The quick and snarky answer for why I loved the trades that sent Trevor Daley to Chicago and then to Pittsburgh for Rob Scuderi is that the Senators, in need of defensive help, avoided acquiring one or both of these bad options. That’s terrific from an Ottawa perspective.

The longer answer for why I loved these moves is because these trades illustrate how difficult it is to both improve your team and trade from a position of weakness in the NHL. For all the talk about how NHL front offices still have trouble accurately assessing a player’s worth outside of traditional stats like goal and point totals, GMs are fairly adept at recognizing when another GM is in a bind.

Chicago was predictably in cap hell this past off-season and would need to move a few notable pieces to be able to dress more than 14 skaters when the season started. Patrick Sharp, a four-time 30+ goal scorer, with multiple Cup wins, and an Olympic gold, things GMs generally salivate over, was made available. Chicago GM Stan Bowman, who’s generally regarded as smart and a cap maven, knew this and set the bar high for Sharp: a first round pick in the most anticipated draft in years, an A-level prospect, and a top-six forward still on his ELC. Now Sharp, on the wrong side of 30 and making nearly $6M, wasn’t going to command such a lucrative haul, but it was a big ask designed to pry a prospect and high pick or some variation out of another team. It’s pretty standard practice. The problem was no one bit. What the other GMs saw was the Cup champs were in a bind and why help them out unless you get a sweet deal. In reality, Bowman had to give up one of his own well-regarded prospect in Stephen Johns to send Sharp to Dallas for Trevor Daley and Ryan Garbutt. A win for Dallas and not a good salary dump for Chicago.

So it was a bad deal. But it also seems just as obvious that Bowman didn’t want to give up Johns and would have made a better deal if he could, but was stuck and took the lesser of two evils.

There are reasons Daley didn’t work out in Chicago (he isn’t that good, they expected him to fill a role he wasn’t capable of filling, Joel Quenneville wasn’t a big fan etc.), but at least Bowman wisely tried to move on from a player who wasn’t working quickly. Again, the asking price was set fairly high for a player of Daley’s age, calibre, and cap hit: a second round pick and a prospect/young player (of the Shane Prince and Matt Puempel ilk in Ottawa’s case). After being part of the rumour mill for weeks, Daley was eventually traded to Pittsburgh for 37-year-old and frequent healthy scratch, Rob Scuderi. While Pittsburgh retained a third of Scuderi’s salary (saving Chicago $1M off the cap) for this season and next, Scuderi is simply one of the worst defenders in the league at this stage in his career and he’s under contract until 2017.

How could this happen to a smart, with it, analytics-accepting GM and architect of the first, cap era NHL dynasty? Because other GMs knew he was up against it and wouldn’t budge an inch.

All of this reminds me of the Jason Spezza trade. Yes, the rumoured deal to Nashville (including Patric Hornqvist, Nick Spaling, and the 11^th overall pick, used by the Preds to select Kevin Fiala) would definitely have been better in the short term as Hornqvist is a legit top-six forward. It may still be better in the long term. But Spezza didn’t want to go there and he controlled the move. Unfortunately, Dallas was the only option.

Could Ottawa have made a better trade with Dallas? Sure. Could Bryan Murray have insistent on receiving a first round pick instead of a second? Sure, though I suspect Stars GM Jim Nill, generally regarded as a Very Smart Hockey Dude^TM in his own right, knew Murray had no other option unless he wanted to risk losing Spezza for nothing, so Nill obviously refused. Should Bryan Murray have asked for pre-NHL breakout John Klingberg? Absolutely! It’s possible he did! It’s also exceedingly possible, Dallas had some understanding of the players in their development system and didn’t want to give up a potential star on defense, deciding instead to give up a player from a position of depth.

It wasn’t a good trade. Could they have waited it out and tried to trade Spezza at the deadline? Sure but the fear of a Spezza injury probably prevented that.

Wanting a better outcome is understandable. Wanting your team to make trades that improve your team makes sense. But expecting a GM to win when they’ve been dealt a losing hand isn’t realistic. GMs know the score and can tell when a team’s in a bind. Stan Bowman knows it, Bryan Murray knows it. Sometimes they lose.

This is a weekly feature that takes an uncharitable look at the Senators’ upcoming opponents.

