a box of Lieutenant Dans but if you’re going to take a gamble on a player a guy with 3rdoverall pedigree and a good track record on your team is not lunacy.

Welcome Kyle Turris

May the Team 1200’s post game call in show be forever at your back and The Alfie on your wing something something you to the stars.

PS. It hurts my and Varada’s feelings that you still dont follow us on Twitter 😦

Summer Reading: Draft Bologna Edition!

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Ottawa is proud to select, from the Frolindinhoff First Nations, Derek Carleton.

Hi everybody,

Let me be the first person to welcome you to summer. Welcome! As someone who …hmmm let me choose my words carefully as our lawyers have informed me that I cannot refer to what I do here as “writing” ….k, lemme start again. As someone who smashes a keyboard to produce word-like combinations with the possible intent of creating hockey-esque shapes I must admit that it can be a little tough to come up with interesting and fun subjects to discuss during these dog dangling afternoons. Seeing as the CBA does not qualify as remotely interesting but DOES qualify as a complete fucking bummer, we will skip that! Spotlight please… *soft R and B music*

Baby, there’s been a lot of talk about the rebuild lately. A lot of fussin’ and fightin’ about prospects. Lotta pillow talk about their current worth relative to development ceiling, their trade value, their blah di bling blong bluuuu. All this talk has got me thinking about what last season’s squad would look like if we put on that Natalie Cole record and stripped things dowwwn to …alright I am really sorry, I am creeping mySELF out at this point.
Here’s a chart I made. I wanted to examine what last season’s team looks like if you break it down to who drafted each player and where, what at this point in time is popularly viewed as their role on the team and if they have solidified themselves in said role. “BUT JAMES JAAAAAAAAMES!” You say, “I’ve already skipped over the boring part and noticed a bunch of people missing! Where be Filatov and the like!?” Well, You, that’s why you always read everything, and always leave a note. I arbitrarily chose to define a roster player as someone who participated in 20 or more games for Ottawa last season. Come away with me…

