2009/10 Sens Roster predictions

Cap'n Clutch wrote:I don't see Ruutu being an extra forward. The pest roll is still considered important. Donovan for sure will be the extra as he was last season, rotating in with either Bass or Regin depending on who the Sens prefer.

Agreed. Way too much money ($1.3 mil) to have sitting out, too.

Anyway, I appreciate the effort to get everyone talking about next year's team, but this exercise seems rather out there until we sort out the Heatley situation. Whether we take back 1, 2, or 3 roster players in any deal, plus whatever moves we make involving guys like Smith and Schubert, is going to significantly change the face of the team, our cap situation, and what next year's roster might look like.

oh Dung!!!! I even love Fisher, i don't know how i forgot him... This is why i'm not a parent!! anymore...

Since Edmonton is the only place that wants Heatley, I will go with that scenario:

Alfie-Spezza-Penner
Foligno-Fisher-Kovolev
Cogliano-Kelly-Neil
Ruutu-Winchester-Shannon

Phillips-Kuba
Volchenkov-Campoli
Smid-Karlsson
Smith/Lee/Picard

wprager wrote:I don't get why you have Karlsson in the no-Smith scenario, but he is not the first call-up in the other case. While Lee may be bigger, he does not play a physical game. He is expected to be a puck-mover, not a shut-down guy, and Karlsson has a much better skillset in that area.

I was meaning to add an explanation for that one too... I figure if he doesn't make the big club he'll go back Sweden. And also, I haven't fully given up on Lee...

jamvan wrote:Since Edmonton is the only place that wants Heatley, I will go with that scenario:

Alfie-Spezza-Penner
Foligno-Fisher-Kovolev
Cogliano-Kelly-Neil
Ruutu-Winchester-Shannon

Phillips-Kuba
Volchenkov-Campoli
Smid-Karlsson
Smith/Lee/Picard

Shannon would wither away in a 4th-line role. Put him with guys like Foligno and Fisher again, or don't have him on your team at all.

rooneypoo wrote:

jamvan wrote:Since Edmonton is the only place that wants Heatley, I will go with that scenario:

Alfie-Spezza-Penner
Foligno-Fisher-Kovolev
Cogliano-Kelly-Neil
Ruutu-Winchester-Shannon

Phillips-Kuba
Volchenkov-Campoli
Smid-Karlsson
Smith/Lee/Picard

Shannon would wither away in a 4th-line role. Put him with guys like Foligno and Fisher again, or don't have him on your team at all.

Then trade him away, because with those players, he is far from a second liner!

Correction, not at the cottage, but in Tennessee, apparently, hanging out with her crowd. Man, look at the size of his hand.

rooneypoo wrote:

Cap'n Clutch wrote:I don't see Ruutu being an extra forward. The pest roll is still considered important. Donovan for sure will be the extra as he was last season, rotating in with either Bass or Regin depending on who the Sens prefer.

Agreed. Way too much money ($1.3 mil) to have sitting out, too.

Anyway, I appreciate the effort to get everyone talking about next year's team, but this exercise seems rather out there until we sort out the Heatley situation. Whether we take back 1, 2, or 3 roster players in any deal, plus whatever moves we make involving guys like Smith and Schubert, is going to significantly change the face of the team, our cap situation, and what next year's roster might look like.

I didn't mean having him sit out, but he could be moved. Bottom line is I don't think that the Senators, in what can be called a re-building or re-loading year, need players like Smith, Ruutu or Donovan.

rooneypoo wrote:

jamvan wrote:Since Edmonton is the only place that wants Heatley, I will go with that scenario:

Alfie-Spezza-Penner
Foligno-Fisher-Kovolev
Cogliano-Kelly-Neil
Ruutu-Winchester-Shannon

Phillips-Kuba
Volchenkov-Campoli
Smid-Karlsson
Smith/Lee/Picard

Shannon would wither away in a 4th-line role. Put him with guys like Foligno and Fisher again, or don't have him on your team at all.

