Curious to see Leafs fans gloating about what they hope will be a season of trouncing the Sens. Defeating a rebuilding club should be a given, shouldn’t it? Especially when the Leafs are spending as much as they are on salary, are in the fourth year of their “this isn’t a five year rebuild” rebuild, and absolutely must compete now. So why gloat? If they win, there’s nothing remarkable about it, and they’re just helping the Sens along to a higher draft pick. (We don’t trade our first rounders during rebuilds, which is a novel concept.) If they don’t win, then by their own admission they should be embarrassed.

The fact of the matter is that there’s so much riding on this season for the Leafs that you can smell the desperation and tension in the air. What happens if they finish yet another season without the playoffs, knowing that they could be competing by now had they not hired the brashest, least patient GM in the game? Do you commit to a five year rebuild now, knowing that their market is desperate for some playoff hockey? What good is it to be a bubble team who makes it to the playoffs only to be destroyed in the first round?

The Leafs, and their increasingly exasperated fan base, are in purgatory. Theirs is a fate worse than sucking, because even having a bad season has its purposes. Too bad to win it all, too good to get better. Where have we heard this before?

Leaf fans gloat about beating up on a rebuilding club because there’s not much else there to get excited about. The Senators may be a few seasons from being competitive again, but I have no doubt that when Ottawa’s window of contention opens again the Leafs will be right where they’ve been all of these years: hoping to sneak in and get hot at the right time, and a team no one is truly afraid of encountering in the playoffs. Seems a shame to spend six seasons out of the playoffs only to end up right back where you started.

And you guys are uncomfortable with the Winnipeg Jets use of Canadian military imagery? Imagine if they flew over Canada’s Wonderland with lightning-shooting supersonic jets and turned the upside-down swinging ship ride into a giant hockey puck. Imagine that.

Anyway…hockey’s back! Leafs are a bunch of bums! Montreal are slightly smaller bums because that city is a lot of fun sometimes! Go beer go!

Frigging NAILED it bro! (probably!)

OR

The regular season starts in only 735, 341, 221, 968 seconds*! Let us Zellerbrate this moment of our lives with the discussing of the stuff that hasn’t happened yet / might not even happen!

 Readers, maybe it’s the Black Licorice Smirnoff Ice I had for lunch talking but I’ve been getting my WONDER ON in regards to how Nikita Filatov is going to stack up in goal scoring coming into the Sens lineup this year in comparison to some of those who exited toward the end of last season.

Let’s all of us have a look at some of those sold away during Bryan Murray’s human trafficking and how they did goal-wise in the time they were with our broloved Senators, shall we?

Christopher Kelly – 12 goals in 57 games played

Michael Fisher – 14 goals in 55 games played

Alexanderei Kovalev – 14 goals in 54 games played

Jjaarrkkoo Rruuttuu – 2 goals in 50 games played

Christos Campoli – 3 goals in 58 games played

Whoooaaaaa, eaaaaasy there, Salade du Chef, try not to score ALL the goals! I have to catch my breath here from the so much the scoring of the goals…Okay, moving forward…

The Averages me being a complete dick edition (that unfairly includes Ruutu and Campoli): 9 goals in 54.8 – lets just call it 55 games. I had to punch that in a few times to makes sure it was actually only 9 goals. Interesting Note: Last year SUUUUUCKED, right guys?

The Averages Top 9 playaz club (No Camps or Ruutu to drag the avg down edition): Lets just round it to 13.33333333333333333333333333333333333333 goals in 55.33333333333333333333333333333333333 games

Some notes on these players: Look, we all love and miss Uncle Kelly and handsome Aunt Fisher. Im not knocking Chris Kelly’s numbers here, in fact, 12 goals by the trade deadline is mighty impressive for a penalty killing 3^rd line centre. Mike Fisher, played a lot of the season injured and spent his time inOttawa arguably hampered by unrealistic expectations. Alex Kovalev did PRETTY WELL considering he was distracted last season thanks to the dwindling success of the 3 Pizzacone franchises he opened in his nativeTogliatti,USSR. That and battling the Beer-run media – you know what im talking about! Right Conspirabros? Am I right or wrong?

