Silver Nuggets: Bryan Murray extended for three more years; Draft position continues to fall

Greetings Silver Sevens! It is Friday! This means tomorrow is Saturday! Sunday will surely follow. But yesterday was Thursday. On Thursday night, the Ottawa Senators won 3-2 in overtime against the hated Montreal Canadiens. With the win, the Senators can no longer be passed by the eternally pathetic Florida Panthers. Seriously, these guys can be the new Detroit Lions.

If there is one team we can exploit on draft day, it is the Florida Panthers. They traded down from the 1st overall pick in 2002 (took Jay Bouwmeester instead of Rick Nash, and also gave Atlanta two additional picks to guarantee they don't pick Bouwmeester at #2 when they could have picked him at #1 to begin with). Then they did it again in 2003, (traded down from first overall and picked Nathan Horton instead of Marc-Andre Fleury). In 2006, they traded Roberto Luongo on draft day. In 2008, they did however pick up Tomas Vokoun on draft day. Still, with both the Islanders and Panthers ahead of us, we have a chance to do some fleecing.

The updated draft probability table is below.

Here are today's links:

Last game

• Game recap. (Silver Seven Sens, Citizen, Sun)
• Post-game video with Cory Clouston, Jason Spezza, Filip Kuba and Bobby Butler. (Ottawa Senators)
• Bobby Butler was named 3rd star in last night's NHL action. (Yahoo!)

More after the jump.

General Sens News

• Eugene Melnyk keeps talking without really revealing anything. He says he is going to meet with Bryan Murray and then hopefully announce a decision 'shortly'. I thought he said he already made the decision? Apparently it depends on how long Murray is willing to stay. Also, taking less to make Mike Fisher happy? In the words of Robin Lehner, that's dumb. (Sens Extra)
• UPDATE: A few hours later, Bryan Murray was extended for three more years as general manager. (Silver Seven Sens)
• Bobby Butler has played a lot of games (84 in total by the end of the season) but he is looking forward to playing more with Binghamton. (Citizen, Sun)
• Pierre LeBrun looks at the upcoming offseason for the six eliminated clubs in the Eastern Conference including the Senators. (ESPN)
• Jason Spezza was selected to play for Canada at the IIHF World Championships. Here's to Spezza winning gold and Karlsson silver. Also, hopefully Ryan Shannon's team gets relegated, no offence Ryan. (Silver Seven Sens)
• The Ottawa Senators have renewed their partnership with Molson Coors Canada. There shall be no Labatt at Scotiabank Place. (Ottawa Senators)
• Meanwhile, Mike Fisher has a lot of stuff and Carrie Underwood is having problems finding room. (Sun)

General Hockey News

• The Vancouver Canucks now have two 40 goal scorers as Ryan Kesler joined Daniel Sedin with a hat trick last night. (TSN)
• According to Ilya Kovalchuk's mother, he is playing with a huge hematoma in his leg. Yes, I had to look up what that meant. (Dmitry Chesnokov)