This is the first entry in a new series examining each number worn by every player who has ever pulled on a jersey for the Ottawa Senators. It will be part analysis, part opinion, part compilation, part trivia question. You'll get the chance to vote on who's the best - by the numbers. Feel free to comment on which jersey numbers you choose to wear. Numbers don't just identify, they are part of a player's identity. By looking at the history of these numbers, we'll get a better sense of how the Senators add up.

We'll start at the beginning with #1. 1 is traditionally a number reserved for goaltenders and it's no different with the Senators. 1 has been worn by 6 Senators over the course of the club's 20 year history:

Steve Weeks G 1992-1993

A journeyman NHLer, Weeks joined the Sens during their inaugural campaign from the Washington Capitals. Weeks never recorded a win while serving as Peter Sidorkiewicz's back-up.

Continue reading this post »

It seems to be a pretty consistent theme in sports. No matter how likeable a team is before your favourite team plays them in the playoffs, invariably you'll find two or three hundred reasons to hate them before the season is over. If you play teams in the playoffs frequently enough, you can never look favourably at those teams or those players ever again (see: Battle of Ontario, Gary Roberts, Toronto's hate for Alfie, many in Ottawa's dislike for Sidney Crosby, etc)

So, when the Senators went into battle in the first round agains the New York Rangers, I was a little bummed out. I kinda liked them, there gritty style, Ryan Callahan, the flash of Marian Gaborik, and of course King Henrik Lundqvist. Sadly, I knew that no matter what, if my Senators didn't make it out of the first round, I was going to be robbed of a team I'd otherwise likely cheer for.

Is that juvenile? Absolutely. Is it silly, for sure. However, I am a little bit (read; very) emotionally invested in my Senators, and as such build up these hateful feelings for opponents. I'm a sore loser.

However, there is an entirely separate school of thought on the issue. Some people actively cheer for the team that eliminated their favourite team, willing their former opponent to win it all, because at least if the Rangers win the cup, the Sens will have been beaten by the best.

I don't like this reasoning, for two reasons. Number 1, so many factors go in to winning a Stanley Cup. If the Rangers win it all, and the Senators had one just ONE MORE GAME agains the Rangers, would Ottawa have therefore won the cup? Not necessarily. Not even very likely. Between injuries, match-ups, fatigue, and luck from all teams involved, you'd be hard pressed to even say the "best" team wins the cup every year. Its simply the team that gets it done in the key moments, moments that are different for everybody, that gets to hoist the cup.

The second reason of course; I'm childish, and I refuse to cheer for the team that sent my guys home early.

What say you?

Links after the jump!

Continue reading this post »

Yesterday, we gave some insight into the strengths and weaknesses of Barrie's Tanner Pearson. He is a player who will go later than fifteen, and for him to fall onto the Senators' laps, they would have to either trade down in the first, or move up from their two third round selections (the conditional pick courtesy of the Mike Fisher deal and the Predators' subsequent Conference semi-finals appearance). Pearson is a left winger- one of the remaining deficiencies in the Sens' organizational depth.

Today, we will look at a player who could fill another slight void, but who will quite possibly be off the board by the fifteenth pick. The Senators would potentially have to move up to draft this Scandinavian-born defensemen (someone was going to go there in the comments... probably). Olli Maatta is not the top-ranked defenseman in this defense-heavy draft. He falls behind Ryan Murray, Rielly Morgan, and Ottawa's Cody Ceci, but is holding down the eighth spot in North American skaters, ranked by Central Scouting. Maatta is the frontrunner among a run of defensemen that includes Griffin Reinhart and Matthew Dumba, among others. Where these defenders end up falling is anyone's guess (the Murray/Dorion draft team might have a better idea), but different mocks have them going in any variety of order, with Matthew Dumba often leading the charge, perhaps in the fourth or sixth spot. Conjecture! For insight on the player and how he would fit as a Senator, follow me after the jump. Don't worry, it's not a real jump. You just have to click.

Continue reading this post »

Yes, this is Silver Seven Sens' second prospect profile leading up to the NHL Entry Draft at the Consol Energy Centre in Pittsburgh. No, we do not expect Tanner Pearson to go second overall. Instead, we're going to jump around the prospect rankings, showcasing players expected to go in the top round or close to it. This feature is not going to follow the rankings, but instead will look at different kinds of players each day. Yesterday, we saw a player in Nail Yakupov who will not be an Ottawa Senator. Today, we look at one who could be theirs if they wanted him, Tanner Pearson of the Barrie Colts.

If Pearson had been taken in the draft last year or the year before, the team fortunate enough to select him in a late round would be comparing his astronomical rise over the past season to that of Mark Stone the year before. Yet, after a combined 421 picks over the last two years, Pearson is not the property of any NHL team. His first two years of draft eligibility have thus obviously been a disappointment. The way things are looking in his third, 'disappointing' could be called 'the second round.' So, how does a player go from relative obscurity in Junior B to middling OHL forward to top-round talent? Experience surely helps, but Tanner has only now played two years in the OHL. Age helps more. As a 19 year old, Pearson excelled in his second season- racking up more than twice the number of points in year two than year one.

Still, there have to be other pieces to the puzzle. A player does not deceive professional scouts and pundits on the way to being considered for a first round selection. Pearson has grown and gotten better (he's actually grown a fair amount. He reveals in this interview that he was 5"8 in his first draft eligible campaign). In this video interview with The Hockey News' Ryan Kennedy, Pearson gets to the heart of the matter, attributing his success largely to a summer of hard work and conditioning, which helped secure him a spot on the team's top six.