 Real TALK (and WATCH your mouth): For realtalk though that is NOT a lot of goals for what? 11 million dollareedoos of salary. Seriously…on some yipes-yipes when it comes to a cap space spent to offensive output ratio. So for 2011-2012 that’s 3 experienced top 9 players, 40 goals and 11M bones out the door.
Now, ‘round the Sensosphere (this is my last post don’t even worry) we like to talk a good “What have you 20 goalsed for me lately?” game and you know what friends? We should. I don’t know if you follow any of the other teams but did you know that some of them have MORE THAN ONE player that scores 20 OR MORE a season? But I’m not here to talk about the ELUSIVE 20 goal mark but I’m aksing (actual way some people say ask) you this gentle reader, can our boy Nikita Filatov surpass one of these players pre-trade goal mark at entry level money in 2011-2012**? Or beat the average? Plot thickener: If so, can he do it in the same amount of games? Most Importantly: If Filatov surpasses Kovalev’s total will I be able to dig deep down and manage to find new depths to hate that signing with? Join me here at the trade deadline in 2012*** to see how he’s fared!

The Filatov Factor: People seem to talk a gang of shit about him and there have been some moments that are a bit sketchy (namely that whole going back to play for Moscow thing…but now that I think on it Ottawa also has this thing that Rundblad might elect to go to Skkellephetsynthesizer of the SEL and no one is writing his career off so…). I’m giving the benefit of the doubt for now. Didn’t get along with Ken Hitchcock? You know what…I don’t really get along with notoriously difficult, stubborn people too! Didn’t fit in with the Columbus system? Really? After they did such a great job developing other 1^st rounders Rositlav Klesla (?), Pascal LeClaire (retired?), Nik Zherdev (KHL), the OTHER Alex Picard (as big a marquee name as the OTHER OTHER Alex Picard), Gilbert Brule (fresh off waivers from THE OILERS…THE OIIIIILERS), and Jakub Voracek.  

Considering he was traded for a 3^rd rounder the risk undertaken in his aquisition couldnt hardly have been lower. I have a pretty good feeling that given a chance to try out his sea legs in the top 6 for the better part of an NHL season he could potentially do it. Come muse with me in the comment section! This post’s comment section is sponsored by TheOliveGarden.com official breadstick provider of welcome to your Karlsson years****

 *real number
**rests on timing of Mayan apocalypse
***also rests on timing of Mayan apocalypse / not conflicting with a personal appearance I am scheduled to make at the Pizza Pizza in Arnprior, ON, BE THERE AND CRACK THE CARDBOARD WITH ME!!!!
****God willing.

Say what you will about Sportsnet, but Senators correspondant Ian Mendes has conducted himself with a lot of class and restraint while covering the Senators. He’s as aware as anyone of how sensitive this fan base is about Alfie. With that in mind, I don’t take his report that this might be Alfredsson’s last season, and that he would consider a trade, very lightly.

I don’t want to use this space to get sentimental about the best player in franchise history. If and when this supposed trade or retirement happens, there will be no shortage of tributes – from us included. But right now I can’t help but think about how unbelievably helpful trading a player of Alfredsson’s caliber could be for this team. Having him retire as a Senator would be nice. Getting a 1^st round pick and a prospect, having him win a cup, and then welcoming him home with a cushy front office gig or the title of Swedish scouting czar would be even better.

Because Alfie isn’t just a nice deadline acquisition: he would be one of the best on the deadline market in years. He still led this team in scoring before going on the shelf last year. He plays an incredible two-way game, plays on the power play and penalty kill, has been a captain in the NHL for years, has produced late into the playoffs, and has done so consistently. If Keith Tkachuk could get St. Louis a player, a 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd round pick (albiet from Don Waddell, hardly a model GM), what does Alfie garner?

There’s also the comic book fantasy of seeing one of our favorite players compete on one of the league’s most skilled teams. How would he do in Detroit, or Vancouver? What would he look like playing on the powerplay in Washington?

And besides: this is probably his last year. It’s less any one injury problem than a nagging and unspecific set of maladies that are keying the captain in on the impending end. After 16 seasons in the NHL, there’s just an amount of wear-and-tear the human body has difficulty sustaining. He’s already celebrated his 1000^th game, his 1000^th point, and an Olympic gold medal. There aren’t too many milestones left for him other than winning the Cup.

This one might hurt, sure. But you know what’s worse? Living through the Mats Sundin debacle in Ottawa. Weeks upon weeks of intense media coverage asking if he’d be willing to accept a trade, whether he’d do what is right for the franchise again, one last time, by getting us that extra draft pick or prospect. Sure, Alfie’s earned the right to choose, and no one will hold it against him if he chooses to stay. But thinking about the possibilities for this rebuilding club is tantalizing.

