Sure Things (16)
At forward, this group consists of the team's top offensive weapons like Brady Tkachuk, Colin White, Anthony Duclair, Bobby Ryan, and Chris Tierney. It also includes veterans presences with Mikkel Boedker, as well as recently acquired players Tyler Ennis, Connor Brown, and Artem Anisimov. True, players like Boedker and Anisimov may not move the needle much for a team, but given the Sens position and, sigh, the cap hit, it would make no sense whatsoever to leave them out of the lineup come opening night. Defenders in this category are Thomas Chabot, Dylan DeMelo, Christian Wolanin, Ron Hainsey, Nikita Zaitsev, and Mark Borowiecki. Even though Zaitsev and Borowiecki are likely destined for the 3rd pairing at best, they're included here for much of the same reasons as Anisimov: veteran presences who will help the team reach the cap floor. Another thing Zaitsev has going for him is the assets the Sens surrendered to acquire him. While it was more of a cap dump than a hockey trade, but even so, giving up on a player after making him the centrepiece of your marquee off-season trade would be even beyond the usual levels of calamity that we've come to expect from the hockey ops department. In goal, Anders Nilsson earned himself a nice new contract with his stellar play since being acquired from Vancouver in January so it's safe to assume he's more or less locked into the starters role for the upcoming season.
Sure Things But... (2)
If Jean-Gabriel Pageau and/or Craig Anderson are on the roster come opening night, they'll be in the lineup. However, they have both been rumoured to be on the market for over a year now so a trade could happen at any time. The details of a trade for one or both of them would be complicated by the salary floor, so much so that their status warrants its own piece, check back for that soon. For now, though, let's assume they're on the team.
On the Bubble (16)
With our assumption that Pageau and Anderson will still be on the team, our opening night roster is down to just 5 available spots. That may typically make for a lousy training camp, but in this case there are over a dozen players with a legitimate claim to one of those spots. Only 10 forwards have been penciled into the lineup already, which leaves room for two thirds of a forward line as well as some scratches. Out of those forwards, Drake Batherson is as close as a sure thing as you can get and still wind up here, as he was utterly dominant in Belleville last season and despite some substantial troubles when called-up, had stretches where he definitely looked like he belonged in the NHL. Rudolfs Balcers is another player who'll hope to build off of an impressive 2018-19 season, while Logan Brown, Filip Chlapik, Vitali Abramov, and Alex Formenton will try and stick around for a bit longer than last time. The most interesting players in my opinion are those who I labeled as "tweeners" in yesterday's post. Jack Rodewald, Nick Paul, and Max Veronneau are 25, 24, and 23 respectively and in today's NHL that's not nearly as young as it may seem. Paul and Rodewald both project to be not much more than NHL depth but they'll probably need to prove it this year or risk being shipped out for younger, cheaper options with more upside. Max Veronneau probably gets a bit of a longer leash as he's the youngest of the trio and just signed at the end of last season and while I agree that he does have the most potential, he'll need to prove that he can play at the highest level sooner than later. Finally, veteran Jordan Szwarz captained the Providence Bruins last season, scoring 23 goals in 68 games. He's nothing special, but if the team opts to let the youngsters play big minutes in Belleville instead of sitting in the press box, Szwarz would be a natural choice to fill the role of 23rd man. On defense there's one spot available, assuming the team goes with 14 forwards. That would come down to Erik Brannstrom, Christian Jaros, Cody Goloubef, and Maxime Lajoie. Out of those four, Jaros played the most games with Ottawa last season so the spot is probably his to lose. That said, Brannstrom has the most potential to force himself onto the team with his play and has succeeded at every level so far. If neither of them have a strong camp and the team decides they could use more seasoning, Cody Goloubef wouldn't be a terrible choice as the 7th defender or the team could take another look at Max Lajoie. Under the assumption that Anderson stays with the team, the two goalie positions are set, but if he doesn't the spot will most likely come down to a battle between Mike Condon and Marcus Hogberg. The edge would probably go to Hogberg as he's already shown what he can do at the AHL level and could be given a make-or-break opportunity to clarify the future of the Sens' goalie situation. We'll revisit this battle when we look at the possible scenarios of an Anderson trade.
Maybe Later (13)
These players have almost no chance of making the team out of camp. However, almost all of them could/will have a future with the team as teams rarely invite players to camp who they know will never play for them. Note that I said they have ALMOST no chance of making the team. If I had done this list last year, its quite possible that Maxime Lajoie would've been here and he ended up making the team out of camp and even got off to a hot start before eventually fizzling out. At forward, recently acquired Leafs Michael Carcone and Morgan Klimchuk top the list who, along with players like Josh Norris and Jonathan Davidsson, should provide solid upper-tier depth for Belleville this season and are the most likely of this category to see some time in Ottawa next season. Like Norris, Johnny Gruden will be attending his first NHL training camp fresh off signing his entry-level deal, but probably won't come as close to making the team this year. The forwards here are Parker Kelly, Jean-Christophe Beaudin and Andrew Sturtz. The defence is headlined by Andreas Englund who may actually be the most NHL-ready of the group but there are less d-spots to go around so he'll hope for a strong camp as well as a miracle to get any shot. Yesterday I said that I thought Lassi Thomson was more NHL ready than some people might think but he falls victim to the lack of defense spots as well, though even with less traffic in front of him he probably wouldn't even be optimistically ready for this season. Nick Ebert is probably the least likely player here ever to wear a Sens uniform here, but he could provide some nice depth. In net, Joey Daccord and Filip Gustavsson both saw time with Ottawa last season and both very well could again this year. But with 4 healthy goalies ahead of them on the depth chart, their focus right now will be on making it to Belleville to start the season.
Others (2)
Marian Gaborik and Clarke MacArthur give us the opportunity to be sad again! However, yesterday I said that this could've been the 'LTIR' category, that is untrue. Both players are in fact only on the IR. This is critical as their contracts will help the team reach the cap floor this season. See? Much less sad!
In conclusion
So there you have it, my best guess at what the team will look like come opening night (courtesy of CapFriendly). Batherson, Formenton, Brown, and Veronneau got the forward spots and Jaros is the 7th defenceman. The tightest decisions were between Brown/Balcers and Jaros/Goloubef. I eventually went with Brown simply because I think he's slightly better than Balcers, although I could be convinced otherwise, and with Jaros because I think he's better and that he looked like he could play at the NHL level last season, so he probably wouldn't benefit much from another stint in Belleville, although the option will always be there.
So, how good is this team? We assumed they'd be bad, but are they? Using Sean Tierney's awesome lineup creator tool this lineup would project to put up 85 points. Not great but miles better than the 64 that saw them come dead last in 2018-19. With some adjustments made to the line combinations, that number can get up to the low 90s. Does this seem reasonable? Probably not as these are projections use general trends and apply them without factoring in who the team will play this season (4 games against the Lightning and Bruins aren't your average inter-divisional game), but the fact that Tierney uses Evolving Hockey's very reputable model at least allows for some optimism for the future.
Does any of this matter until Eugene Melnyk is gone? Would it be nice to bottom out in a year with one of the best drafts in recent memory instead of the one where we don't even have our own first round pick? Those are questions for another day!
No comments:
Post a Comment