Legal Name Draft position, Year, Team Role on team Established in role?
Jason Spezza 1st Round, 2nd Overall 2001 by Ottawa First line centre. Spezz is an over a point per game player at one of the hardest positions in hockey going into his 10th NHL season. Nails.
Erik Karlsson 1st Round, 15th Overall, 2008 by Ottawa First pairing defenceman, Destroyer of Worlds. In a Norris winning season guy was one Jason Spezza injury away from leading the team in overall points and that’s with an 18 point lead over a 35 goal scorer. EK, you so cray-zay, I think I wanna have YO baby.
Milan Michalek 1st Round, 6th Overall, 2003 by San Jose First line winger. I say yes, damn it. I read a lot of comments yammering on about how he’s actually a second line player who only plays in the top 3 because the Sens aren’t a very good team. Oy vey. I guess you don’t score 35 goals without making a few enemies…in your own team’s fanbase…Yeah, he’s had lots of injuries. So has Jason Spezza, doesn’t make him a second line player. Anyway, awesome year from Milo! Cheers! TO YOUR FUCKING HEALTH.
Daniel Alfredsson 6th Round, 133rd Overall, 1994 by Ottawa Greatest player in Sens history. I actually caught myself getting stressed out the other day thinking about how hard it’s going to be to get tickets to the game where they retire Alfie’s number 11. I wish I was kidding about this story.
Nick Foligno 1st Round, 28th Overall, 2006 by Ottawa Jack of all trades, master of none. Obviously not. Talent, work ethic, good attitude, consistency issues.  A team first guy who couldn’t solidify a place on the roster. Landed him a ticket aboard the Antoine Vermette Express to Columbustownville.
Sergei Gonchar 1st Round, 14th Overall, 1992 by Renfrew Millionaires Top 4 Defenseman Absolutely. Gets a very hard time from fans for his wild ass contract and at times looks a little  amzalazycryin’ but still playing over 20 mins a night despite being drafted during the Gilded Age, pretty impressive.
Colin Greening 7th Round, 205th Overall, 2005 by Ottawa First line winger/Third line winger…yeah that’s a real thing, Not among fans that’s for sure. Despite putting up a very respectable 17 goals and generally keeping up playing against the highest competition in his rookie campaign, Greening is routinely placed on the third (not even second!) line when fans draw up fantasy starting line ups. Though he’ll likely never be a 30+ goal guy I think Greening  hit the wall like the other Bingo players from a lot of frigging hockey for one year and will surprise this coming season.  Where in the line up, I’m not sure.
Filip Kuba 8th Round, 192nd Overall, 1995 by Kevin Costner Just pass it to Will. Considering he was drafted in the 8th round the year Waterworld came out and just signed a new multi year deal, I’d say he’s still a good but mini ravioli soft top 4 D man. Good luck in future whatevers.
Kyle Turris 1st Round, 3rd Overall, 2007 by Phoenix 2nd line centre. So far so good but a bit early to tell. Turris got into a groove pretty quickly with Ottawa and his play only got stronger as the season went on. Hopefully fans/the media/the org don’t throw him under the bus too quick if he suffers a scoring drought. Expectations are high but he is still very young so I’m preaching patience here.
Chris Neil 6th Round, 191st Overall, 1998 by Ottawa Bottom six winger. The Mozart of stirring up shit. What can I say. Haters gon’ hate, lovers gon’ love. Neiler just signed a deal to presumably become a career Senator. Hatred of him by fan bases across the board pretty much confirms his establishment not only in the Sens’ lineup but in the league as a top agitator. Given the toughness exodus this offseason, I hope Neil doesn’t have to fight night after night as I think he possesses pretty good speed and skill for a bottom 6 player. He’s also one of the few brave enough to stand in front of the opposing team’s net on purpose. Filly don’t do trying to tip in high Karlsson point shots.
Zack Smith 3rd Round, 79th Overall, 2008 by Ottawa though I don’t know what’s up with that picture of him in a Canucks uniform if you Google image search him. Third line centre. Getting there for sure but not quite yet. Startlingly, Z Smith has played one more NHL game than Peter Regin (Z must wear shoulder pads). As much as I loved Chris Kelly, Smith taught me that you don’t have to pay millions of dollars to have a decent 3rd line centre. He’s tough, mean, has a respectable shot and the face of a 10 year old girl who’s having the WORST. BIRTHDAY PARTY. EVER. After a dynamite start that nearly saw me drunkenly buy a Smith t shirt at a game, he eventually deteriorated into to what the coach felt was a lack of nightly effort. This saw him briefly banished to the press box mid-season. Now entering a contract year with plenty of talent nipping at his heels, establish himself Z must! Go youtube him punching Nathan Horton’s face over and over again.
Erik Condra 7th Round, 211th Overall, 2006 by Ottawa Solid 1.5/.5 way forward. A good penalty killer and a hmmmmm  not so good scorer. Another impending RFA with a lot to prove. Much maligned for inability to hit broad side of barn but apparently has very good numbers in terms of stats I don’t care very much about that are named after nerds with nerd names like Fenwick that you can learn a lot more about at www.the6thsens.com where they know what they’re talking about with that stuff. It’s hard to determine what the expectations are for Condra’s game. It’s a very real possibility that he could be replaced by a high pedigree rookie in 2013. So, I will say he’s quite competent at his role but in no way established.
Chris Phillips 1st Round, 1st Overall, 1996 by Ottawa Approx, 3rd pairing shut down D man, reminder of bed times, public house owner. The Sens have had a lot of no.1 picks in their young history. They have how you say…not really worked out overall. As you can see we have to get pretty far down the depth chart to find a number one overall still with the team/in the NHL. A brutal 2010 season followed up by a pretty awful contract (ANOTHER NTC?) left a bit of a sour taste in fans’ mouths but at over 1000 games at age 34 he is still leaned on pretty heavily for a steadying presence. Big Rig has more than earned his spot at this point. Get used to Dad as he aint goin nowheres and WILL send you to bed without your supper if you smart off to your mother like that again, Missy!
Jared Cowen 1st Round, 9th Overall, 2009 by Ottawa Top 4 defenseman who occasionally plays 10 minutes a night but what do you want the kid’s a frigging rookie. Damn close to it. He was shown the bench right quick if he screwed up as there’s a very slim margin for error on D. It might actually have been good for his development that he wasn’t left out to be exposed too much if he was having a shaky night. In my opinion the kid has stepped into a very difficult role in a hurry. Truth be told, he had only 10 games of AHL seasoning (late round playoffs only!) before making the leap to the bigs. That’s Karlssonian. I was super stressed out about his knee when he was drafted but he had a great year for a rookie defender logging an avg. of 18 minutes a night and getting playoff experience off the hop. Lots of room for improvement and I am confident he will only improve in time.
Bobby Butler Undrafted, Signed by Ottawa Human man. Gotta feel for the people you see at SBP rocking shiny new Butler heritage jerseys. It made sense at the time, right? Let us take a lesson from ye olde adage, “Those who do not learn from the Tyler Bozak hype of the past are doomed to repeat it.” Remember when that guy burst on the scene? I’m not saying he’s a bad player but I will say Bozak’s  “figuring it out” at the NHL level more than he’s the super sniper he was originally billed as. Something tells me that even the best undrafted US college player is still just the best undrafted US college player and not a high end prospect. They are worth pursuing because they are akin to a “free draft pick” but should not be billed as much more than that. Unfortunately for Butsy, he was given the ball, did well and made us all get overly excited at a time when there wasn’t a lot to be excited about. Tough to be a below average scoring forward in this league.   *Update: Waived* So long and best of luck probably in Europe, Bobby Beantown.
Kaspars Daugavins 3rd Round, 91st Overall, 2006 by Ottawa Bottom 6…bottom 3 winger. Speaking of being a below average scoring forward, here’s a guy who figured out how to play the NHL game right quick. Though a flashy scorer down south in Bingo, Daug realized he’d better play a whole lotta D if he was to earn a spot on the big club. D he played and he has one year guaranteed with the Sens as a result. Who knows what after that.
Jessie Winchester Undrafted, Signed by Ottawa 4th line centre Sadly, he was getting quite established in his role until he got his head knocked around a couple times. Another in a long line of US college signings who got way too much hype on arrival. Remember when he was touted (mostly by The Sun) as a slick playmaking centre who would challenge Mike Fisher for second line centre? Oh brother! Caught a humongous muskie recently. Likely looking for a job or more muskie.
Jim O’Brien 1st Round, 29th Overall, 2007 by Ottawa 4th line centre …man this team has a lot of those. Considered a huge bust by fans for years (pretty unfair for such a late round pick) JOB is just breaking into the league. He has emerged as a bottom 6 guy with speed and pretty good vision. Though not signed for a ton of cash his two year feels a little Bobby Butlerian to me until further notice.
Zenon Konopka Undrafted, Signed by Pittsburgh 4th line centre, face off specialist, face removing specialist, pressbox insider. As an undrafted player, you gotta respect how the former Ottawa 67 has managed to stick in the league for going on 8 seasons now. He is firmly established at doing two things, taking draws and breaking jaws. No more, no less, this is what you get from Zenon and clearly teams want it.
Stephane Da Costa Undrafted, Signed by Ottawa Top 6 Binghamton Centre. Yeah, saw 22 games last season! When did THAT happen?. Lots of potential but thank gosh for that Kyle Turris trade. Took a bucket popping hit from Dion Phannerf that overshadowed anything he accomplished. Will it be his Steve Smith moment or serve as a wake up call to round out his game? One thing we know is that he will make a solid call up when Peter Regin’s shoulder is lacerated while attempting to cut up frozen chicken. Stephane Da Costa (career) goal assisted by number 13 Peter Reeeginnn’s shoulllllderrrr!!!
Matt Carkner 2nd Round, 58th Overall, 1999 by Montreal Bottom pairing defenseman, smasher of faces. Like Konopka, A Big Little Engine That Could. Filled his role effectively and left the team on a very high note with his street justice followed by sweet goal set up in a memorable playoff. Ended up getting more term than anyone expected from the Islanders.
Craig Anderson 3rd Round, 73rd Overall, 2001 by Chicago Starting Goaltender, team chef So goddamn established at this point that Alex Auld didn’t even come close to making the 20 game cut for this list!Rant: As much time as we spend talking Lehner this and Bishop that we don’t do enough kissing of this guy’s hairy bean bag for stepping in and kiiiiind of being a fucking BO$$ from day one. BTW, day one being a 50 save OT shut out of the leafs. Andy only got better as the season progressed which saw its climax (that’s right) in a beastly playoff performance. Doesn’t get enough credit for being the firm no. 1 this team/fan base has yearned for year after year. Respect.
Peter Regin Jensen* 3rd Round, 87th Overall, 2004 by Ottawa Something line Centwinger Look we all love the Prince of Denmark. In fact, resident imagesmith Steven would like so much for you to solidify your place on the team so he can get a sweet, sweet Regin jersey already. There’s just one question that really bugs me about this guy and no its not about injuries. It’s this: Is Peter Regin a street cred Bobby Butler? Like Butler, Regin had a brief but memorable breakout moment. In Regin’s case it was the 2010 playoffs which was very endearing to us fans but am I the only one who seriously has my doubts about this guy? How were Bobby Butler or Nick Foligno seen as disappointments but no one really called for Regin’s job after putting up THREE goals in 2010-2011? Three! Regin has been in the system since 2004 and has 52 points in 151 NHL games. That’s not a lot for the top 6 forward he is assumed to be. Injuries are injuries. They are frustrating for all parties but so is this perpetual assumption that a guy who who has 21 points in his last 65 games (spanning 2 seasons!) will be a top 6 forward in a post-Alfredsson world. He was nails in the playoff series though.