Me, blue with power (not pictured: you, green with envy)

Hey, how are you? Uh huh? Uh huh? Listen, shut up for a second. I wanted to let you know we’re doing something a little different this week. The thing is, after we taped Advanced Chats with Ian Mendes on Friday, the wrap party turned into Saturday, and then into Sunday – you know how it is with Mendes – and all of a sudden there’s a game on Monday and I’m supposed to do the usual in-depth, thoughtful preview for four weekly games? Get outta here. So instead, this week we’re gonna play a quick game called, “The Other Team: A Mom Or A Dad?” Let’s go!

Monday, December 14 – Senators vs. Kings

Dad. Didn’t get it together until his late 40s. Got in early on some kind of semi-legal pyramid scheme and now he won’t stop lecturing relatives about the value of hard work. $7000 watch. The old dudes he golfs with are super-creepy. Still hasn’t explained why he burst into tears at Thanksgiving dinner. Senators 5, Kings 0.

Wednesday, December 16 – Senators @ Capitals

Mom. A lot of wine-themed aprons. Doesn’t think anyone knows she smokes in the garden shed. Can really talk her way out of a speeding ticket. Keeps buying expensive mail-order hand creams. We don’t talk about the time she left that divorce book on Dad’s nightstand. Senators 5, Capitals 0.

Friday, December 18 – Senators vs. Sharks

Dad. Always sending you articles about Bernie Sanders. L.L. Bean everything. Has three different lawsuits going over minor car accidents. Needs to cut his sodium. Mom is terrified he’ll retire early and hang around the house driving her crazy. Senators 5, Sharks 0.

Sunday, December 20 – Senators @ Lightning

Mom. Shelf full of porcelain Disney figurines. If she finds out about Etsy, look out. She and Dad came back from Europe last year complaining about the lack of chain restaurants. Still wants to go to South America, “when it’s safer”. You put a filter on your email to deal with all the forwards. Senators 5, Lightning 0.

Season prediction record: 15-10-5

Next week: the Boston Bruins – somehow STILL the least likeable Boston sports team.

Creativity is an interesting concept in sports. Ottawa’s lineup over the past week might be confused by many as a creative solution by Dave Cameron to his team routinely being outshot. But it’s not. It’s a reliance on grit, toughness, and some sort of nebulous understanding of defensive prowess (plays in the bottom six/lower pairings, therefore he’s defensively-minded) in hockey that lots of coaches fall prey to. To truly think creatively about hockey requires a different understanding of what it is defenders and forwards do during the course of a game and how skill impacts how both groups work together to create offense. So this isn’t creative on Dave Cameron’s part. Zack Smith is not a top six forward nor is he a line one winger. He is, at times, a useful fourth line player, but for that designation to stick he needs to keep penalties to a minimum and his astronomical shooting percentage needs to continue to orbit Saturn. As neither of those things are likely, the case for him being effective in the right role isn’t a solid one, let alone an argument to give him more minutes. The case for Mark Borowiecki at forward is much like the case for Mark Borowiecki on defense: it shouldn’t be made. At least on defense Ottawa’s lack of depth makes it somewhat understandable that Boro makes his way into the lineup, but he’s simply not a forward at this or other professional levels.

Those who like to point out Dave Cameron only made appealing lineup choices last season because players like Chris Phillips, Chris Neil, and Zack Smith were injured are being a bit disingenuous. Those injuries took the burden of certain decisions off the coach, but there were interventions from behind the bench that played into the team’s short term success under Cameron. A somewhat elevated role for Mike Hoffman, increased playing time for Mark Stone, and riding the Andrew Hammond wave are all things I don’t think Paul MacLean would have done. Some key healthy scratches here and there and you have a historic winning streak.

While there’s no excusing current lineup decisions, especially the roles for Smith and Borowiecki, if Cameron had his whole roster available, we’d most likely see a preferred lineup with Clarke MacArthur and Milan Michalek in place and Smith and Boro as far away from the top six forward group as possible. Neither injured player is going to return anytime soon so the question becomes one of doing the best with pieces available.

