DEGREE: MASTERS IN ENLISH LITERATURE w/ MINOR IN POLITICAL SCIENCE, BROWN
THESIS: MAGICAL REALISM IN LATIN AMERICAN LITERATURE AND ITS ANTI-DIALOGUE WITH RUSSIAN FORMALISM
CAREER TOTALS: 101 GAMES PLAYED, 1 GOAL, 3 ASSISTS, -6, 309 PENALTY MINUTES
With the rebuild in full swing, it will be important for Ottawa Senators fans to take stock of just what kind of players are in (inhabit?) the franchise’s cupboards (metaphor). Francis Lessard, a veteran of more than 100 NHL games played and over one hundred trillion fights, will be a building block for the team. He is used as a right winger in Ottawa, but is listed as a defenseman elsewhere, and it couldn’t possibly matter less where he plays. Now that’s utility. He can lift several bags of hockey equipment at one time. He is a pro at QuickTax, often garnering the maximum or near-maximum return for players like Chris Neil. And he’s almost finished reading the complete works of Dostoevsky in the original Russian. A staunch believer in a priori value, Lessard can often be overheard razzing Filip Kuba for reading them in the Czech translation, and thus imposing cultural subjectiveness on a canonical work of fiction. This unforgivable sin might be why Kuba was on the block this past trade deadline.
Lessard makes $550k, is a UFA this summer, and is a fan of ambient music. I think we can all expect whoever the new GM is (Lessard himself is in the running) to offer him a multi-year deal. And if it’s Brian Murray in charge, you know it will also feature a No Movement / No Trade Clause.
To you, Frank, we offer this tribute: Excelsior! Abusus non tollit usum!
That’s right: 100 level, center ice, where all the action happens. Which is to say, where you can actually see a woman reading a book in her $200 seat and get an epic view of people streaming to their cars with five minutes left, even when the Sens are carrying the play and making a real game of it. Your Ottawa Senators Fans: still totally alienating, even if I’m pleasantly surprised the building was 2/3rds full.
So: the game! Pretty good, these young kids can skate. There were a couple of chances that could have gone Ottawa’s way and then you’ve got a different game, but the Rangers made them pay for their mistakes and the next thing you know I’m three hot dogs and several Creemore in and we’re gonna go see Gabriel Landeskog play against the 67’s tomorrow. First star of the game goes to the guy who lip synched Eminem’s song from Eight Mile, second star to that creepy six year old who danced while wearing a demonic expression on her face to thoroughly creep out the crowd, and third star to Rob, who let me have the extra ticket and hauled my ass out to Kanata. Keep yer chin up, Karlsson, you’re aces in my book.
Hey, work-surfers. Just a note that Hockey’sFuture is now featuring one of the most detailed break-downs of Ottawa’s prospects. You won’t find a more comprehensive analysis outside of Ottawa’s scouting department. Click here to see. Also features one of THE BEST pictures of Lehner (above) looking like he’s just locked eyes on someone at the back of the room who he’d like to kill and eat.
When they were talking about how they are going to need to replace Fisher on
the banners (hubris even having so many of those btw) outside of scotiabank place…holy shit i realized…once this fire sale is over they are going to have to put SOMEONE on those banners….and obviously its going to be
KARLSSON. Im not just saying this bc im a fan boy…well primarily…but…HAVE YOU SEEN how that guy does
studio photos? he slicks his hair back all weird and gets this weird ass smirk going…its gunna be amazing..
something to look forward to for 2011-2012. Scroll down for the evolution!