*Oh fuck fine. He played only 10 games for Ottawa this past year but the guy has suited up for over 150 games as a Sen so far so he makes the list.

*dusts hands* Well that just about wraps things up, now if you don’t mind…OH RIGHT, I didn’t talk about anything I noticed yet.

One of the first things that struck me is that the vast majority of picks on the team were selected by Ottawa. Given there have been a couple eras of management  at work and quite a few FAs and deadline acquisitions have come and gone over the years, at the end of the day the team is largely made up of in-house picks. I have to admit that it’s a pretty reassuring thing to see as the team goes through a rebuild.

Okay, did anyone else notice that Matt Carkner (who’s not even on the team anymore) was the only second round pick on the squad? And he was another team’s pick at that! I’m not sure what that means. I’m not trying to undervalue 2nd round picks here. It might actually have more to do with how Ottawa tends to donate its upcoming a second round pick to pretty much every team it makes a transaction with. No fourth or fifth round picks on the team either. Funny as with all the talk lately about “Are undrafted signings worth it?” there were more of them on the team this year than rounds 2, 4 and 5 could boast combined. The more you know the more you grow I guess. *shooting star* 

Speaking of draft order, it would certainly appear that if you are a forward playing in the top 6 or a defenceperson playing in the top 4 you were likely drafted in the first round. Lots of pedigree up in there except for one weird thing: You may also find yourself playing in the top 6 or top 4 if you were some later round drop in the bucket.

All one has to do is review a draft table from nearly any year to see that being a even a high end first round pick does not mean you’ll get so much as a cup of coffee in the NHL but this chart shows me two things:

1. Pedigree seems to matter greatly to building a team.

2. Quantity of picks also seems to matter greatly to building a team as draft picks are like a box of shrimp boat captains you never know who lieutenant Dan your going to ping pong champion.

Maybe it’s because I’m a Sens fan and I’ve seen so many high pedigree flameouts but it is very satisfying to me that Jason Spezza is out there delivering on what he was supposed to be when taken 2nd overall on draft day. Ditto Erik Karlsson. Also very  satisfying is watching a 6th round pick play over 1000 games your team (mostly serving  as captain) or a 7th rounder put up 17 goals in his rookie season. Looking at the line up this way makes me feel great about the combination of quality and quantity the Sens currently enjoy in the coffers. The Mark Borowieckis and Mark Stones of the world have just as good a chance of becoming NHLers as the Cody Cecis and Mika Zibanejads. Well maybe not JUST as good, but pretty damn good! Hockey is weird like that.

Anyone else see any patterns emerging from the Da Vinci thing?

Oh, I realized just now I forgot Brian Lee…umm… *shooting star* 

What do we think about the re-signing of Kaspars Daugavins? No seriously, welcome to summer and what do we think about the re-signing of Kaspars Daugavins?

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James

So as Darren Dreger(‘s assistant, probably on this one) broke on twitter this morning, Latvian international and lovable rapscallion Kaspars Zmartholomew Daugavins has agreed to a new one year, one way deal for $635K avoiding arbitration scheduled for hearing in the lower fourth dimension later this quadmester. As we may or may not know, last year The Rooster, a third round pick in the 2006 draft, made it clear at the beginning of last season that if he did not make the big club full time that he was heading back, as the Latvians say “’cross the pond, old chap” to try out for a KHL team. Likely in his native Latvia, where he is probably the equivalent of Alexander Ovechkin in terms of popularity. I thought at the time this was a pretty reasonable plan B for the guy considering he’d put in a half decade of development time at that point and had just won the Calder Cup with the B Sens.

Impressively, early in the going, Dog Man got a shot with Ottawa and he stuck. Daug found his place as fourth line guy playing a responsible, grinding two way game (do you have any choice on the fourth line?) in limited minutes.