So what is Cameron doing with Prince? I don’t know. For the record, I think he should be in the lineup, and I think with current injuries, he’s your best bet to fit with Ottawa’s top six group. That said he’s a rookie known for his offense, not necessarily his defensive game, and Cameron’s established a pattern of rightly or wrongly (wrongly) holding offensive players to a higher standard in this regard. That’s not to say I don’t think it’s ok to expect more from players like Mike Hoffman, I do, I just think you give them a role that lets them rise to the opportunity. I’ve written about this before in relation to Prince and Cameron’s apparent preference for Matt Puempel, but I still think that’s part of what’s going on here.

I think it’s also possible Shane Prince isn’t Ottawa’s favourite prospect. His waiver eligibility may have forced the team’s hand in training camp and his rumoured trade request last season probably didn’t sit well with Ottawa’s brass. I don’t think this means Ottawa treats its prospects poorly. I think they’re more in line with league averages than we’d like to admit. I mean, I can think of organizations where it’s a lot harder to get a shot (Detroit) and the team costs its young players two or three years of NHL salary in the process by marinating and slow cooking them in the AHL smoker like they’re a prize-winning bbq recipe. I think this is an organization that actually ‘rewards’ prospects for doing things the ‘Senators way’ (I guess that’s a thing). See the David Dziurzynski call up or that Boro contract. Puempel got a long look.

No, the biggest knocks against Cameron are moving Hoffman up and down the lineup, the Chris Wideman stuff, and this past week’s lineup. If his minutes are still top six forward minutes, I don’t mind moving Hoff around so much. He’s been one of Ottawa’s best this year, he’s a spark plug, he creates, he scores a lot, and he helps balance scoring. For this team to be successful they need more than one line going and Hoffman’s demonstrated he doesn’t need an adjustment period to click with various linemates. The Wideman stuff, from fans at least, was a bit much at the start of the season. Sure I’d rather have him in the lineup than either Cowen, Boro (or this season Ceci and Wiercioch) but I think it’s ok that a coach took a few games to decide if an NHL rookie deserved a full-time spot in the lineup. We’re not talking weeks or months, but a few games. Not ideal in the short term, but also not an international crisis. As for this week, yep, Cameron’s made some bad decisions, though resorting to grit and toughness game plans centering on players like Boro and Smith is a pretty conservative coaching move in some respects. Playing a player out of position when you realize something is out of whack and you’re getting outshot by a considerable margin may seem creative, but it’s not. Relying on guys with conservative games when things get tough is not exactly a unique solution in the NHL and is the type of strategizing I think many NHL coaches resort to.

This is not a creative league and those in coaching and management generally punish or at least don’t lend their full backing, to the creative (see Hoffman). Unfortunately, to solve what truly ails this team (incredibly crap defense and the loss of Mac and Michalek), coming up with a creative solution is necessary.

That such a solution hasn’t presented itself from a coaching stand point isn’t surprising. Our defense is a hydra, if you bench Cowen you still have to play three struggling blueliners. If Hoffman plays on the first line, then you still have a hole on the second. If you move Smith around, then your surprisingly effective fourth line is weakened.

While many among us now actively wish for a coaching change, a recent, cautionary tale out of Pittsburgh should give us pause. Penguins GM Jim Rutherford fired Coach Mike Johnson over the weekend as a result of the Pens season-long struggles. However, even Rutherford had to admit, he shared some of the blame for not assembling a better defense group. Dave Cameron’s in a similar position. It seems highly unlikely he’ll be fired if the Sens hover around a playoff spot, but if he does become the fall guy, it will make little difference. Most of his decisions are decisions most NHL coaches make and coaches still can’t bolster the blueline or add scoring depth.

As those of you who have been following the Ottawa Senators’ 2015-2016 season know, everything is terrible.

Ottawa, who currently sits tied with Detroit for second in their division, sixth in the conference, and fourth in the league in goals-for, is not-so-secretly actually a horrible team and all of this is a mirage. They give up more shots than any other team. They don’t take that many shots. So none of the enjoyment that you feel when you watch hockey is real. If you think it is, you’re a dunderheaded neanderthal who probably shouts “shoot!” every time the team gets the puck.

The team has enjoyed above-average goaltending and has, to use the technical term, a golden horseshoe in its collective bum. “This too shall pass,” say the ghosts of Colorado Avalanche, Calgary Flames, and Toronto Maple Leafs teams of christmas past.

