Sens Announce More Cuts
Chabot, Harpur and McCormick all headed for Belleville
With the pre-season schedule over, the Senators have announced a few more cuts today.
First, Thomas Chabot and Ben Harpur have been sent down to Belleville. Up front, Max McCormick is being sent to Belleville as well, but has to clear waivers first.
Two interesting things here. First, McCormick going down means the team is currently carrying 11 healthy forwards under contract. This means that Logan Brown gets to stick around for at least a bit, and likely dress right away. It also means either Derick Brassard is going to be ready to play on Thursday, or Alex Formenton is getting a shiny new entry-level contract very, very soon.
Or we could speculate wildly about either Jaromir Jagr or Matt Duchene.
That brings us to Chabot. This one is interesting in a few different ways. With him, along with Harpur, going to the AHL it brings the roster down to six healthy D. Does this mean Erik Karlsson is going to be back soon? It’s unlikely that they carry no spare defenders on the western Canada trip next week, and it wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense to send Chabot down just to call him back up over the weekend.
It also begs the question of just why Chabot was sent down. To many, he looked like one of (if not) the best defencemen on the team through the preseason. Part of it is certainly contract status. None of the remaining blue liners are waiver-exempt, or even on two-way deals. Another part is probably where Boucher would have been slotting him into the lineup. While most of us thought he might get a shot at top four minutes until Karlsson was back, we’re at the point where Karlsson being back for opening night isn’t out of the question. If he was going to get bottom pairing minutes, he’s probably better off in Belleville for the moment.