Greatest memory as an Ottawa Senator so far: Definitely when he scored his first NHL goal on an hilarious wobbling dump in from the point against Jonas “The Most Undeserved Nickname in the NHL” Gustavsson. He went on to put up 10 more points in a total of 65 games with Ottawa. Rarely did Daugavins see the pressbox during the regular season but hardly saw any action during the playoffs so there’s that.
So lets talk about feelings. How do we feel about the signing? We’ll use this Nintendo Wii controller as our talking stick, I’ll start:

I feel overall pretty good about this though it’s a bit wild all the one-way action going on. Seems that yes, we’ve seen Konopka, Foligno, Kuba and Carks go this offseason but hot holy Christmas are a lot of guys getting new deals. When the deals for forwards like Regin, O’Brien and Daugavins (even Butler) are examined one gets the impression that the team could look very different in a couple of years. Sure there’s a lot of one ways going down for some borderline NHLers right now but there is not a lot of term nor cap hit to be found. These signings haven’t left many roster spots open at forward for the kids but I’m starting to get the impression that the Sens brass are less than rushed to put a bunch of rookies in the line up this year. If you ask this cowboy, at forward it’s going to be Silfverberg given a shot out of camp until further notice and that’s it. I know Ziba is exciting but he just turned 19 and shit sakes, even Spezza put a year and half in down in Bingo. Silfvia Plath on the other hand will be 22 at the beginning of the season and has logged 150 games in the SEL at this point, some as team captain. I think that’s the kind of guy the Murrays will give a shot in October. Exciting as it is that we have a lot high quality prospects in the system a lot of them played junior last year and several are even headed back there this year. We’ll still see hints of guys getting called up from Bingo when Latendresse and Regin are injured. In the mean time guys who’ve earned their shot like The Rooster will fill the full time slots for the next season or two. Good signing at one year 635K. One thing that’s weird that I am keeping my expectations very reasonable about mostly due to the amount of minutes he plays and all but I would love to see a couple more goals from him. A thing I’ve heard a couple of times about Daugmo is that “he’ll never impress you with his hands” which is really weird considering his point totals have consistently been quite good and ive seen the guy score one of the craziest shootout goals I’ve ever seen (spin-o-rama on the toe of the blade goal that I’m 90% sure he did in an actual fucking game). Don’t know whats what but would love to see him pot 10 this season if only for that delightful barking celebration. Looking forward to Movember 2012.

Varada 

The 6th Sens dudes have a good article about how far below the cap floor the Ottawa “We Must Make It To the Second Round to Break Even” Senators are, even with 13 forwards, six D, and two goaltenders signed.
Hard to understand: 1) is the cap floor a thing? If you don’t reach it, and a tree falls in the forest, does Gary Bettman clap with one hand? 2) Is there a cap floor with the new CBA that we don’t have yet? If we have one, does it scale back? Did they book office space to talk about the new CBA? Who took care of lunch, hrm? 3) if Murray was actually willing to trade for $7.8M Rick Nash, does that mean that he has another expensive move up his sleeve? And what could that even be? Bobby Ryan will also somehow go to Philadelphia, who’ve decided to just go ahead and sign every single player in the league for next season. Alex Semin is apparently a murderer of small dogs. Is there an expensive Marcus Methot out there we don’t know about? Should we recall Tom Preissing from the Peoria River Basins?
Finally, and totally unrelated to anything: are we seriously going into next season with That Defense? Would love to see a forward or two packaged for another blueliner, though I don’t know who, where, or for what. Helpful! Maybe Murray trades for the Tim Thomas’ ghost to reach the floor.
When I look at potential line combos, injuries notwithstanding (and odds are we get at least a couple major ones, right?) Butler really seems like the odd man out, especially if Alfie comes back. I’m glad Daugavins is back, I guess, though why give him a one-way deal to play eight minutes a night? Seems like a very replaceable player. But Murray has given the Walrus lots of NHL players to work with, even if there’s little top end talent, and I’m sure that’ll come in handy come February when everyone has the mumps.

 

Summer Reading: My trip to the Hockey Hall of Fame (A photo diary)

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Hey!!! It’s great to be back at the Apollo Theatre (Spanish for Achicken Theatre). *Rim shot* Take my right to same sex marriage, please *rim shot* While it still exists *gun shot at my head that barely misses* But seriously folks, I just got back from hockey’s hall of fame and boy is my shitty writing tired!

Hi. It’s summer. Varada has been sidelined with a back injury FROM CARRYING THIS BLOG ON IT so I’ll be babysitting you for the next number of minutes until you get fed up and close this window, Come away with me wont you?…On a guided tour of my trip…wait for it…TO THE HOCKEY HALL OF FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAME! Pics are in chronological order just to make your psychedelic rock ride EXTRA true to life.

We begin our journey in this magnificent building that the hall is located in. Look at that archway. Wow. Simply stunning. Now, okay let’s just get started here…where is the hockey hall of fame? Oh, in the basement? Okay, I…still don’t see it…Oh, just beyond the Starbucks and public turlets of this food court type setting (not joking)? This feels mystical already!

Entering the HHOF: A one act play.

Cast of characters

Customer……………………………Me
HHOF Employee……………………His/Herself

Act I: Front Entrance

Customer: “Hi, one adult human for the Hockey Hall of Fame, please.”

HHOF Employee: “That will be $17.50.”

Customer: “Cool, so more expensive than the Louvre?”

HHOF Employee: “You get this hand stamp and can enter and exit the hall as many times as you want before close.”

Customer: “Excellent. I may get a hankering to see the fake Stanley Cup again after dinner.”

HHOF Employee: “Would you like a commemorative program for an extra $5?”

Customer: “Man, fuck you.”

FIN.

So, here I go, blah di blah, Wayne Gretzky’s gloves and shit from scoring his eight hundred second gooooal…yadda yadda OH SNAAAAAP Wild Wing! Daaaaamn this museum must be on the classiest dial up! Never seen a W.W. (that’s what we call them in the blogdustry) in person before. Thing was glamorous as all get out.

 

The OTHER Erik Karlsson!

Whew, gotta come down a little. HHOF came out of the gate strong. Okay. All good. Next up I came across a full sized diorama/amalgam (or dioralgam) of the Montreal Canadiens dressing rooms of yestercentury. It was pretty cool. My favourite part was how I was in this area made (rather impressively) to look just like Montreal’s famed dressing room while overhead a TV was blabbing on top volume about the leafs’ dynasties of the early 1700’s. Either way, congratulations to both teams for slugging it out through two rounds of playoffs in a six team league to glory several times.