Not only that, but the team only has three years left of Erik Karlsson playing generationally supreme hockey on an affordable contract, at which point Methot will be up for renewal too, and by then Stone and Zibby won’t be on their team-friendly contracts anymore, and Hoffman is going to get paid like next year if they don’t trade him, and Anderson will be older and they traded away their goaltender of the future, and the owner is still broke, and Colin Greening Milan Michalek something something, and, and, and…

…and here’s the thing: we get it. We understand. The concept is understandable. It is going into my head and down into my tummy and being understood and then I pee it out. That’s how understanding works. (WebMD™)

What I don’t understand is the impulse to have this discussion in precisely this way over and over and over again to such dwindling returns. It is not, for lack of a better descriptor, spiritually nourishing.

It wasn’t much different during the team’s run to the playoffs last season. What was the refrain then? “This is unsustainable.” Every damned game. Periodic moments of miraculous sunshine allowed to peek through the curtains until someone would storm into the living room and draw the curtains shut while screaming about the dangers of skin cancer.

This isn’t real. What you’re experiencing is not real.

Except it is real. It’s happening, right there, in front of you.

I’m not saying that the team is actually amazing or that we should derive all truth from a team’s record. I’m saying that there are different ways to talk about, and to experience, the local team winning at a popular sport. That different way is called gratitude.

I know Twitter is not a place for gratitude. It’s a place for hysteria and theatrics, and that’s ok. There’s a place for that. It’s often fun, and engaging, and great. It can also be tiring.

So I’m using this blog say that I’m grateful that the team went on a miraculous run last year. It was fun to watch. Really special. That’s the stuff of which sports are made. Not the predictability of statistically-verified trends unfolding as outlined. But a team improbably doing something that, outlier though it may be, allows us to speak about the event with excitement and shared purpose precisely because it bucked the trends.

I’m grateful that Ottawa is having a decent season this year. They’re scoring a lot of goals. Those are fun to see. Am I stupid for saying so? And they’re doing it despite the fact that they’re not the best team in the league. I think there is as much validity in me saying this as me writing a post saying “Ottawa needs to fix the defence,” though there are literally zero defencemen available on the free agent or trade markets, as evidenced by the fact that no other team is signing or trading for defencemen either.

I’m grateful that we have this community of hockey appreciators and buds, people who can write about sports in a way that is calculating and rigorous and also makes room for the emotional and tangential. I’m grateful for the comedy and the tragedy inherent to all that we label entertainment.

And most of all, I am grateful for Erik Fucking Karlsson. He’s one of the best players on the planet, having one of the best seasons of his life, and he plays for the Ottawa Senators. Our team, in our city, which most people outside of Canada couldn’t pick off a map. You can go see this guy play for like forty bucks. You can sit in a chair and see him, 400 feet away, do things that maybe seven or eight people ever in history have been able to do. You don’t have to get on a plane, or follow the band around on tour, or anything.

Anyway.

Game is on in a couple of hours. I’m really looking forward to it. Have a good game, everyone. Put the phone down for a few minutes during a shift, maybe turn the color commentary off, put on some soothing music, and just watch Erik Karlsson skate.

This is a weekly feature that takes an uncharitable look at the Senators’ upcoming opponents.

Me, staying 300 (not pictured: you, dropping your phone in the sewer again)

Tuesday, December 8 – Senators @ Panthers

The Florida Panthers – still going! Neither beautiful weather, nor plentiful local entertainment options, nor a rink that’s farther from Miami than Arnprior is from Ottawa will keep a hardy 12,000 fans from showing up each night, often referring to their 100-level club seats as “the best $8 we’ve ever spent”. And good for them, I say. Because you know what? If you ever slow down and start experiencing the breezy south Florida lifestyle for yourself, you’ll realize there are more important things than winning. It’s enough just to play a game and enjoy life, you know? That kind of relaxed attitude, along with joints-friendly temperatures and a lack of state income tax, has drawn hockey legend Jaromir Jagr here, after all. Denis Potvin will be calling this game while drinking something blue out of a coconut. Jimmy Buffett may not be a great artist, but he’s still a poet, man. What’s wrong if this team, and their fans, are just here for a good time?

