Off Season Review: Ottawa Senators

by pharling on Sep 5, 2011 9:53 AM EDT

By:Peter Harling

In Review: The 2010-2011 season began full of hope for the Sen's. Feeling confident that previous inadequacies were addressed with the addition of Gonchar on the back end and a healthy pascal leclaire. All hope quickly faded due to injuries and substandard goaltending and GM Brian Murry began a fire sale,

moving out Mike Fisher, Chris Kelly, Alex Kovalev, Brian Elliot, and Chris Campoli . Filling the roster out for the final part of the season the Sen's gave auditions to youngsters Bobby Butler, Eric Condra, Colin Greening and NCAA free agent signing Stephane Da Costa. In the off Season, Murray had his contract surprisingly renewed, and not too surprisingly head coach Cory Clouston was replaced with Paul MacLean. The Sens had a lottery pick for the 2011 draft but fell all the way to sixth and selected Mika Zibanejad. The Sens also came out of the draft with highly skilled prospect and enigma Nikita Filatov after Columbus felt the need to purge them selves. In free agency Murrays most significant addition was the signing of the big Z. (No not Chara) Zenon Konopka will make the Sens one of the biggest and toughest teams this season in the NHL with Konopka (leading the NHL in PIM's the last 2 seasons) Chris Neil, and Matt Carkner all in the fold the Sens may lead the league in PIM's this season.

Depth Chart
Left Wing                Center                Right Wing
Milan Michalek         Jason Spezza        Daniel Alfredsson
Nikita Filatov            Mika Zibanejad     Bobby Butler
Nick Foligno             Peter Regin           Chris Neil
Colin Greening    Zenon Konopka Erik Condra
Jesse Winchester       Zack Smith           Mark Parrish
Mike Hoffman           Stephane Da Costa

Left Defense             Goal                    Right Defense
Erik Karlsson            Craig Anderson     David Rundblad
Chris Phillips              Alex Auld             Sergei Gonchar
Filip Kuba                 Robin Lehner        Brian Lee
Jared Cowan                                          Matt Carkner

Top Breakout Candidates
Filatov will be given every chance and a lot of leash to finally realize his enormous potential.
Top Rookies
Plenty of candidates to make the team and make an impact. Da Costa, Butler, and Zibanajed will be given chances, but the top rookie for the Sens and a potential Calder candidate is David Rundblad.
Hidden Gem
Last year was supposed to be a break out season for Peter Regin. It wasn't. If the kids don't steal the second line center spot it is all Regins.
Don't Draft
Sergei Gonchar. Perhaps Clouston insisting to play Gonchar on his off point on the power play last season led to his drop in points. Perhaps it is simply his age and he is declining. Either way Karlsson and Rundblad are the future.
Best Fantasy Value
Not many sure things to choose from but Karlsson is a franchise player, and if healthy Spezza can pile up points.
Fantasy outlook
The Sens are a much younger team with new faces and just beginning what looks to be like a quick rebuild phase. There is so much uncertainty at every position going into the 2011-2012 season. What rookies will make the team? Will veterans Spezza and Alfredsson be relatively healthy?. Is Anderson the goalie the Sens have been searching for since coming back into the NHL? Will Filatov flame out like he did in Columbus or replace Dany Heatley on Spezza's wing.
Expectations going into the 2011-2012 season are much lower than this time last year. It will be a long season for the Sens, full of growing pains.

For more visit: http://fantasyhockeynerd.blogspot.com

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Comments

Nice writeup, though I thought I would mention it’s fine to use “SENS” as opposed to sen’s as you used in the article. I found seeing that multiple times in the article just annoyed me.

modsuperstar dot ca | SlideawayMedia

by modsuperstar on Sep 5, 2011 6:07 PM EDT reply actions

Looking forward to the season!