 

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Olde canoe oar or something with word “OTTAWA” carved into it. Moving on…

 

Whoa, salade du chef! If you had told me, “When you get down to the HHOF, be sure to check out the display of first ballot slam dunk Bobby Butler” I would have said, “Thanks, a giant picture of Bobby Bottleservice definitely sounds like a thing that I will see there.”
I was floored by two things here:

1. This thing
2. The quantity of bath salts the NHL’s design team must have to ingest to prevent them from making an All Star jersey this nice. Getting big timed by the AHL, home of some of the most over the top garbage logos in the sporting world? Yowch!

WTYKY Presents: 24/7 Inside the NHL: Jersey Design Edition
Jimmy: “Hey Frank, I was thinking, for the all star game, instead of centering little tiny numbers on the front over the player’s Anahata Chakra and the rainbow striped undersleeves again, maybe…and I’m just blue skying this here, but I was thinking maybe, you know, two colors, solid black with white letters in a timeless diagonal pattern that says ‘EASTERN’ and vice versa for the West?”

Frank: “People don’t want classic and timeless. Save that for baseball. This is like jazz what I’m doing here. Jazz meets Tron. THAT is what people want. Learn from a professional, kid. Now, I need complete silence and fetch my bath salts, I’m trying to work on ruining everyone’s eyes here!”

 

Speaking of the AHL. Holy lord, is this the HOCKEY hall of fame not the NHL hall of fame or what? There’s a whoooole lot more commemoration of your Murfreesboro Magical Mister Mistoffelees(es) than I was expecting. Oy.

 

On the subject of ugly iterations of jerseys…here’s our beloved Sens’ section represented by the dreaded Senagoth. No disrespect if you rock this thing on the regular…actually, some disrespect, despite it being the jersey our boys were sporting during the cup final run, break out the old wallet and get an updated heritage dealie. We all wanted a nicer uniform and now we have one. It took a fan petition to show the organization how much we hate their uni designs. Now a fan has us looking sharp again for the first time since the early 90s (which is SAYING SOMETHING). Live in the now! Face it, Chara aint coming back (well, not until he is one or two years from retirement and an 88 year old Bryan Murray gives him $12MM dollars per year for 3 years -NTC obviously-)…where was I?….I don’t know…Sens.

 

Speaking of lookin’ good in the early nineties (seriously how often can one say that?) …A week ago, if you had told me I’d see a picture of Bobby Bustler in the HHOF…I’d say, “well, I suppose he was AHL all star game MVP a couple years ago and he recently won the Calder Cup, so that’s a thing…” BUT, BUUUT if you told me there would be ANYHING to do with Alexandre Daigle up in that piece? I would have slapped you so hard that you would instantly get a phone call from your moms and she’d say, “Baby, you okay? I just got a strange pain inside my face.” In case your eyes are bleeding and you cant see what that thing says:

Alexandre Daigle wore this new Minnesota Wild 3rd jersey during the first half of the 2003-2004 NHL season, his first with the club. Daigle surprised all with his play and finished the season as the Wild’s leading scorer, tying his career-best 51 points. For his efforts, he was nominated as the club’s nominee for the Bill Masterton Trophy.

*Clap….clap………clap………………………….clap*
Could there possibly be a more apropos placard commemorating the efforts of Alexandre Daigle? Seriously, I love a team that’s greatest modern achievement is getting pounded in the cup finals and even I think that this is a stretch to celebrate. This reminds me of that Chris Rock bit talking about people who want to be rewarded for doing things that are expected of them:

I take CARE of my kids!
YOURE SUPPOSED TO TAKE CARE OF YOUR KIDS!
I ain’t never been to jail!
WHAT DO YOU WANT, A COOKIE?

Could you imagine a world where Daigle had WON the Masterton for coming in 75th in league scoring? Howwwwwly shit take a look at the reasons people win that award for, its amazing! People overcoming some serious shit. What was the Wild’s angle here? “Lazy asshole overcomes laziness for 8 months to score 4 more points than eventual winner Bryan Berard IN TWENTY MORE GAMES THAN HIM!” Did I yet mention that Bryan Berard is a defenseman oh and that he has ONE EYE? Marian Gaborik was on that Wild team…couldn’t have he been their nominee? You can guarantee he was hurt for at least most of that season. This placard was worth the price of admission. I could go on all day about this thing but one last thing before we move on:

Look, I’m no Lee Harvey Wordsworth when it comes to making terse yet dignified placards commemorating sporting achievements but “he was nominated as the club’s nominee” made the final edit? Sheesh!

 

For starters, I must say there is a lot more Sens stuff in the Hall than I expected. I’m not saying this because I was expecting some Toronto bias but rather because uhhhh the team hasn’t done a ton in its young history. I have often breathed a sigh of relief that Ottawa’s clumsy as all shit PR department doesn’t make much mention of how the team won several Stanley cups before Penicillin was invented (not joking). I did think it was cool though that the HHOF commemorated their achievements. I mean, the Canadiens go to TOWN on that shit so why not? Cups for all.

 

Okay, this was just the fucking greatest. The card here said something along the lines of “These shower sandals were worn by Alexander Ovechkin over the course of the All Star Weekend held in Raleigh, North Carolina.” One cannot help but leave those words to echo through the corridors of centuries.

 

Is there anything North Korea wont pretend to be amazing at?

 

Nothing gets this patriot more misty eyed than seeing Canada’s national colours on display. Yes, the ooooold red, white and blue. Here I entered, the international wing. Or as I would have titled it “Aaaaaaaaaand The Rest…” Ladies and gentlemen!

You’re ALL winners!!

As stylish and cared about as Ronaldo!

That was some good ‘and the rest’. Lots of hockey interest in a lot of those countries.

