What to do with Anthony Duclair?

The Sens suck. This is not a controversial statement. The team has been at the bottom of the standings for most of the season and have just traded their three top scorers. In the five games since they began benching the trio of Mark Stone, Matt Duchene and Ryan Dzingel, the Sens have been shutout twice and only scored 2 goals twice and in one of those games they surrendered a touchdown to the Washington Capitals. Their only close games was a tonight's loss to the Oilers as well as a heartbreaking 2-1 loss to the Calgary Flames on trade deadline eve. Needless to say, they have gone 0-5.

So yes, the Ottawa Senators are bad, and without their first round pick, the next semblance of hope for Sens fans is the 2019-20 season, and even that is debatable. So naturally its time to look ahead and figure out what that team will look like. But for the final month and a half of the season one of the most interesting players to watch will be Anthony Duclair.

As part of the Ryan Dzingel trade, Duclair was acquired, along with the likes of Oscar Lindberg and Brian Gibbons in other trades, to help the Senators field a competitive lineup (ie players who know how to tie their own skates) while Belleville's young core can be part of a playoff push. While Lindberg and Gibbons are 27 and 31 respectively, Duclair will only be 24-years old when the puck drops on the next NHL season. The former QMJHL standout has yet to truly live up to his potential, but has looked good in his four games for Ottawa, including scoring a goal against Washington. So now the question is, what to do with Anthony Duclair?

Not this year of course, this year he likely plays on the top 6 for the rest of the season, but what about next year, when presumably a handful of Belleville's top players will get regular shot with the big club? There's probably no incentive to keep them down for another run, and with Ottawa actually owning their first pick and Alexis Lafrenière waiting for the lucky loser, fielding a quality team may actually be less of a priority than this season (scary thought). Mix in the rumours of Belleville coach Troy Mann possibly being promoted and I find it hard to believe as many middling veterans will be given significant minutes next season.

Below is a possible roster next year, if Ottawa decides to let Duclair walk in free agency.

While names like Cody Ceci, Mikkel Boedker, Bobby Ryan and Craig Anderson have all been thrown around in trade rumours I do not see many if any at all being moved in the offseason. As of now, none of them seem to have significant trade value so they may be more valuable in Ottawa's quest to reach the cap floor. Cody Ceci may still have some value and while I personally would like to see the Sens cut their losses with him management has seemed to balk at every chance they've had to move him. Other than Bobby Ryan, all of these players will be in the last year of their contracts so its not like they will hurt the team in the long run. I kept Nilsson in goal but that doesn't really matter as the team will carry two goalies no matter what happens.

So, with this lineup staring Melnyk and co. in the face, do they hold onto Duclair? I would instead ask, how could they not? Out of all the players in the organization not on the roster, only Alex Formenton seems like he might be ready for the NHL next year. Erik Brannstrom might be, but one would have to imagine that that would come at the cost of either Harpur or Lajoie. Players like Jack Rodewald, Darren Archibald, Magnus Paajarvi, Oscar Lindberg and Brian Gibbons could be retained as well, but are any of them better than Duclair? Players like Abramov, Brown and Chlapik all seem like they could fill a role but I'm not convinced that all of them would need to be on the opening night roster. Finally, if Ottawa reverses its defense-heavy approach under a (presumably) new head coach, that would open up yet another forward spot that would have to be filled.

So we've established that another forward (or two, or three, or twelve) should be added to this roster, the question now is whether there would be better options than Anthony Duclair. There are certainly better players on the market, but signing a star for the supposedly upcoming run of unparalleled success does not make sense for this team. First of all, if they were interested in having an established star they would've just kept Mark Stone (or Erik Karlsson, or Matt Duchene, or Mike Hoffman, or Jason Spezza, or Daniel Alfredsson, or). Second, Alexis Lafrenière is one of the few glimmers of hope that fans will have during the next season and anything that chips away at that hope would be foolish move for an organization already skating on thin ice. Oh also no one in their right mind is going to commit their prime years to this team. Right, moving on. So that leaves two options: take a flyer on a younger player with potential, or sign a veteran for leadership.

Without wading too far into the debate over the impacts of leadership, I want to shoot down that option before it begins. This team projects to have Zack Smith, Jean-Gabriel Pageau, Mark Borowiecki, Craig Anderson, Bobby Ryan and Mikkel Boedker; that seems like enough veterans, especially in a league where youth and speed has taken over. So there it is, the team should sign a player like Anthony Duclair. There, case closed.

Did you catch it? I haven't actually answered my question yet, right. So now, here we go, that was just the preamble, we're really going to answer it this time: What to do with Anthony Duclair? With Columbus, Duclair was often the target of coach John Tortorella's wrath, despite putting up impressive numbers (gee whiz, if only there were some clues to help explain why that might be). He is on pace to put up one of the most productive years of his career, behind only his 20 goal year in 2015-16 with Arizona, despite receiving the fewest minutes per game since his rookie season (again, really wish there was someway we could find a plausible explanation for that). While his 11 goals with the Jackets is slightly higher than his expected goals of 8.74, he shot 11.96%, slightly above league average but slightly below his career average. Mix in that he's only entering his prime and has clicked well early on in his Sens career, there does not seem to be a better option out there that combines age, production and, perhaps most importantly, signability.

So to answer the question posed at the start: they should absolutely sign Anthony Duclair to an extension.

All stats courtesy of Evolving Hockey unless noted otherwise
Salary information courtesy of CapFriendly