Just kidding. Most of the people at Panthers games are snowbird Habs fans yelling obscenities at both teams in screeching voices that echo endlessly off thousands of empty seats. It can be kind of a bummer. For what it’s worth, though, a few years of good drafting have started to make this team Interesting, in the sense that the Panthers are no longer just a grab bag of overpriced veteran free agents that good teams were smart enough to dump like a sack of laundry. Oh sure, some of those guys are still around – Willie Mitchell, Jussi Jokinen, and Dave Bolland all wear letters, and I haven’t even mentioned Shawn Thornton yet – but the core of this team is young, led by guys like Jonathan Huberdeau, Aleksander Barkov, and Aaron Ekblad. They might actually be Good in a couple years, if they don’t let that weird, creeping south Florida lethargy set in, as tends to happen with most people that move down there. I mean, have you ever actually heard a Jimmy Buffett song? They’re awful. He makes the Eagles sound like the Ramones. Yet you spend just two weeks in the Keys and there you are, singing along with the rest of the bar, no idea where your shoes went. Good luck, kids.

PREDICTION: You know how it is when Canadians get down to Florida as soon as it starts getting cold at home. Half of them are polite and respectful tourists who take a lot of pictures and tip well, and the other half spend the whole time vomiting Bud Light Lime into hotel showers. Look for Zack Smith to have a big game either way. Senators 5, Panthers 0.

Thursday, December 10 – Senators @ Lightning

The Tampa Lightning – for some reason the city of Tampa adds “Bay” to the names of all of its sports teams, which is sort of like if you cheered for the Ottawa River Senators – are another one of those sun belt teams, like Carolina and Dallas, that you keep forgetting actually won a Cup. There’s another one in there . . . Anaheim? Can’t remember. And heck, Tampa almost won for a second time last year! This season they brought back the same team plus fourth-line superstar Erik Condra, so most pundits expected them to be the class of the Eastern Conference once again. Instead, they are currently sixth in the Atlantic. In Old Sailing Tymes, the grizzled buccaneers navigating the murky waters of Tampa’s bay would probably call Condra a Jonah for all the bad luck he’s brought with him, cursing his name between belts of rum.  Those guys are still around, but these days they’re typically drunk on much nicer boats, blasting Jimmy Buffett as they look for a Margaritaville to dock at for some mango-chipotle ribs and Cozumel Cosmotinis. They have no idea who Erik Condra is.

Anyway. Unlike the Panthers, the Lightning are a relatively successful team with one of the league’s biggest stars in Steven Stamkos, so they draw home crowds well enough that you can barely hear the snowbird Habs fans. Part of Tampa’s poor record this year stems from a bad start for Stamkos, who many say is distracted by rumours swirling around him during the last year of his contract. Will he break the bank signing an extension with the Lightning and captain them for the rest of his career? Or will he leave nice weather and talented teammates to go home to Markham and play for the biggest group of losers in NHL history under the filthy microscope of Toronto’s sports media? In career terms, this is like trying to decide between being a European travel writer or losing a few fingers on a North Sea oil rig. For some reason the Toronto media keeps telling me it’s a pretty close call.

PREDICTION: The great thing about Erik Condra is that no opinion about him is wrong. He IS worth $1.5M a year in this league. He IS completely replaceable. He IS a great possession driver. He IS a concrete-handed butcher in front of the net. When the Senators let Condra walk away in July, Bryan Murray remarked that he wasn’t too concerned about making up Condra’s 23 points from last season; by the end of this game, look for the Senators to already have five players over that mark with over 50 games to go. Look for Mike Hoffman in particular to have at least three more, and to continue to drive his ticket much higher than $1.5M. We’ll figure out the details later. Senators 5, Lightning 0.

Saturday, December 12 – Senators @ Canadiens

Why spend a week playing in front of snowbird Habs fans in weird parts of Florida when you can come home and play in front of the real thing? At least Ottawa will be used to their gutter-mouthed taunts by Saturday night, although in Montreal the Senators will have to contend with the additional challenge of staying loose and warmed up during a three-hour pregame ceremony that celebrates Maurice Richard being the first Montreal Canadien to use a petroleum-based hair tonic, or some nonsense like that. Come on with the pomp and circumstance, Habs. I would say “act like you’ve been there before,” except the response would probably be, “we have been there before, and let us tell you about it, using torches.” Also, Habs fans, most of that music you like is basically just Jimmy Buffett in French.