 

Classic photo of the great hall’s skull cap. The great hall is indeed quite beautiful. Just outside it is a giant photo of this year’s champion Los Angeles Kings celebrating their Stanley’s Cup.net victory! Good for them. Also, the photo serves as a great last minute  reminder to any fan that knows anything about anything that for the remainder of the summer, the Stanley Cup is in someone on the team’s backyard in northern Ontario / boat in Lloydminster, Saskatchewan / charity golf tournament in Minnesota / Slovenian dance  party etc, and the cup on display is a fake. As such, I did not take a picture of it as I was too busy telling the children in line for photos with it that that cup is as fake as that bullshit Santa at the mall and that there (SPOILER ALERT)…IS NO EASTER BUNNY.

HEYYYYYYYY speaking of not believing stuff…

Thank you for all you have given and continue to give us, Robert Cole. Truly no one has done more for saying “Ohhhh BABY” only when the leafs score on a national broadcast for the sport as you. You broke new ground for hockey in many respects. Before you, play by play announcers called goalies by their full or surname. By breaking the Name Barrier, you opened the door for all goalies regardless of their name and made a bold move by referring to them exclusively as, The Goalie. They did not overcome adversity and climb their way up through the ranks to be constantly reminded of their family heritage!

Further, you challenged fans to be more than passive listeners and compelled them to think about the game by not just spoon feeding the answers as you called portions of it. Which players are Sedin and which is Sundin? Is Filip Kuba ACTUALLY Pavel Kubina? Are all of the Ottawa Senators defensemen Sergei Gonchar and more importantly WHY? There isn’t a more logical step for being a still active, biased and passable at best play by play announcer for a really, really long time than induction to the hallowed hall of fame. Not insulting to the late Pat Burns AT. FUCKING. ALL.

In closing, I had a great time at the Hockey Hall of Fame. I know I seem like the biggest pee pee pants making fun of everything I could but honestly, youre on WTYKY, why did you come here? Did you want me to be like “OOOOoooOOOoOOO Bobby Orr’s old skates we’re soooOOOoooOOoo old and skates!” In all, it was a lot of fun and I learned a lot about the true meaning of how much you can charge people to look at things. Also, check out this flyer I found under a bridge that advertised that the Toronto Maple Leafs are holding open try outs! Take a look!

Wow, you made it to the end! Your princess or prince (OR NO JUDGEMENTS) IS in this castle….enjoy!

Hey, Ever Wonder What I Have to Say About Ottawa’s Prospects vs. The FA Market? WAIT, WAIT, COME BACK!!

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I didnt get to use this during the regular season. I mean, ehhhhh…Erik Karlsson is awesome and has little to do with this post.

WHOA GUYS, GUYS, GUYS, GUYS, GUYS, GUYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYS…and Laaaaaaaaaadiiiiiiiiies….

And by “guys and laaaaaaaaaaaaadiiiiiiies” I mean everybody. What is going on with all the fussin’ and the fightin’ about pick/prospect/roster player trade packages and signing every FA coming up on the approaching market ALL THE LIVE LONG DAY? Puppies, puppies, I leave for <insertnumberofdayssincetheSenswereeliminated> days and this is what I come back (from jail) to? You well know I won’t have no fussin’ in this house so let’s settle it. Now, are we serious about this or do we just have the summertime blues because let’s face it, none of us can really get into how LA signed both Mike Richards AND took on Jeff Carter’s stupid, stupid contract and won the whole bleeping thing. Lets have a brief (overly long) boring chat about it…

Picture this, Sicily (Ottawa), the year, 19dickitty2 (2011) the Sicilian government (Bryan Murray and The Euge) decided to invoke austerity measures on the people of (I think I’ll stop this stupid, stupid joke now)…what I’m saying is, as we all know, back at the end of the 2010-2011 season several beloveds (Fi$her, Kelly, etc) and maligned turdlingers (Kovalev, Elliot, etc) alike were jettisoned in exchange for picks and Craig Anderson. A core of leaders were kept around to keep the new squadron of rookies and misfit toys in line.

Rebuild, retool, all you can eat breadsticks and pizzasalad, senate reform, whatever you call it, this was the plan for the foreseeable future. Buckle your blowout belts (?) and get ready for flushing your ticket money down the turlet. For a couple of years looked like we were in for watching the lowly Sens get beat badly by our boring cousins like the Buffalo Sabres on a Tuesday night…that or …just start getting into going to more 67s games for a bit :)Follow me? The Gentle Art of Lowered Expectations.

Fans were cool with it despite being informed constantly by the media that we weren’t. Was it really so surprising that fans might be okay with saying goodbye to the days of the Senators signing the hockey equivalent of mid career Nicolas Cage for way too much cap space? Oh sure, occasionally you get Oscar winning Leaving Las Vegas Nick Cage but most of the time you get Ghost Rider* Nicholas Kovalev…I mean Nicolas Cage.

The season rolled around and everything was going according to plan….except for one thing: The Sens weren’t getting blown out every night. Actually, many scenarios not named Bobby Butler were working out rather well. The team was scoring (top AND bottom six!), was well coached, rookies were holding their own for the most part, Anderson was doing his thing, stars were healthy, vets were having bounce back years and Erik Karlsson decided to become a nearly point per game defenseman! Long story somewhat less long, they made it into the playoffs and put up a good first round fight. Thhhhhheeeeeeee Eeeeeeeeeend…wait…no, now everyone is talking about how we should package any worth while picks or prospects for Rick Na$h or Zack Parisianakis, or Bobby Ryan OR WHO KNOWS WHAT SPICE!!