Agreed. It's pointless to keep him if that's what is going to happen. And, I also don't think that Karlsson is making the team. He really needs to put on a few pounds or he'll be injured right away.

Wouldn't Cogliano be a better faceoff guy than Kelly?

I guess by these lines, Bass doesn't make the team?

He is built like a brick Dung. I can't imagine he won't be playing. I wonder how his skating is.

If this Edmonton deal goes down, there are too many of our prospects that are ready to play that are going to get shafted. Regin being the main one, Bass the other. And Lee would have to go if we pick up Smid. Lee or Picard.

jamvan wrote:

rooneypoo wrote:

jamvan wrote:Since Edmonton is the only place that wants Heatley, I will go with that scenario:

Alfie-Spezza-Penner
Foligno-Fisher-Kovolev
Cogliano-Kelly-Neil
Ruutu-Winchester-Shannon

Phillips-Kuba
Volchenkov-Campoli
Smid-Karlsson
Smith/Lee/Picard

Shannon would wither away in a 4th-line role. Put him with guys like Foligno and Fisher again, or don't have him on your team at all.

Then trade him away, because with those players, he is far from a second liner!

Nonsense. With the lines you have, for instance, just shuffle things up a wee bit:

Penner - Spez - Alfie
Cogliano - Regin - Kovalev } 2a
Foligno - Fisher - Shannon } 2b
Ruutu - Winchester - Neil

Spare: Donovan. First call ups: Zubov, Bass.

Three legitimate scoring lines. Offensive depth. That thing we've been screaming for for years now.

And yeah, Kelly's out of that line up. As much as I like Kelly, and as much as I think he's important to our PK, I'm not sure that he fits this team any more. He's keeping guys with higher upsides (Zubov and Regin) out of our line-up at the moment.

The point of this thread was more to see who you felt was gone by puck drop of the regular season and who you felt would have a shot at staying on. I didn't really want to speculate on what Heatley would bring but I suppose we could discuss that as well.

Face it, until there is news, pretty much every thread you start will morph into something about Heatley.

I was thinking of putting Neil on line 4 too, but that's a waste of $2M, had we not paid him so much it would've been fine, but we'd look like a bunch of tools if we did that. Really odd situation.

rooneypoo wrote:
Nonsense. With the lines you have, for instance, just shuffle things up a wee bit:

Penner - Spez - Alfie
Cogliano - Regin - Kovalev } 2a
Foligno - Fisher - Shannon } 2b
Ruutu - Winchester - Neil

Spare: Donovan. First call ups: Zubov, Bass.

Three legitimate scoring lines. Offensive depth. That thing we've been screaming for for years now.

And yeah, Kelly's out of that line up. As much as I like Kelly, and as much as I think he's important to our PK, I'm not sure that he fits this team any more. He's keeping guys with higher upsides (Zubov and Regin) out of our line-up at the moment.

Yeah, but he also keeps our penalty kill respectable. The guy played 3.05 minutes per game on the PK last year for us, more than 40 seconds more per night than our next best PKing forward, Alfredsson.

With that lineup that leaves us with the following for penalty killing forwards: Alfredsson, Fisher, Kovalev, Ruutu with Penner, Cogliano and Winchester as fringe PKers.

Is that a risk you want to take? Our PK was already a woeful 81.5% last year. Sure guys like Spezza and Foligno will probably have to learn to play at least 40 seconds of PK time per game to help their team offset the load off of guys like Kovalev and Alfredsson.

PKC wrote:

Yeah, but he also keeps our penalty kill respectable. The guy played 3.05 minutes per game on the PK last year for us, more than 40 seconds more per night than our next best PKing forward, Alfredsson.

With that lineup that leaves us with the following for penalty killing forwards: Alfredsson, Fisher, Kovalev, Ruutu with Penner, Cogliano and Winchester as fringe PKers.