The Habs are making do without Carey Price or Brendan Gallagher right now, which downgrades their roster from “le worst” to merely deeply unlikeable. P.K. Subban is still suckering guys in the brainstem. Michel Therrien is still behind the bench striking overly-dramatic thinking poses like he’s in some dinner theatre version of A Man For All Seasons. Dale Weise still looks like a guy who should be thrown out of a casino somewhere. Worst of all, the one likeable player the Habs had, the one guy you felt good rooting for – I’m talking of course about Alex Semin – was put on waivers this week. What kind of dismal, joyless team would give up on a dynamic, selfless guy like Alex Semin? If that’s how you want to lead the Eastern Conference, fine, but I shan’t have any part of it.

PREDICTION: This is the Senators’ last game against the Habs for three months, and their last at the Bell Centre, their favorite road arena, until the playoffs. Look for Craig Anderson, in his 437^th consecutive start, to pitch his typical shutout, and for a guy in a Galchenyuk jersey waking up on the men’s room floor after the game to really get serious about going back to school this time. Senators 5, Canadiens 0.

Season prediction record: 14-8-5

NEXT WEEK: The Sharks and Kings – Ottawa West and Dirtbag Central!

Everything that’s happened with respect to Mikael Wikstrand and his relationship with the Ottawa Senators organization has left me with a palpable unease.

When Wikstrand bailed on training camp without even leaving a goodbye note in September, it painted a picture of a young man who felt strongly that playing hockey in North America was not what was good for him as a person at that time. Details were sparse initially, but eventually Wikstrand tweeted that he left Ottawa to be with a seriously ill family member. The Senators responded by suspending Wikstrand and denying him permission to play in the Swedish Elite League.

Roughly a month later, Wikstrand revealed that his brother was suffering from leukemia and that he wanted to spend as much time with him and the rest of his family. Bryan Murray and the Senators for their part said that Wikstrand’s status was unchanged, and Murray also chose to parse the particulars of the difference between being 3 hours away and being 8 hours away.

The latest development from today is that we got some more comments from Randy Lee reiterating that nothing has changed, while also casually dropping words like “contract” and “signing bonus”.

I think that it’s perfectly reasonable that Mikael Wikstrand would decide that the needs of Mikael Wikstrand the Person are more important than the needs of Mikael Wikstrand the Athlete. The Senators, for their part, have been very upfront that they wanted Mikael Wikstrand the Athlete playing in North America this season.

Should the athlete and the person be treated as separate? It’s certainly been proven possible to do what’s best for both at the same time. Within the Ottawa organization, Bryan Murray has talked about how he traded Mike Fisher specifically to Nashville because that was what was best for the person and for the athlete. More recently, Travis Hamonic has requested that he be traded to the Western Conference for personal reasons, and the New York Islanders are actively trying to accommodate this request. In situations where a player’s personal and professional life overlap, finding a compromise between a player and team can be done, and is certainly possible in this case.

What gives me pause is that Mikael Wikstrand is still at the point of his career where he is considered an investment. The Senators have invested scouting resources and financial resources in him, and it will still be a couple of seasons until the club has a chance of seeing those investments recouped. In the case of the Fisher trade, the Senators received something in return. By having Wikstrand play and develop in a weak league, the Senators receive very little except increased risk.

I do not feel strongly that the Senators should allow Mikael Wikstrand to play in Sweden. If anything, I tend more towards the organization’s side on that matter. Developing NHL prospects in Sweden seems to be an exercise in diminishing returns after a certain point, and the Senators think that Wikstrand has reached that point. However, I do feel strongly about the following things:

1. Everyone needs to stop playing politics with a young man’s cancer.

It is absolutely not cool that somehow Mikael Wikstrand’s brother is now just a side-note in The Ongoing Saga of Mikael Wikstrand. I do not think that Mikael Wikstrand’s brother’s illness should be used as just another piece of calculus in the math of Where A Senators Prospect Should Play Hockey. Mikael Wikstrand is not really the protagonist of this story right now; his brother is. Using this illness to win a PR battle is deeply gross on a number of levels. “Prospect X’s family member has cancer. How does this effect Prospect X’s contract status?” is terrible rhetoric because it completely glosses over the fact that someone has cancer! There are bigger things than Binghamton’s blue line at stake here.

