Five Thoughts for Friday

This off-season has been quite uneventful so far, but I was still able to scrounge up five thoughts about this Senators team.

Here they are:

Pageau’s comparables

Of course, everybody knows by now that Jean-Gabriel Pageau avoided arbitration by signing a 3-year $9.3M deal on Monday. It’s certainly a fair deal, even if I did expect the price to be a bit lower just because Ottawa is typically able to retain their young players for less than they are worth.

I was interested to look at Sean Tierney’s graphs (@ChartingHockey) which show his comparables for last season:

Pageau's an across-the-board contributor, fan favourite, hometown product, and in the middle of his prime. pic.twitter.com/ZX9w4eInlm

— Sean Tierney (@ChartingHockey) July 18, 2017

The names on this list are quite solid, as Mitch Marner, Mika Zibanejad, Rickard Rakell, Marian Hossa, and Sean Monahan are all well above average. The stat used in this graph (GAR) isn’t perfect, nor is it used by everyone, but it’s encouraging to see Pageau be compared to those players.

Furthermore, the list of centres with a cap hit between $2.75M and $3.5M includes names like Brian Boyle, Casey Cizikas, Matt Stajan, Marcus Kruger, and Lars Eller. There are a few better players in this range like Teuvo Teravainen, Charlie Coyle, and J.T. Miller,  but the point is that $3.1M is fair for Pageau considering the sort of players that have similar cap hits.

Jagr would be an interesting option

I wasn’t on twitter during the day on Monday, but the “in case you missed it” section had people tweeting about Jaromir Jagr. It seems that it stemmed from this tweet, which could be completely made up, and even if it’s true, it might not mean a damn thing:

So I just received a #snapchat of my buddy at Ottawa Airport with Jaromir Jagr! Interesting🤔🤔👀👀 #Sens #Ottawa

— Djugarden (@dju089) July 17, 2017

Having said that, it would pretty neat to see Ottawa sign him. I’m shocked that he hasn’t signed with anyone yet, because he certainly does not want to retire just yet. Yes he’s 45 years old (which is absolutely ridiculous), but he still put up 46 points on a sub-par Florida team.

The year before that he had 66, so I don’t see why he can’t get at least 40-45 as Ottawa’s first/second line right-winger. He made $4M last year so he’ll probably be too pricey for the Senators budget, but can you imagine if his price came down and signed here?

The only thing is, Mike Hoffman would have to give up #68 for a year. He’d have to...right?

What will happen with Hammond?

I feel like people have just decided that Andrew Hammond does not exist anymore. Or they assume that he’s not on the roster. Surprise! He is.

Ottawa has Craig Anderson and Mike Condon on NHL deals, plus Danny Taylor, Marcus Hogberg, and Chris Driedger in the AHL. Pierre Dorion has said that Hogberg and Driedger will be fighting for an AHL spot, with the other one going to the ECHL. What does that mean for Hammond then?

Honestly, I have no idea. The Senators are extremely reluctant to use buyouts, and I feel like they would have done that in the first buyout period if they felt confident they could re-sign Mike Condon. If Ryan Dzingel reaches arbitration, then they have the ability to use a buyout, but I never see that as an option considering Colin Greening was never bought out.

Perhaps they can trade him to a team that needs a backup in exchange for a late round pick or a fringe prospect, but they won’t be getting much in return. Despite that, I still think he can be a solid backup goaltender, so whomever trades for him might get him for pennies on the dollar.

It’ll be interesting to see what Ottawa does with this situation.

Hoping Dorion is looking to deal

There is still plenty of time before the season starts and rosters are essentially locked in, but the majority of trades are made in the end of June and early July. That’s why I’m not optimistic that Pierre Dorion is eager to make a trade to improve the roster, but I’m crossing my fingers.

I know some of you are fine with what’s transpired so far, but I wanted the team to get better, not stay stagnant. It’s hard to argue that the team has gotten better, and even Dorion admitted that they are “almost as good a team [as last year],” indicating that they’ve taken a slight step back.

At this point, I’d be happy with a trade for a 2nd or 3rd line scoring winger to help the offense, because Matt Duchene is probably not walking through that door.

Open the floor for suggestions

All of the writers at Silver Seven Sens always want to improve their own writing, as well as the site itself. I feel like we should give the readers the floor and ask for some suggestions you have for the site.

It could be regarding a certain new segment, how certain articles are written, what you’d like to see in the future, or whatever you want to talk about so that the site gets even better. It’s summer time, and we might as well do this when there is nothing else to talk about. Having said that...still keep tuning in to Silver Seven because we’ll be posting articles!

So have at it in the comments!