Is that a risk you want to take? Our PK was already a woeful 81.5% last year. Sure guys like Spezza and Foligno will probably have to learn to play at least 40 seconds of PK time per game to help their team offset the load off of guys like Kovalev and Alfredsson.

Trust me, I hear you. I've made the argument a number of times on this site already, in fact.

The fact is, however, it's pretty much impossible to make 3 scoring lines when Kelly is on one of them. Every time you pair a guy with Kelly, people understandably cry foul: "player x won't survive in that kind of environment, he needs offensive players to complement him." My whole point is that if you take Kelly out of the picture, your options for offensive lines expand dramatically.

I'm very wary of breaking up the Foligno-Fisher-Shannon line, which was pretty much as our 5-on-5 line for the last half of last season. At this point, I'd say keep those guys together as line 2A or 2B. Then, make your top two lines out of whatever return you get on Heatley + Alfie, Spezza, Kovalev, and a young guy like Regin or Zubov (if needed).

As you can see, Kelly just doesn't fit there. He's not a top 6er in that arrangement. With the FFS line, he's not a top 9er either. That means there's not a lot of room for him on this team.

We can work on the PK. After Alfie, Fisher, and Ruutu, we have prospects who should be able to help fill that need. Winchester looks ready to kill penalties. Regin might be, too. Plus, who knows, maybe whoever we get back in the Heatley deal will be able to PK, too.

rooneypoo wrote:
Trust me, I hear you. I've made the argument a number of times on this site already, in fact.

The fact is, however, it's pretty much impossible to make 3 scoring lines when Kelly is on one of them. Every time you pair a guy with Kelly, people understandably cry foul: "player x won't survive in that kind of environment, he needs offensive players to complement him." My whole point is that if you take Kelly out of the picture, your options for offensive lines expand dramatically.

I'm very wary of breaking up the Foligno-Fisher-Shannon line, which was pretty much as our 5-on-5 line for the last half of last season. At this point, I'd say keep those guys together as line 2A or 2B. Then, make your top two lines out of whatever return you get on Heatley + Alfie, Spezza, Kovalev, and a young guy like Regin or Zubov (if needed).

As you can see, Kelly just doesn't fit there. He's not a top 6er in that arrangement. With the FFS line, he's not a top 9er either. That means there's not a lot of room for him on this team.

We can work on the PK. After Alfie, Fisher, and Ruutu, we have prospects who should be able to help fill that need. Winchester looks ready to kill penalties. Regin might be, too. Plus, who knows, maybe whoever we get back in the Heatley deal will be able to PK, too.

Interesting points. Although I'm not sure Murray is particularly interested in sort of "hoping for the best" for his penalty kill.

The fact is, this team doesn't have a clear direction in terms of style. Does the club want to be a defense-first team? An offensive juggernaut capable of rolling three dangerous scoring lines? A counter-punch team that relies on speed to create scoring chances?

"What does this team want to be?" should be the first question GMHockey members think of. Once that is answered, I think it will be MUCH easier to figure out who will almost definitively be on the roster come September.

Also, on another note, if Regin is being slotted in on the roster already, does that pretty much mean Ilja Zubov is never going to play for the Senators? And if so, why not try to sweeten a deal for Heatley by adding him to it?

Neil's new contract makes Kelly look like more of a bargain but I believe his PKing isn't enough to keep him in Ottawa.

I'd be inclined to trade him for a pick to make room for a Top 6 forward in a Heatley trade.

SeawaySensFan wrote:Neil's new contract makes Kelly look like more of a bargain but I believe his PKing isn't enough to keep him in Ottawa.

I'd be inclined to trade him for a pick to make room for a Top 6 forward in a Heatley trade.

as much as Kelly is a nice guy, this might have to be more of an option if he doesn't fit into the teams plans, there will be a few tough decisions like this over the next few years.