Also, while I’m here I just want to say f**k cancer, and love and support to the Wikstrand Family from the Welcome to your Karlsson Years Family.

2. The Sens organization needs to make a decent, empathetic statement, and then shut up.

As Randy Lee testily remarked in his interview with TSN1200 today (skip to the 13:00 mark), it’s true that the Ottawa Senators are more familiar than most with cancer and the challenges it presents to patients, friends, and family alike.

It’s also true that if I can accurately portray your statement regarding cancer as “testy”, you need to stop talking.

What the Sens org needs to do, and what I can’t believe they haven’t done, is make a brief statement making it clear that they support the Wikstrand family at this difficult time, and that they look forward to having Mikael back with the organization at such a time that he deems it appropriate to return to hockey. Then, and I cannot overstate the importance of this next step, the Sens org needs to shut up. It doesn’t matter how badly (or not) Mikael handled his departure from the team in September. The Sens organization needs to just leave that stuff in the past. Bringing it up only serves to make them look callous and unsympathetic, and it’s not really appropriate to publicly drag a player for caring too much for his ailing brother. Also, have I mentioned how gross it is to use cancer to win a PR battle yet? Get it together, Senators.

This is a weekly feature that takes an uncharitable look at the Senators’ upcoming opponents.

Me, eating so many shrimp (not pictured: you, being mad on vacation)

Tuesday, December 1 – Senators vs. Flyers

Hey, these guys again! The Senators played their last home game against the Flyers a little more than a week ago, and now that Ottawa’s back from a western road trip it’s the Flyers that are up again. It’s like they never left the Canadian Tire Centre, or just spent the last week shuffling around Kanata, buying Kirkland-brand jeans and developing strong opinions about its overcrowded English public schools. But can you blame them? The Flyers, as predicted, are sputtering near the bottom of the Metropolitan Division (“Cities You Like Visiting, Plus Columbus!), so even hanging around suburban Ottawa is probably better than going back to Philadelphia and having children pelt you with batteries as you get off the plane.

The Flyers have actually won three of their last four since splitting up their two good players, Claude Giroux and Jakub Voracek; Voracek is now tasked with bringing offensive skill to the Flyers fourth line, sort of like Shane Prince if he just signed an eight-year, $66 million extension. Voracek’s demotion is a nice reminder that every team makes bizarre lineup decisions from time to time, suggesting that you can take your own team’s only so critically. You may have rolled your eyes at some of Paul MacLean’s moves, but the constant impulse to screw with a lineup is a viral condition that lies dormant within most of the adult population of NHL coaches, and Paul MacLean was just another guy trying to manage it. Sure, they control it successfully most of the time, but then the holidays roll around, they start feeling stressed, and boom, total flare up. Now Zack Smith is on the second unit power play. Ask your doctor if Paultrex is right for you.

PREDICTION: You know when you want somebody to leave your house, so you just take off for a while and figure they’ll take the hint and be gone when you come back? Then you get home from work and they’re still there, telling you they’re happy to pitch in until “things calm down, legally,” and that vodka bottle you had in the freezer is gone? You are the Ottawa Senators in this game, tossing the Flyers’ gear bags out onto the sidewalk as calmly as possible. Look for Curtis Lazar to wave goodbye cheerfully. Senators 5, Flyers 0.

Thursday, December 3 – Senators vs. Blackhawks

One of the dumbest and most myopic tropes about hockey players – and you can tell Don Cherry I said this – is that they’re all “good guys”. They’re not, because there’s no profession, category, or class of people for whom this is true, anywhere. There are good and bad politicians, good and bad cops, even good and bad people in the low-stakes world of whatever it is you do; after all, somebody keeps stealing your Go-Gurt out of the breakroom fridge. Assuming hockey players are any different is naïve and asinine, and reason enough why you should never wrap your identity so tightly around something you can’t control that you end up on the Internet, with absolutely no facts at hand, arguing the finer points of law you have no training in because it affects one of “your guys”.

