Senators Summer Season Preview Part 1 - Training Camp

It's late July. The draft has passed, trades have been made, and free agency is mostly done (someone please tell Jake Gardiner that last one). We are about as far from hockey season as we can possibly be. So let's talk some hockey. Specifically, let's talk about the Ottawa Senators. They're almost certainly going to be bad this year. They've finished last and second last the past two seasons and that was with the likes of Erik Karlsson, Mark Stone, Matt Duchene, Ryan Dzingel, and Mike Hoffman lending a hand. Without any of these pieces, the Sens look like they'll be, to use the technical term, a dumpster fire.

But this blog is not a space to be down on ourselves, and, if you just ignore the past ~2 years of my writing, you'll know that I'm nothing if not an optimist when it comes to this stuff. Training camp is just around the corner in a way I guess so with that in mind, let's reacquaint ourselves with our beloved tolerated Ottawa Senators!

Who's Gone?

If you're a Sens fan who has not spent 2019 living under a rock you're probably well aware of the departures of Mark Stone, Matt Duchene, and Ryan Dzingel, as well as more recent departures such as Cody Ceci, Ben Harpur, and (just yesterday) Zack Smith. But those are far from the only faces that will not be making a return appearance to training camp. In fact, out of the 57 players to open camp with the team last season, 28 are no longer with the organization. The full list is below:

Jordan Hollett (G)

Mike McKenna (G)

Jonathan Aspirot (D)
Julius Bergman (D)
Erik Burgdoerfer (D)
Cody Ceci (D)
Macoy Erkamps (D)
Ben Harpur (D)
Erik Karlsson (D)*
Stuart Percy (D)
Patrick Sieloff (D)
Chris Wideman (D)
Chase Balisy (F)
Matt Duchene (F)
Ryan Dzingel (F)
Gabriel Gagné (F)
Joe Labate (F)
Boston Leier (F)
Gregor MacLeod (F)
Max McCormick (F)
Jim O'Brien (F)
Magnus Paajarvi (F)
Francis Perron (F)*
Tom Pyatt (F)
Ben Sexton (F)
Jack Skille (F)
Zack Smith (F)
Adam Tambellini (F)

*Karlsson and Perron were traded just days after camp broke and for all intents and purposes were not part of the 2018-19 Senators season. This means the players acquired in the trade (Chris Tierney, Dylan DeMelo, Josh Norris, and Rudolfs Balcers) are not included in the start of camp figures listed above, though all of them except Norris did attend.

That's some significant turnover, albeit some of those invitees, like Skille and Percy, were veterans trying to get another crack and some of them like, Leier and Tambellini, were quasi-prospects picked up in hopes of finding a diamond in the rough. That being said, just under half of the players who attended day one of training camp are already gone and don't be surprised if that number gets over 50% in two months time when camp officially gets underway.

So those are the players who will in all likelihood not be suiting up for the team in any capacity this season, but with such a large number of players gone, there'll have to be a host of new faces taking their places, let's look at some of the players who will/might make their first appearance at a Senators training camp in September.

New Faces

There are 4 categories that I think players can fit into coming into camp, Veteran, Prospects, Tweeners, and Others. I have sorted the new arrivals into said categories below.

Veterans (11)

This is the group of players that will either be vying for an NHL spot, or should comfortably make the roster, most of them don't provide much upside in terms of development but that's not always the case. A player like the recently acquired Artem Anisimov looks like he'll be little more than a warm body who'll put up 30-40 points while helping the team reach the cap floor, whereas Chris Tierney and Dylan DeMelo, who while technical entering their second training camp with the team were not here on day 1 last season, are younger and provide a nice mix of experience and potential. Other players in the Anisimov category include, well, basically the 2018-19 Toronto Maple Leafs with Tyler Ennis, Ron Hainsey, and Nikita Zaitsev as well as Cody Coloubef, Jordan Szwarz, and presumptive starting goaltender Anders Nilsson. Another former Leaf, Connor Brown, as well as Anthony Duclair, are the other members of the Tierney-DeMelo subcategory.