Is anyone else concerned with how far away the Senators are from the deadline with these deals? I can understand with Mike Fisher and Chris Kelly, because they both have term left on their deals and Melnyk wants to get out from under debt, but Ruutu goes 11 days before the deadline for a 6th? What’s the harm in waiting, see if a tiny bit of a bidding war opens up? Maybe the 6th –which, let’s be realistic, will not turn into anything, and may as well have been “future considerations” – turns into a 4th? And if you can’t get a deal done in time, oh well: all you lost was the chance to get a 6th. Plus he’s only making $1.2M, so the remaining term on his contract at this point must be about $300k. It’s not like they’re stuck with Kovalev’s salary. But I guess $300k is $300k, and probably represents about fifty of the season ticket packages that won’t be renewed next year. The hard economics of this thing are sobering.
Pete
When the boss tells you to trim salary, I guess you get cracking on just that.
I’m choosing to remain an optimist right now (since it’ll be so much harder to do so next year) I’m taking the approach that this is an opportunity to remake the team in whichever image the incoming GM wants. Melnyk can advertise a blank slate for candidates.
Mike Fisher got his first goal as a pred. He looks at the same time both strange and a natural in a predators uniform. They went out and beat the Canucks last night. Maybe we should adopt the predators during their playoff run? Conflicting emotions!!!!!
Conrad
I’m always rooting for the Preds. They’re my West coast team. I like the idea of a well-coached, underfunded, hard-checking team from a “non-traditional” market winning, you know, at least ONE playoff series. Dean McAmmond should be on that team.
BREAKING (WEIRD, AND CLEARLY LATE) NEWS: Elliott to Colorado for Craig Anderson.
I think this shakes out to a tacit understanding that Elliott wasn’t going to get us anything, not even a ninth round pick, which is what we used to get him in the first place. We get a pending UFA who’s played horribly this year (though really well last year) and lost an RFA we weren’t going to give a qualifying offer anyway. We get a good look at Anderson, who, if he plays well, might accept another cheap-o deal to play in Ottawa next year. (Lehner is not ready.)
Or….maybe this means Leclaire is actually going to play some games down the stretch?
More to come…
Marc
I like all the moves Murray has pulled off so far. I haven’t been this
excited about this team since they made it to the Cup final. A new ice
age is around the corner and it starts now. I’ve been hollering for 30
+ games to give the kids some time with the team and it’s finally
happening. Like Peter, I’m feeling very optimistic even for next year.
Rainbow Cinemas is banning all screenings of E.T. to protest the
Elliott trade to Colorado, but will put Pamela Anderson movies on
heavy rotation. I’m not even going to get into all the Telcos refusal
to carry Nokia handsets going forward.
It was time for Elliott to go. Did any of us really think he was the
#1 goaltender we needed? We can blame the defense this year for
leaving him high and dry on a nightly basis. But he had a terrible
habit of letting in those infuriating softies. This would’ve been ok
he he had an endorsement deal with Cotonelle. Anderson has decent
career stats (less than 3 GAA per game and .912 save percentage for
his career) even though he’s had a tough 2010-11. Change is always
good and they will both benefit from a change of scenery. This does
leave a Chara sized question mark in terms of goaltending for Ottawa.
On the flip side, it will be awesome to see the Lehner-tic get more
starts this year. He will destroys all that that dares to get in his
way, including his teammates.
Looks like Kaberle is going to Boston, for real this time. The Bruins
are officially really scary.
It’s Hockey Day in Canada, and Ottawa and Edmonton are battling it out for the Mediocrity Cup. In lieu of any analysis or insight, we thought we’d acknowledge the number of new readers who’ve showed up these last few days and run a little retrospective of Image Guy Steve’s best Photoshops to have cropped up here over the last several months.
The CCFR staff is out and about for the holidays, so please enjoy the above Picture of the Dayish to tide you over until the Winter Classic, which the Senators…wait, they’re not in that? They’ll never be in that? People in Ottawa are more interested in land transfer tax than the Senators? Right then.
