Silver Nuggets: Goal scoring projections

As a fun little exercise, today we will try and estimate the number of goals the Ottawa Senators score this year. Given Paul MacLean's claim that the best players will be on the roster, I am going to assume Jean-Gabriel Pageau will be on the roster. Given that no one is injury prone per Silver Seven's charter, we are going to rather arbitrarily assume randomly that all the regulars get injured for exactly 12 games each. This means a total of 144 games (12 forwards * 12 games missed) played by "other" forwards and 72 games (6 defencemen * 12 games missed) played by "other" defencemen.

Here is the list of players with their goal projections in parentheses. Projections are based on career averages per game, or recent averages per game, or whatever I felt was a reasonable number for 70 games.

Forwards: Jason Spezza (26), Bobby Ryan (30), Milan Michalek (20), Kyle Turris (18), Cory Conacher (14), Clarke MacArthur (18), Mika Zibanejad (15), Colin Greening (10), Erik Condra (7), Jean-Gabriel Pageau (14), Zack Smith (5), Chris Neil (7). Others (10).

Defencemen: Erik Karlsson (20), Marc Methot (3), Patrick Wiercioch (10), Chris Phillips (5), Joe Corvo (7), Jared Cowen (7), Others (3).

Total: 249 goals.

That would place the Senators fourth in the NHL in goals in 2011-2012. The Senators actually were fourth in the NHL in goals in that season with 243. What do you think? Which players am I far too optimistic on and which players am I too down on?

Here are some links:

General Sens News

• The Senators rookie camp opened today. They made one change today, adding Andre Petersson to replace the injured Jarrod Maidens. (Ottawa Senators)
• Jared Cowen's agent says the two sides still have work to do to get a contract signed before camp. Cowen obviously won't come to camp without a contract, and the two sides haven't spoken since before the long weekend. Meanwhile after a long summer in the sun, Paul MacLean talked to Mike Babcock about Cowen for the Canadian Olympic team. (Ottawa Sun)
• Pierre Dorion was on the radio discussing Maidens and the rest of the rookie camp and Nichols has the transcript as always. (The 6th Sens)
• Randy Lee comments on the rookie camp. (Senators Extra)
• Mark Stone's path to the NHL got a little easier with three wingers leaving the club and only one returning. Still it looks unlikely that he will start the season in Ottawa. (Senators Extra)
• Having previously survived a serious accident, Senators doctor Donald Chow was involved in another accident when a car drove into his motorcycle. Chow has a broken ankle, cracked ribs and a concussion. (Ottawa Citizen)
• Friend of the blog Sensfan90 wrote a great FanPost looking at the rookie camp. (Silver Seven)
• Yours truly fawned over Erik Karlsson here as we finished our Top 25 Under 25 series. (Silver Seven)
• If you are a good looking young woman, say hi to me you could have joined the Senators Red Brigade. How does everyone feel about this at the games? (Ottawa Senators)

Another shout out for our Silver Seven game nights, specifically the home opener. Email me at the address on my profile if you are interested. Payment is with Interac E-transfer.

• 17 October, 7:30 p.m. New Jersey Devils (home opener). I bought 40 tickets for this game, 36 have been accounted for. Only four seats left.
• 19 October, 2:00 p.m. Edmonton Oilers. 12 tickets have been bought and/or committed for.
• 21 December, 2:00 p.m. Phoenix Coyotes. 13 tickets have been bought and/or committed for.
• 23 December, 7:30 p.m. Pittsburgh Penguins (maximum of 24 seats for this game at $40 price and 17 are taken)

For the home opener, we will be seated in Section 323, Rows J, K, L and M. The seating for other games is not finalised but will be in 307, 308, 309, 321, 322, 323 (Centre Ice) between Rows H to S. All games will be $40 (about $20 cheaper than if you buy the same tickets yourself).