Good to see a preview post up! Here’s my pre-pre-season depth chart, based on player quality (meaning these aren’t necessarily the lines that we’d see. Some players higher up might not even make the team, but be sent to the AHL/SEL for development):

Left Wing:
Milan Michalek
Nikita Filatov
Nick Foligno
Jim O’Brien

Centre (some players will move to wings):
Jason Spezza
Peter Regin
Zack Smith
Colin Greening
Zenon Konopka
Mika Zibanejad
Stephane Da Costa
Jesse Winchester
Corey Locke

Right Wing:
Daniel Alfredsson
Bobby Butler
Chris Neil
Eric Condra

Defence:
Erik Karlsson
Sergei Gonchar
Chris Phillips
David Rundblad
Brian Lee
Filip Kuba
Jared Cowen
Matt Carkner
Patrick Weircioch

Goalies:
Craig Anderson
Robin Lehner
Alex Auld

by Sports Fan! on Sep 5, 2011 6:46 PM EDT reply actions

I know it’s not shocking, but our depth at the wing is so poor. Obviously you have guys who play centre and wing, but seeing it laid out like that just makes it even more glaring.

modsuperstar dot ca | SlideawayMedia

by modsuperstar on Sep 5, 2011 8:22 PM EDT up reply actions

Yeah! I was starting to write the list and I’m like “wait, that’s all we’ve got on left wing?!”

by Sports Fan! on Sep 5, 2011 8:54 PM EDT up reply actions

Left wing?

Our Left wing looks manageable, our right wing looks like a house of cards.
Foligno, Michalek and Filatov all have reasonable floors in my mind. 3 struggling second line Fwds with breakout opportunity. The right wing has someone coming off a major surgery, a kid straight out of the AHL and then 3rd liners (although Neil is an amazing 3rd line player).
Alfie gcould easily injure and Butler will have a harder time of it once the D give him a closer look. It’s very possible the right wing will be just a rotation of struggling rookies.

by BD Rebuilders on Sep 7, 2011 3:11 PM EDT up reply actions

Redefining themselves

In my view, NHL hockey players who are forwards are hockey players first and then wingers or centremen second. They can adapt and play wherever they are needed. The days are long gone where wingers stay on their side and centers stay in the middle. The new NHL offences are geared to cycling and forwards are interchangeable.

What we are really missing is scoring forwards. We have a plethora of 3rd and 4th liners and they are important, but when they are playing on the top six, what you have is a weak team.

If Alfy is going to be counted on to play alot of minutes, IMO he’ll just burn himself out. He should really have a 3rd line role plus powerplay duty. It’ll be interesting to see how much he is leaned on and how durable he is.

The opportunity is for some of these young guns to step up and define or redefine themselves. We’ll see which ones can do that.

What I hope happens is that several of these young guns… Zibanejad, Butler, Sa Costa and Condra for instance… come out blazing and force the team veterans to wake up and really play. Foligno and Regin are now part of this team’s “veterans”.

For me, so far Regin and Foligno are bottom six forwards who from time to time show flashes of brilliance. And they could turn it around. They’ll sure get their chances to show what they have now.

by Marvellous on Sep 6, 2011 7:29 AM EDT up reply actions

Well I think the benefit of bringing in Paul McLean is he’s a guy who’s coached some veteran laden clubs in Detroit. I think he’s seen how not to grind down old guys and still get production out of them.

modsuperstar dot ca | SlideawayMedia

by modsuperstar on Sep 6, 2011 12:11 PM EDT up reply actions

Regin's one of the team's veterans?

One and a half seasons of constantly being cycled around the lineup? I’m not too sure.

by bobbykelly on Sep 6, 2011 12:38 PM EDT up reply actions

He is, on this team lol

by whatsinaname on Sep 6, 2011 2:50 PM EDT up reply actions

Not sure I agree with Rundblad being our top Right D in the chart

or Mika as the second centre. These two players have high ceilings, but they are both still unproven kids, hard to put Rundblad ahead of one of the best offensive defencemen of his generation in Gonchar, even if he had a tough first year.

by DaveYoung on Sep 7, 2011 10:13 AM EDT reply actions

I think it’s fair. Gonchar is getting worse, Rundblad better, and I’m sure you’ve heard of how he had one of the best seasons by an SEL defenseman ever. I’m not a huge fan of Gonchar (for obvious reasons).

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I believe in next year.

by red army line on Sep 9, 2011 5:25 PM EDT up reply actions