In the meantime, please enjoy the following statistics, which are the holiday equivalent of that Republican uncle you have who thinks Iraq was a great idea:
SALARY PER POINT
Filip Kuba $285,772
Jason Spezza $162,601
Sergei Gonchar $146,723
Daniel Alfredsson $135,809
Milan Michalek $133,892
Alex Kovalev $133,384
You may already be familiar with the following fan-made concept jersey, which appeared back in 2008:
It’s proven, unsurprisingly, much more popular than the Sens’ current third jersey, the abominable SNES, which may go down as one of the ugliest, most gimmicky, simultaneously busy and boring hockey jerseys in the modern history of the NHL. (Draw strings! Piping! Diagonal, “dynamic” font! What’s going on in the armpits?!) Since the above concept jersey emerged, it’s also appeared, teasingly, in concept shots of the then-new Senators arena store (To read more about this concept jersey, check here, and here.)
It’s not just a good third jersey – it’s probably better than the Senators’ primary jerseys too, which, as we all know, are the only NHL jersey to prominently feature gold sparkles.
There are admittedly some concerns, most of which revolve around the fact that the O looks like a zero, but I’ll take something that’s true (last I checked the Sens actually haven’t won a cup in the modern era) over some concept sweater that’s not just horrible in its own right, but broadly indicative of horrible, high-concept trends in jersey design that somehow exist when about 99% of people will site any original six jersey as a thing of true beauty. This is where Steve, also a thing of true beauty, comes in.
Some of you may already be familiar with Steve’s work here at The CCFR, in which case, nothing more need be said. Anyone who created this and this and especially this is basically a genius. But he’s also, like us, passionate about jerseys. Here’s his variation on the ‘heritage’ concept:
How nice is that? Here’s my (short) conversation with the man himself:
Conrad:
That’s a nice compromise. I’m a big fan of the ‘O’ jersey, though I admit there’s the whole ‘zero’ aspect to it. I especially like the way you’ve gotten the white lines on the torso striping to merge with the outline of the senators logo. I also agree that the team should return to the old, vaguely-Chinese looking Senator rather than the three-dimensional, cartoon guy. Lastly, I like the lack of striping along the bottom. It’s only a matter of time before they adopt something very similar to this, I think. Then again, the black SNES jersey sort of came out of nowhere.
What do you think of the draw string? I’ve never been a fan, because I think it complicates the nice clean design, but people are nuts about it.
Steve:
I don’t like the draw strings and I don’t think that the players do either. Most of them take them out to play. The only exception to the rule, in my mind, is original six teams. I feel like it’s a reasonable modification to a jersey that can’t be improved upon (The Canadians, Bruins, the Rangers and most of all The D-troit Redwings [conceptually, the best logo design ever]) Also historically accurate for teams that where around when jerseys were made of wool and good intentions. I personally think that less is more. The ‘O’ jersey is a perfect example. I’m crazy about that design and I’m even crazier about the fact that it’s a fan design. I think that Buffalo returning to the “literal” logo is a great sign that we’ve reached the tipping point for ludicrous team iconography (although the Atlanta Thrashers will always be the exception to the rule.) I could also do without the NHL logo on all the jersey throats. I couldn’t tell you why though.
Conrad:
By the way, have you ever had a chance to go to the Hockey Hall of Fame? It’s sort of boring, unless you’re a Habs fan, but one thing that it does do is make having a conversation about jerseys extremely easy. Every team’s jersey is there, alongside its AHL affiliate, and it offers an opportunity to really divide the logos into concepts. You basically have to choose from:
An angry animal, rendered pseudo-realistically; or
An animal playing hockey; or
A force of nature; or
Something violent, like a battleship shooting pucks or a growling army general; or
Some horrible high-concept thing, like the Minnesota Wild. Of course, the Detroit Red Wings logo is also pretty concept-driven, but that’s a thing of beauty – an anomaly, not the norm
An original six team design that sticks a letter on the front or a literal representation of the team name and tries to keep the design clean from there.
If those are our options, I’ll take the last one. An O and a clean design. Or a Senator. Done.
Welcome To Your Karlsson Years 