Continue reading this post »

Bobby Butler was signed by the Ottawa Senators in the spring of 2010. He was a hot shot sniper from New Hampshire of the NCAA and was added to a team that needed scoring depth up front. Alex Kovalev wasn't going to be around much longer, and it was unclear how much Daniel Alfredsson had in the tank. He played in one game before the end of the season and Sens fans were excited to see what the future held for Bobby.

He failed to make the team the following training camp, but went down to Binghamton to play for the baby Senators. He adjusted fairly well to the pro game putting up 22 goals and 33 points in the first 47 games of the season for Bingo. After the mass exodus that signalled the beginning of Senate Reform, Bobby was called up the the big team to play the remainder of the season. He did admirably and showed good chemistry with Jason Spezza, putting up 10 goals and 21 points in just 36 games. He finished off his very strong first pro season by winning the Calder Cup with Bingo, and adding 13 goals along the way.

Needless to say, fans were excited to see what he could do with a full season at the NHL level riding shotgun to Spezza. However, Butler had quite the sophomore slump. He had trouble staying in the line up and when he did get into the lineup, he often found himself in a 4th line role or was ineffectual on the top line. Whatever magic he had in 2010-2011 seemed to be gone. In the playoffs, he was sat in favour of new flavours Jakob Silfverberg and Mark Stone, two rising prospects who play the right side (like Butler) and who both had great seasons in their respective leagues.

So what now for Butler? He still has one year left on his 2 year 1-way contract extension from this past July, but is there really room for him with Silfverberg, Stone and Mika Zibanejad all pushing for NHL top-six spots? He certainly didn't forget how to play hockey, and he still possesses a release matched by only Kyle Turris. The question for Butler is can he find some consistency and some chemistry on one of the top two lines, and prove that he has the ability to play at the NHL level. If he can do that, it will allow Sens brass to bring other prospects along a bit slower, and will give Paul MacLean a weapon up front that he badly needs.

Links after the jump.

Continue reading this post »

It's that time of year again. Even though the NHL playoffs are only halfway done, they have been over for many fans of the Senators for a few weeks. The offseason in hockey may feel like it lasts almost as long as the Director's Cut of the Titanic, but it is mercifully interrupted by the NHL Entry Draft, held at the end of June. So, after spending the last fortnight tearfully reminiscing a very entertaining season gone by, it's time to emerge from our state of semi-hibernation and start draft analyzing. So, don't remind yourself the Rangers are still in the playoffs. Instead, start prognosticating!

A few months after one of the biggest drafts in franchise history, Sens fans were already turning dejectedly to the next one. In retrospect, five games into the season may have been a wee early to start the Fail for Nail campaign, but there's no harm in revisiting it now.

Nail Yakupov is no late riser in draft rankings. He has sat comfortably as the anticipated top pick of the 2012 NHL Entry Draft during the entirety of his season this year with the Sarnia Sting. However, the added pressure and attention of a top pick, not to mention an injury-shortened campaign, has not resulted in Yakupov experiencing the Sean Couturier drop. Save for some wild conjecture that the Edmonton Oilers might throw all caution (and logic) to the winds and select Ryan Murray, the star forward will be the first pick of this year's draft.

Continue reading this post »

Saturday night, the New York Rangers beat the Washington Capitals 2-1 in game 7 of their Eastern Conference Semi-Final.

The got a huge opening goal from Brad Richards, last summer's top free agent. Richards, who recently turned 32, was awarded a nine year contract worth almost $60 million.

Last season, with ownership issues in Dallas, it became clear that the Stars would be unable to resign their top player, and the hunt was on. The Toronto Maple Leafs and Calgary Flames both made serious efforts to bring Richards into the fold, but in the end he chose to go back to coach John Tortarella with whom he won a Stanley Cup with the Tampa Bay Lightning. He is currently making Glen Sather look like a genius as he has led an offensively challenged Rangers team to the Conference Finals. The Rangers have averaged just 2.07 goals per game, putting them 11th of 16 playoff teams. The other conference finalists are all in the top 5. Richards himself has 6 goals and 5 assists, putting him 4th in the league in postseason scoring.

Ilya Kovalchuk, he of the record-setting, rule-breaking contract the summer before, is 3rd in the league in postseason scoring with 12 points.

This summer, Kovalchuk's teammate Zach Parise has the distinction of being top fish in the free agent pool like Richards and Kovalchuk before him. He is a game-breaking talent, the kind of player that 30 teams would do just about anything to have on their team. His leadership skills, competitive nature and intense battle level are the kinds of things you hope for in any player. However, the fact that he has been a 45 goal scorer in this league and this season managed to put up 31 goals and 69 points (all despite missing all of last season with a knee injury) make him a rare commodity indeed. Not to mention, as his knee continues to get better, one has to think he will get back to that 40 goal, 90 point range he has shown he is capable of.

All of this leads to one conclusion-- should the Devils find themselves in a position where they cannot afford to keep Parise, 29 other teams will take a run at him. One team will be successful, and will likely be very happy about it, even if their pockets are quite a bit lighter.

Liens après le saut!

Continue reading this post »

I should really just stop trying at this point. After predicting only two of the eight series correctly in the first round, I followed up by predicting exactly none of the four series correctly in the second round. For the second straight round, my Stanley Cup winner was eliminated in five games.

Here is the form for your picks for round three. Predictions are now closed for this round. This is your last chance to change your Stanley Cup winner, the bonus is now reduced to 20 points. I will post a link to the standings tomorrow.

Here are the standings after round two.