Should we expect better of the teams that employ these guys, though? Maybe. After all, they’re corporate entitities, and they have management structures, and codes of conduct, and all the other checks and balances and shared liabilities that are supposed to prevent any one individual from ruining everything. Of course, they also exist to make money, and in every hockey city outside of Toronto, making money means winning games. Taking a moral stand against an underperformer isn’t brave, it’s business. Against a star, though? Well, do the fans care enough to stop buying tickets, and jerseys, and team-branded grill sets? They don’t? Then it’ll blow over. That’s the free market for you, and assuming your team operates any differently is just as naïve as assuming the players are all good guys. It’s fine to expect teams to be better, but the teams also work for the fans. We should expect better of everybody.

PREDICTION: Wooooooo, who’s ready for some HOCKEY? Senators 5, Blackhawks 0. 

Saturday, December 5 – Senators vs. Islanders 

The New York Islanders play in Brooklyn and wear black now, which has finally allowed hockey writers to break out their own take on hipster jokes that were old ten years ago, when “hipsters” were something other than mainstream culture; even your dad rolls his eyes when he hears a Pitchfork joke these days. These days any real hipster will tell you Williamsburg is over and the new thing is to care passionately and be right-wing, and no black uniform changes the fact that this team remains Long Island all the way, the stink of I-495 and Billy Joel still all over them.

The Islanders did some great stuff in the early 80s but have been pretty terrible ever since, much like Van Halen or most of your uncles. They’ve been on the upswing for the last few years though, slowly building a semi-likeable team around homegrown superstars like John Tavares and complementing him with underrated castoffs like Nick Leddy, Mikhail Grabovski, and Nikolai Kulemin. In some respects they are Clarke MacArthur, the team. Still, not everyone wants to be an Islander; witness the recent trade request from defenseman Travis Hamonic, who’s asked to be moved closer to his family in Winnipeg. It’s the first time since the fur trade was a going concern that anyone has asked to be sent to Winnipeg, but maybe Hamonic is just tired of getting run over by strollers and fixies every time he tries to get a gluten-free cronut on his way to the Barclays Center and – see, now I’m doing it too. Brooklyn, man.

PREDICTION:  The Islanders had a pretty good shot / To get at least as far as Denis Potvin got / But something happened on the way to that place / The Sens threw 55 shots in their face / And we’re living here in Allentown. Well, 15 minutes west of Allentown. Good bus service, though. Look for you to think this is a stupid reference. Senators 5, Islanders 0.

Sunday, December 6 – Senators @ Rangers

And last, the Rangers, the Paul Simon to the Islanders’ Billy Joel, in that they’ve spent the last 50 years being more influential, more respected, and not nearly as successful. There’s a reason why the theme song to The Chet Sellers and Luke Peristy Podcast is a riff on “Scenes From an Italian Restaurant” – it’s because we know what the people want. The Devils in this analogy are Springsteen, in that most people only pretend to enjoy them. Come on, NHL. Move the Devils to Staten Island so we can finally bring Wu-Tang into hockey.

After the Senators, the Rangers are this season’s “ACTUALLY (*white doves fly skyward*) They’re Not as Good as Their Record” team. In a way it almost makes me want to like them. But I don’t. We talked last time about how hating the Rangers starts with hating Henrik Lundqvist’s impossible cheekbones; this time let’s talk about Chris Kreider, who’s run more goalies during games in Ottawa than Nick Foligno ever did, which is even more impressive when you consider Kreider’s had to do it as a visitor. Perhaps he’s trying to play the kind of hard-nosed game that eventually earns you a leadership role in Columbus, which is where many ex-Rangers end up once the useful phase of their career is over. Keep your eye on Kreider in this one, particularly if you are Craig Anderson.

PREDICTION: God, four games in a week – I’m exhausted just from previewing them, so I’m trying to imagine how the Senators will feel by Sunday night. Unflappable? Energetic? Casually dominant? After all, the Rangers aren’t nearly as good as their record would have you believe. Look for the Senators to put the “fun” in “underlying fundamentals”. Senators 5, Rangers 0.

Season prediction record: 12-6-5

Next week: Florida – the Jared Cowen of America.