When does Ottawa become a Cup Contender?

2010/2011 will be the Sens' year to contend.

- Alfie/Spezz/Michalek will continue to roll and improve together
-Foligno will finally be a power forward with Fish and Kovalev/Cheechoo/Ruutu/Kelly's salaries will help finance an offensively-gifted, smooth skating goal scorer
-Regin will develop his offensive game with Zac Smith and the 2009-10 first round pick rounding out a very talented two-way third line
- Fourth line run by the energy of Bass, Neil, and O'Brien
- Vet leadership of Kuba and Phillips runs off on the Sens young core
-Leclaire signs extension and proves he is the best goalie in Sens history



Michalek-Spezza-Alfredsson

So who's on defence?

Right now, my actual and literal guess for the defense next year is.

Lee/Phillips
Karlsson/Kuba
Carkner/Cowen

I dont think it's that big of a stretch and could actually be better then what we have this year with a healthy defense.

asq2 wrote:

Cap'n Clutch wrote:

asq2 wrote:2012-2013:

The three defencemen will be 22/21.

I'm as big a fan of them as anybody on this site, but they definitely won't be Lidstrom - Rafalski - Kronwall at that age, if ever. Lidstrom is maybe the third best defenceman of all-time.

I certainly never meant to suggest that they would be Lidstrom, Rafalski and Kronwal. I only meant to suggest that they could dominante in the defensive zone, as a unit, in a similiar way as that Detroit group has been able to do.

What does "similar" mean? I took it to mean of a similar calibre. If that's the case, it's going to take a lot longer than 4 years to get to that level, if they ever do.

But there is the potential for them to carry a system like Detroit's, certainly.

You could be right. I do still believe that Cowen, Karlsson and Weircioch, in 4 years, along with our goaltending, should be a top 4 group overall in this league. This is why we need some top end forwards coming through the system.

4 years from now, you've got two 23 year olds and a 22 year old (and a 22 year-old goaltender)

Top-4 over-all? It's possible, but unlikely. Keep in mind that defencemen tend to stick around for a while, so blue-lines in places like Calgary and Chicago should continue to be excellent, and blue-lines in St. Louis and LA, for two, are further along in their development.

I just don't see the need to sacrifice Alfredsson's last years out of desperation for forward prospects. If on the off-chance that they do become that dominant in four years, in all likelihood they'd be able to sustain it for another decade barring serious cap problems.

So, I don't see there being a big rush, especially since we've got some younger guys on the roster (Spezza, Michalek, Foligno, Regin), and some guys with at least the potential to be supporting scorers (Petersson, Silfverberg, Grant). Plus, we've got three picks in the first two rounds in this draft and forward prospects usually develop more quickly than defenceman prospects do.

Kovalfie wrote:2010/2011 will be the Sens' year to contend.

- Alfie/Spezz/Michalek will continue to roll and improve together
-Foligno will finally be a power forward with Fish and Kovalev/Cheechoo/Ruutu/Kelly's salaries will help finance an offensively-gifted, smooth skating goal scorer
-Regin will develop his offensive game with Zac Smith and the 2009-10 first round pick rounding out a very talented two-way third line
- Fourth line run by the energy of Bass, Neil, and O'Brien
- Vet leadership of Kuba and Phillips runs off on the Sens young core
-Leclaire signs extension and proves he is the best goalie in Sens history



Michalek-Spezza-Alfredsson

You know...that's not that far off from being a fair assessment. People can say all they want about the time needed etc. etc. - and it's 100% true, but if Cheechoo (3), Kovalev (5) salaries are off the books - and we replace Kelly with Winchester once and for all, let's say that saves some considerable coin and Murray can buy or trade for a big time D-man who makes a lot of money. Campbell again comes to mind, but by that time there might be other options.

Zach Smith might be able to take Cheechoo's role on the third line - I'm not even sure how that'll all work out. See the point about having no blue chip scoring prospects starts to come to the forefront, but with money saved from Cheechoo, Kovalev, Kelly and maybe even Chris Phillips - you can spend it in different and exciting ways.

N4L wrote:Right now, my actual and literal guess for the defense next year is.

Lee/Phillips
Karlsson/Kuba
Carkner/Cowen

I dont think it's that big of a stretch and could actually be better then what we have this year with a healthy defense.

It could be better than this season, but it's very shallow.

Our defence when healthy this season could conceivably be:

Lee/Phillips
Campoli/Kuba
Carkner/Vochenkov

which reads almost literally the same but, because of injuries to one of our three top guys, has been very weak.