Prospects (9)

This is by far the most important category for a rebuilding team and they certainly have added a lot of new prospects this past season. These prospects have considerable range in potential as well as current ability, but for now we're just going to keep them all in one category, divided by position. At forward, the final piece of the Erik Karlsson trade, Josh Norris, will likely make his first appearance at camp after raising a few eyebrows after not returning to Michigan given that he missed about half of his last season due to injury. He'll be joined by other players acquired in trades over the past year: Michael Carcone, Vitali Abramov, Jonathan Davidsson, and Jean-Christophe Beaudin, as well as Johnny Gruden, who was drafted by the team in 2018 and has since signed an entry-level deal. On defense, there are only two new prospects from last year but they're big ones: Erik Brannstrom, who looks like he will be part of a potentially formidable top-4, and Lassi Thomson, who may not have been the most obvious or safest choice with the team's first selection in this year's draft, but offers some intriguing upside and could be closer to NHL ready than many think, but that's getting ahead of ourselves. Following the trend of quality-not-quantity, Joey Daccord is the only new goalie prospect and will look to build off of his breakout season with Arizona in the NCAA. If the team wants to get an up-close look at some more prospects, they still have plenty of unsigned players such as Markus Nurmi and Viktor Lodin, however by this time in the off-season most unsigned players will presumably stay where they are for the following season.

Tweeners (4)

This is a category that I'm going to use for the players who don't have much in the way of NHL experience but seem too old to really be considered prospects. Some of them may still have some upside, but for most of them, this is who they are and will need to show that they can at least look like a passable NHLer or they will probably find themselves in the "who's gone" category this time next year. At forward, this category includes Jack Rodewald and yet another former Maple Leaf in Morgan Klimchuk. My money would be on Rodewald if I had to bet on which one is most worth keeping an eye on, but I do believe Klimchuk is worth watching too. Even Max Veronneau, who was just signed at the end of last season, is already in this category given that he'll be 24 in December. On defense, the lone member is Nick Ebert, who may well have been better suited in the veterans category, but with no NHL games played and still just 25 years old, I'm not confident he's at that point quite yet, but I'd certainly imagine he's only here for AHL depth. There are no new goalies in this category.

Others (0)

There are no new players in this category

That gives us 24 of the 28 spaces to fill. The team could decide to add another veteran/tweener or two to compete for a spot and/or provide some AHL depth, or they may acquire a few more prospects in a trade, but this seems like it is more or less a comprehensive list of the new players who'll open camp with the team this September.

Old Faces

This section will be a lot less expansive, given that most fans are probably familiar with these players for the most part, but it would be wrong to leave them out so here we go.

Veterans (11)

At forward, Jean-Gabriel Pageau, Mikkel Boedker, and Bobby Ryan are the only players to fit the traditional "veteran" mold, but on a team as young as the Senators, I'm willing to include Brady Tkachuk and Colin White, both of whom spent all of last season with the team and will likely have to be leaders this coming season. Mark Borowiecki would be the only returning traditional vet on the blueline but players like Thomas Chabot, Christian Wolanin, and Christian Jaros will likely play that role too. In goal, Craig Anderson will likely battle with Nilsson for playing time while Mike Condon will battle with arena security insisting that he really does play for the team and to let him get his stuff on for practice.

Prospects (8)

The new Senators rookies will be interesting to watch but the vast majority of the core prospects are returning players. Up front there's Logan Brown, Filip Chlapik, Rudolfs Balcers, Alex Formenton, Drake Batherson, and Parker Kelly, almost all of whom should reasonably have their sights set on making the team out of camp this year (sorry Parker). On defense, Max Lajoie will try and play his way back into the picture while goaltender Filip Gustavsson will try and find the form that was expected of him when the hockey world was ready to anoint him the next great Swedish net-minder.

Tweeners (4)

If you thought patience was running out with the new tweeners, imagine the pressure that will be on these guys to prove to the organization that they were right to hold onto them for so long. At forward there's the most famous example in Nick Paul as well as Andrew Sturtz. Defenceman Andreas Englund will probably never be the player that he looked like he could've been when he was drafted, but there's still time to prove that he could be a valuable asset to the rebuild, but not much. In nets Marcus Hogberg would presumably be the #2 goalie if Anderson is shipped out but barring that he'll need to show signs of improvement over last year to force the team to consider keeping him around, if only in a backup position.

Others (2)

This could've just been entitled "LTIR" as it includes Marian Gaborik and Clarke MacArthur. See? Now we're all sad! Hockey is fun!

In conclusion...

These two lists are essentially what the Sens will look like in training camp. Next time we'll look at who might make it out of camp and what it will all mean for the season.