I think this brings us to an interesting crossroads. Do the Sens go the “Rundblad and a 2nd” route and expend some of their prospect wealth based purely on its raw potential in order to fill an organizational need in an awesome way? OR do they JUST WAIT AND ACTUALLY SEE IF ANY OF THESE GUYS ARE GOOD FOR FIVE SECONDS? ORRRRR …is anyone still reading at this point? I suppose I am looking at the screen right now so that counts, anyway…let us break this thing down a little…

Forwards:
As far as forwards go, I am for the latter. In my opinion, if there is a season for the Senators to augment organizational need with a big ticket FA, 2012-2013 Ain’t. It. Before cashing in a bunch of chips for a band new Bobby Ryan (or whoever just work with me) why not take it slow and see if we have a Bobby Ryan all our own in our system for ELC prices! I don’t think that it’s crazy considering the time the players currently have to develop and the quantity of promising young players in the system.

Against this type of thinking, a great example for the erring on the side of selling high while the selling might indeed be good would probably be Mark Stone. We nerds all know about the knocks on his skating ability but as of right now he is riding quite high on junior stats of just garish quantity, a very strong world junior campaign AND a gorgeous assist to Jason Spezza in his first NHL game WHICH WAS A PLAYOFF GAME. I see that if Stone cant translate his game to the NHL level that now would be the time to put him in a package to a team that might be tantalized by his accomplishments in exchange for a proven NHLer. Or if want to be like me (blech!) you can think about it this way: You know who else had the numbers and the junior accolades but was told he didn’t have the skating for the big leagues? Luc Robataille. Drafted in the 9th round after putting up 191 points in 63 games for the Hull Olympiques (WTFBTW). It comes down to, does Murray want to, admittedly, take a big gamble by holding on to him to see if a kid who has tons of potential works out OR does he think he has a Corey Locke on his hands and must make an executive decision right now to package him for Raffi Torres or Raffi Torres equivilant while he still can. With Milan Michalek and Jason Spezza under contract for the next few years I think it’s a better idea to potentially stink and find out if Mark Stone or (deep breath)…
Mika Zibanejad
Jakob Silvferberg
Stefan Noesen
Matt Puempel
Andre Petersson
Stephane DaCosta
Mike Hoffman
Shane Prince
Jean Gabriel Pageau
Jakub Culek
Or someone else out there in the weeds we haven’t even given much thought might be able to make the leap and work out as a high quality NHL star. Crazier shit has happened. Right, Sideshow Daniel Alfredsson?

I know some of you might be thinking some of the names on that list are a stretch. History indicates that, yes, most of those guys might not get more than a cup of coffee OR WHO KNOWS WHAT METAPHORICAL DRINK in the NHL. To beat a dead horse, ask Corey “One NHL assist since being drafted almost 10 years ago” Locke how that do.

What I’m saying is, coming off an albeit weirdly successful rebuild year that featured mature rookie and 7th round pick Colin Greening on the first line for the majority of the season, I think we could stand to go for some psychedelic line combos with a couple of our li’l stars and not some overpriced FA that, yes, would have fewer growing pains. For me, the smart strategy is to properly manage the absolute wealth of young CHEAP prospects at forward, see what works out and use the team’s cap space to pay some chugalug to fill other gaps that can’t be filled internally (defense).

HEYYYYYYYYYY Defense:
Following me so far? Great. Now, for a hypocriticalish turn on the question of defense. It looks like the Sens will lose both Phyllis Cuba and Matt Gilroy in the coming off season. Derp deeee derp dee deerrrp. Filip Kuba had a great bounce back season. Especially great if you don’t count the playoffs (note: They count!). True Kuba’s 20+ minutes a night and high plus rating won’t easily be replaced but we ARE still talking about replacing Filip Kuba here. Don’t even get me started on Matt Gilroy.

Sidenote: I’m thinking that Brian Lee must have been really upset with where his career was going and asked for a mercy trade. I thought he was playing quite well. He came into being the well rounded, mid minutes guy the team needed then poof out of town. In his place we got an offense based guy who couldn’t finish. So we got the old Brian Lee. Sweet trade off. We’ll miss you newer, better Brian Lee. Enjoy your new home and wear lots of sunscreen.

Right, so, I’m just going to put it out there and say the Sens are definitely resigning Matt Carkner; book it. If management were to bump him up by half a million dollars from his current salary, he will make as much as Bobby Benchwarmer. I’m not even counting him as a question mark.

No doubt the prospect pool is quite thin on the blue line at the moment. I know my proposed wait and see strategy for forwards would cause Craig Anderson to have a nervous breakdown if applied to the D squad. People really have their doubts about Borowiecki or Wiercioch  making the jump but I don’t think its that nuts to try one or split time among both of these guys in a protected role in place of Gilroy. Borocop had a great year down in bingo (made the AHL all star team as a shutdown defenseman? Pretty cool.) and Wiercioch has put up one less point as a Sen than Gilroy did (and in almost half the games to boot!). I’m saying, c’mere and check this out…also, you wanna buy some speakers?

Defense Corps (Not really actual proposed pairings…just…I don’t know just fucking read it fuck)

Karlsson – FA / Apu DeBeaumarché
Cowen – Phillips
Gonchar – Carkner
Borowieck/Wiercioch – Frozen Dinner

Of note: While typing this up I ACTUALLY FORGOT SERGEI GONCHAR PLAYED FOR OTTAWA. So, you can build three pairings with one FA signing or don’t sign anyone and give one or both of Borocop / Wiercop (?) a chance

Also of note: The names Borowiecki and Wiercioch are really annoying to type.

Yeah it wouldn’t be an all-world defense but in a rebuild I’d be fine with this. Our D kiiiiiind of stunk last year and really it’s just replacing Filip Kuba without giving up any picks or prospects. Maybe Murray would have to overpay for an FA but I’d be okay with that with the cap space Ottawa has. I do feel a bit lenient that if Murray could hit a homerun and snag Suter or Webber *hand wanking motion* sure give some stuff up but I say keep drafting D…it’s a rebuild people.

Goaltending:
I’ll keep this one uncharacteristically brief. The Ottawa Senators have 3 awesome, exciting goalies in the system, 3. 3. Has that ever happened in franchise history? Don’t give that away.

*Full disclosure I’ve never actually seen Ghost Rider:The Movie. I was turned away at the door for being too old to get in (see what I did there?). I did see the trailer which was like drinking a glass of boiling hot toilet water. I heard the sequel is actually much better (not joking I really have heard that**).