Now, re-sign Volchenkov, and you could have the blue-line you listed, except Cowen and Volchenkov are together, in which case you have a tremendous shut-down pairing and don't have a rookie paired with a sophomore. Carkner steps in in the case of injury and the blue-line still looks respectable.

I like Spacek.

I do not like this deal, though.

What, you don't like Hal Gill Asq?

Take Cowen, replace his skates with cinderblocks, remove half his brain and his physicality, and you have a player I would rather have than Gill.

asq2 wrote:Take Cowen, replace his skates with cinderblocks, remove half his brain and his physicality, and you have a player I would rather have than Gill.

Hal Gill is the worst D-man I've ever seen I think. He makes Picard and Campoli look like Chris Pronger.

But he has a Cup ring. Doesn't that make him as good as Andre Roy?

Cap'n Clutch wrote:

asq2 wrote:

Cap'n Clutch wrote:

asq2 wrote:2012-2013:

The three defencemen will be 22/21.

I'm as big a fan of them as anybody on this site, but they definitely won't be Lidstrom - Rafalski - Kronwall at that age, if ever. Lidstrom is maybe the third best defenceman of all-time.

I certainly never meant to suggest that they would be Lidstrom, Rafalski and Kronwal. I only meant to suggest that they could dominante in the defensive zone, as a unit, in a similiar way as that Detroit group has been able to do.

What does "similar" mean? I took it to mean of a similar calibre. If that's the case, it's going to take a lot longer than 4 years to get to that level, if they ever do.

But there is the potential for them to carry a system like Detroit's, certainly.

You could be right. I do still believe that Cowen, Karlsson and Weircioch, in 4 years, along with our goaltending, should be a top 4 group overall in this league. This is why we need some top end forwards coming through the system.

Top 4 overall? In the East probably, but overall it's debatable.
Atlanta, Washington, Rangers, Chicago, Calgary, LA, St-Louis... those are teams that have also great young defenders/prospects.
Unless Murray can find a N1 defenseman that will stick here for a long time.

Atlanta's got Bogosian, who is a machine, but then it's pretty thin. I think our D can be better than Atlanta's. Tampa's another name to mention - Hedman, Ranger, Wishart, etc.

I like Enstrom and if Kubina and Hainsey stay, that's a pretty solid top 4. They are not flashy but they are pretty solid and make very few mistakes IMO.
For us being top 4 in the East in 4 years, the 3 have to meet the expectations. for most of the teams i named, they have at least 1 proven superstar.

asq2 wrote:Atlanta's got Bogosian, who is a machine, but then it's pretty thin. I think our D can be better than Atlanta's. Tampa's another name to mention - Hedman, Ranger, Wishart, etc.

Meh...will Ranger ever even return? And even if he does, doesn't our D beat out TB's?

marakh wrote:I like Enstrom and if Kubina and Hainsey stay, that's a pretty solid top 4. They are not flashy but they are pretty solid and make very few mistakes IMO.
For us being top 4 in the East in 4 years, the 3 have to meet the expectations. for most of the teams i named, they have at least 1 proven superstar.

Yeah, I guess I was overlooking those two, although Kubina will be 36 in 4 years. I'd probably match up Phillips and Volchenkov with those two and call it about even.

Looking at the young guys, the way I see it if everyone pans out...

Bogosian > Cowen (although it will be close, if Cowen reaches his full potential)
Enstrom

marakh wrote:I like Enstrom and if Kubina and Hainsey stay, that's a pretty solid top 4. They are not flashy but they are pretty solid and make very few mistakes IMO.
For us being top 4 in the East in 4 years, the 3 have to meet the expectations. for most of the teams i named, they have at least 1 proven superstar.

They'll never get rid of Hainsey (no one bring this post up if Murray acquires him please) - he's got 3 years left after this at 4.5 million. Ridiculous.

They could use re-upping Kubina. He's made a nice difference for them.

SpezDispenser wrote:

asq2 wrote:Atlanta's got Bogosian, who is a machine, but then it's pretty thin. I think our D can be better than Atlanta's. Tampa's another name to mention - Hedman, Ranger, Wishart, etc.

Meh...will Ranger ever even return? And even if he does, doesn't our D beat out TB's?

If everyone pans out, it does. But Hedman will be awe-inspiring if he fully pans out. We'd win because Karlsson and Wiercioch should be better than guys like Wishart (who looks good in Syracuse) and Lashoff.