2)      Wayne Simmonds (yes, from the aforementioned story) called notorious trash-talker Sean Avery the homophobic F-Word. It’s true, I watched it on the internet. (FYI, Sean Avery has been at the forefront of gay rights in hockey. Huzzah!) On one hand it’s tempting to question how a person victimized by racial hate speech (and presumably not only in this context) could turn around and employ the same kind of tactics on another person. But then reality sets in and we realize that’s not how life works.  Things are actually complicated and post-modern (WOMN 1020). So let’s talk just desserts: Cold Stone Creamery. No, that’s not what I’m supposed to be talking about here. Take two: There have been a couple of sports players in the past who have been fined big bucks (and by big bucks, I mean small potatoes for a sports star—but I’m not complaining!) for this kind of offense: Kobe Bryant was fined $100,000 for spitting a homophobic slur at a referee, and Joakim Noah (whoever that is) was fined $50,000 for directing the same kind of love (hate!) towards a fan. Simmonds deserves to be reprimanded. Let’s get rid of homophobia already! If the “1 in 10” adage is true—that is, one in every tenth person is gay—then it stands to reason that each team has ½ a gay person on the ice at all times. Just kidding, that doesn’t make any sense. Not only because it’s stupid, but my math suggests that a team has five players on the ice instead of eight. Duh.

So you’ve probably noticed a few changes here at formerly-The Cory Clouston Fashion Review. First of all, Cory Clouston has been placed on an ice floe and set adrift, and we needed a new name. After an exhaustive consultation process costing a little under $60,000, we are now Welcome To Your Karlsson Years.

What does the 2011-2012 season hold in store for our millions of readers from all over the world but mostly inexplicably India? We’ll continue posting our indelible brand of hilarious insight, quasi-analysis, Steven’s unbelievable images (check the banner! He drew that shit by hand), tinkering with WordPress templates (sorry for the mess) and the one and only Scotchcast. Stay tuned for that last one, it’s going to be awesome.

So nut up, people: it’s year two of these four dudes and one woman teaching English in Korea writing about a rebuilding hockey club. This will be good.

Last week I wrote an article about the continued insistence by Ottawa’s ownership that the team has to get to the second round just to break even. And, specifically, what bunk that is.

Well, today Grantland ran an amazing article (By Malcolm Gladwell of all people) on the nature of investment in sports. He’s talking about the New Jersey Nets, but you could take his article and drop Melnyk and the Ottawa Senators right into his premise. Sure, it’s Ottawa – not Brooklyn. The profit potential isn’t in the same stratosphere. But his point is well taken: you don’t buy a sports team to make a profit. You buy a sports team first because of all of the peripheral profit it enables, and second because it’s a luxury item.

Anyway, well worth the read.

Up until recently it was almost a given that David Rundblad would not only get a long look at camp, but was automatically penciled in for at least third pairing minutes, sheltered ice time and lots of powerplay work. He has an out to go back to Sweden where Cowen can be more readily stored in Binghamton; he supposedly brings much-needed offense to a team that will struggle to score goals; and with expectations low for the season, the team can afford to throw him in to develop and allow him to make mistakes. All of this could still happen, but the framework we’ve all subscribed to is already off the rails.

Rundblad hasn’t played poorly, but has run into exactly the kinds of challenges someone who has never played in the NHL can be expected to encounter: greater size and greater speed. It’s been Ottawa’s other blue chip defensive prospect, Jared Cowen, who has declared himself ready to play, and in retrospect this should be obvious. He’s acclimatized to North American play already. He’s massive. And he’s also done pretty much everything he can at the minor league and AHL level.

More surprising, perhaps, has been Brian Lee, who skated almost 25 minutes (!) during Friday’s game, and had a goal and an assist last Wednesday against Boston. He’s playing big minutes in tough situations, is taking the body and playing sound positional defense, and moving the puck well. And while his low paycheck and the assumption that he’s already reached his ceiling implies that he’s press box-bound, he’s simply playing too well to not get a few games to start the season—probably at Carkner’s expense. After all: Carkner is cheap too, and the more pugilistic facets of his game are supplied by the addition of Konopka. Hard to imagine the coaching staff finally getting what they want out of Lee—who, after all, is only 24—only to sacrifice it to accommodate their logjam on the backend.

So us fans are faced with the decision of keeping intact all of our offseason speculation, all of the forced excitement of imagining not one but TWO Karlssons on our team, and the less-than-sensational prospect that Brian Lee can step in an be an NHL player right now. You can bet on the latter: Murray once gave up a late first round pick for Chris Campoli, an unspectacular defenseman who could nonetheless contribute right away. There’s obviously value in that. If there’s only one spot available, Lee deserves it, based not only on his play this year but also his dues paid in the organization’s system.

So, while it might seem mildly disappointing to think that our supposed Calder-candidate Rundblad might not be able to casually step into the best hockey league in the world and dominate, Sens fans should be overjoyed by Lee’s strong showing, that Cowen is more than ready, and that Karlsson still looks great. The youth movement is still underway, just in slightly different form than expected.