**Still not my cup of toilet water though

James Day Preview: Mildly Important Game Edition

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Pretend you’re me for a second. Okay, you’re off to a great start. Wow, you are just killing it now…its uncanny…you’re like a regular Daniel Dave Lewis and the News up in here. HEY COME ON NOW I DO NOT WALK LIKE THAT! Okay well, now you’re just hamming it up. Anyway, you’re me and you get an ICQ message from your friend asking “So, what’s your take on game 7?” and all you/I can reply is, “I don’t even know if I have anything to say at this point, all I can do is watch.” 10 minutes later your America Online account (version 3.0, dick) says, “You’ve got mail!” just as you’re about to pop on the VHS of your favourite film, “You’ve Got Mail” in your brand new VHS player. Life has a funny way, huh? You look in your inbox and BOOM Steven drops the above image on your head all, “Here this is for your James Day Preview.” How do I ignore such a glamorous, glamorous piece of visual poetry? I guess I do have stuff to say…
Here we are. You. Me. Stuff. Sort of an important game tonight LETS GOOOOOO…

There’s no hyperbole about it, this is hands down the biggest game of the year for our beloved Ottawa Senators. I am very confident that there are few to zero bandwagon Sens fans this playoffs and you know what? I like that. We were the ones out there getting pissed losing the draft lottery, nerding out at training camp, rolling our eyes at panel after panel’s dismissal of les boys trying to predict when the ‘wheels would fall off”, we sat through the good streaks and the bad streaks, the Karlsson/Spezza point gettingest of times and the concussioniest of times. Its been a memorable journey and now we’re here. This team aint for some other schlub to ignore all season and latch on to in the post season. That’s what Nashville is for. We know that this team has the potential to pull this thing off because we’ve seen their resilience time and again. Peskingly speaking, they’ve been counted out all year, tonight is no exception.

The fulcrum for tonight’s game if you ask me…ASK ME WHAT THE FULCRUM IS…ugh, anyway, the fulcrum for tonight’s game is how Spezza, Alfredsson and Michalek react to their late game benching by Coach MacLean.

We’ve seen that an angry Spezza can be a very dangerous Spezza, like in that game in Winnipeg when he got all Matrix reloaded on that ass. Is the Spezza we’ve seen a bunch of in this series got enough fuel in him to take it up a level? We’ve seen Alfie get in that zoooone when the chips are down for years now so there’s no question there but… I suppose its time to talk about Alfie’s….episode. Okay, a lot gets made of this kind of stuff. Let’s face it, it’s a good story but are we really that surprised when incredibly competitive athletes lose their shit occasionally? It shows competitiveness and desire to win BUT there’s a thin line between being fired up and being off your game. Speaking of which, lest we forget Henrik Lundqvist completely losing his shit AFTER WINNING! Brother’s talkin bout conspiracy. Makes you wonder where his head will be at if the Rags get a few bad calls against them. The Sens top 3 forwards have a chance to make MacLean look like a brilliant tactician here…lets pray they do. Are you finished your prayer? No? … okay, youre good now? Good. Moving on…

Despite the fact that I just talked about the way that Spezz, Alfie and 9MM react to the message MacLean sent them will be the most important element to this game (and I think that the benching ties into what I’m about to talk about) is that they have been far from the deciding factor in this series. If the Sens don’t get a dynamite game out of those three its not like the grinders haven’t been putting in that WORK all series long putting the Sens over the top in their wins. Neil, Foligno and O’Brien have been effective as any star player. A big game from these kind of guys will be just as crucial. Most of all, D men protect Andy and he will deliver! This is the New York Rangers and they are not going to lay down and just let the Sens through. I’m not going to coat it in delicious not chemical at all tasting fructose: A lot has to go right for the Senators tonight if they are going to win.

Lastly, Ottawa Senators, do it for James Day Previews we each and every all of everyone motherfrigging last one of us need more of these. Wow, I am such a jerk.

Okay, well, I have to drum my fingers on my bouncing knees while rocking back and forth for the next few hours.

GO SENS GOOOOOOO ENJOY THE GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAME!

#YESWEBACONATOR

Hey, internet, what are we searching for?

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A delightful and whimsical journey to the center of how you end up inside our underwater internet kingdom called WTYKY (it certainly aint twitter, c’mon guys be our friend or whatever @wtyky) …

First off if you’re EVER in need of a sober, dry environment to hang out, Welcome to your Karlsson years is probably up there in your top 1 places on the internet to go. We would NEVER post in a drunken rage or a drunken opposite of rage. We have many signs with our numerous Anti-Drinking slogans. Moving on…

NOW, here’s the important stuff. This is a case of “Hey internet, what are we searching for?”  where a person gets it RIGHT.

Picture this, you’re going about your job at the Arm Wrestling Factory, and your bo$$, Rick Ro$$ (spelled that way) comes up to you and says, “Smedley (Im assuming that’s your name) people just dont turn to Arm Wrestling anymore when it comes to entertainment. They like things like X Box Three Hundred and Sixty with KynnexX combo pack now… we need to think of of a way to get Arm Wrestling back on the average families radar screen…im thinking plastic bags? …NO……no…PROMOTIONAL BAGS! Uh oh, now that I’ve start thinking about it I cant decide….well, that’s what I pay you for. Have a decision about this whole Plastic bags vs. Promotional Bags thing on my desk by Monday! Im going to lunch.”
Do you take lunch? Hell no. You go to the internet cafe on your break and do it right.
Step one you go to a .edu site. Find some scholarly materials on the Plastic Bags vs. Promotional Bags debate and find out what the academic temperature is on this thing.
ALWAYS print it off in a PDF format (two sided flip over now, Earth Enemy No.1!)
Go to the government site over this and find out what the latest policy is on the subject just to cover all bases legally speaking.
FINALLY, you put your choice your cart and press SHOP and BOOM here you are on Welcome To Your Karlsson Years (obviously).