Ottawa Senators' Plan "B"

With Spezza now being "lapped" on the IR by Anderson, Michalek, Cowen and likely Karlsson, in a couple of weeks, there is some serious worry (here, at least) that a second surgery is not out of the question. With that, two things come to mind:
1. Is Jason Spezza's NHL career is jeopardy?
2. Even if he's not hanging up his skates, can you really move forward with a 1LC who is that much of a health risk?

So, while all of this is speculation, and "Plan A" remains waiting for Spezza to rehab his injury and resume being a PPG #1 Center for this team, surely a "Plan B" has to be at least in the back of Murray's mind.

What would your "Plan B" be?

My 2 cents is that you've all seen what Mac can do with this lineup without Spezza. Are we as good? Not at all, but we're still a team that can win games and cause havoc. As of right now, I'm very, very pleased with Zibanejad's development. I think having him, Turris and I guess Smith down the middle is still good enough to compete for a long time.

If Spezza actually hangs them up, Murray will look for a 1C to replace him, but they don't come around often. He's better to wait it out next year and see what Z-Bad can do with Turris, flanked by some serious talent in Silf, Concacher, Alfie, Michalek, Latendresse (hopefully), perhaps Hoffman, etc.

Trading for a Spezza replacement will be really expensive. Prohibitively.

SpezDispenser wrote:My 2 cents is that you've all seen what Mac can do with this lineup without Spezza. Are we as good? Not at all, but we're still a team that can win games and cause havoc. As of right now, I'm very, very pleased with Zibanejad's development. I think having him, Turris and I guess Smith down the middle is still good enough to compete for a long time.

If Spezza actually hangs them up, Murray will look for a 1C to replace him, but they don't come around often. He's better to wait it out next year and see what Z-Bad can do with Turris, flanked by some serious talent in Silf, Concacher, Alfie, Michalek, Latendresse (hopefully), perhaps Hoffman, etc.

Trading for a Spezza replacement will be really expensive. Prohibitively.

unless you sign brad richards in the off season. word is the rags might be buying him out.

Flo The Action wrote:

SpezDispenser wrote:My 2 cents is that you've all seen what Mac can do with this lineup without Spezza. Are we as good? Not at all, but we're still a team that can win games and cause havoc. As of right now, I'm very, very pleased with Zibanejad's development. I think having him, Turris and I guess Smith down the middle is still good enough to compete for a long time.

If Spezza actually hangs them up, Murray will look for a 1C to replace him, but they don't come around often. He's better to wait it out next year and see what Z-Bad can do with Turris, flanked by some serious talent in Silf, Concacher, Alfie, Michalek, Latendresse (hopefully), perhaps Hoffman, etc.

Trading for a Spezza replacement will be really expensive. Prohibitively.

unless you sign brad richards in the off season. word is the rags might be buying him out.

Yeah, that would be a possibility. I don't really know why we're speculating like Spezza's career is over though.

What else can you do when there's no game to actually talk about until tomorrow.

he'll be fine

I heard this was a deep draft. Surely they will find another Getzlaf and Perry

we're all hoping he's fine but you have to think of options. I'm not sure how much B richards would command but surely less then his past contract or else he'd be avaoilable in a trade. we could use him even with spezza there on the second line(of course this is following the idea that Turris plays wing which i have no idea as to if that's even a good idea.)

just shooting the Dung

LeKing wrote:I heard this was a deep draft. Surely they will find another Getzlaf and Perry

if we could get another 1st or a second somehow.... oh to keep the talent coming...

There's no real solution on the free agent market this summer...best you could do is Ribeiro or Bozak (HARHAR). Andy McDonald is also a FA this summer, and he's old, so it'd only have to be a two or three year deal.

If the need arises, this will be a tough hole to fill...best they can do is a get a veteran for a couple years until Z-Bad is ready, or another option presents itself.

You don't really NEED a true #1 C if you have three guys that are all "pretty good" (Turris, Z-Bad, + someone else).

If Spezza looks doubtful going into next season, perhaps Ribeiro is the way to go but he's a lateral move from Spezza, both play a pretty similar game with very similar stat lines with basically the same short comings as well.

If it comes to that I think they'll count on Turris or Zib to fill the role down the road.

NEELY wrote:If Spezza looks doubtful going into next season, perhaps Ribeiro is the way to go but he's a lateral move from Spezza, both play a pretty similar game with very similar stat lines with basically the same short comings as well.

Similar, but Ribeiro is a considerable downgrade, according to goals and points per game. Rib scores .23 GPG and .77 PPG. Spezza boasts a more potent offense with .37 GPG and 1.02 PPG. I know who I'd rather have on the team.

spader wrote:

NEELY wrote:If Spezza looks doubtful going into next season, perhaps Ribeiro is the way to go but he's a lateral move from Spezza, both play a pretty similar game with very similar stat lines with basically the same short comings as well.

Similar, but Ribeiro is a considerable downgrade, according to goals and points per game. Rib scores .23 GPG and .77 PPG. Spezza boasts a more potent offense with .37 GPG and 1.02 PPG. I know who I'd rather have on the team.

I would look at the last 5 years... what Spezza and Ribeiro did past that is pretty pointless. That's a very flawed argument. Over the past 5 years they have basically been the same player.

NEELY wrote:

spader wrote:

NEELY wrote:If Spezza looks doubtful going into next season, perhaps Ribeiro is the way to go but he's a lateral move from Spezza, both play a pretty similar game with very similar stat lines with basically the same short comings as well.

Similar, but Ribeiro is a considerable downgrade, according to goals and points per game. Rib scores .23 GPG and .77 PPG. Spezza boasts a more potent offense with .37 GPG and 1.02 PPG. I know who I'd rather have on the team.

I would look at the last 5 years... what Spezza and Ribeiro did past that is pretty pointless. That's a very flawed argument. Over the past 5 years they have basically been the same player.

Sure. .88 and .25 (PPG and GPG) for Rib vs. .95 and .38 for Spezza. If you don't thing that a 50% improvement in goals and a (better than) 10% improvement in points is significant, then I don't have much to say in response. The point is, Spezza is a much better goal scorer and a better point producer.

EDIT: Ribeiro is a downgrade, but of course, all I'm looking at are his top stats. I don't know how he is on faceoffs, and I haven't watched him all that much in the last few years (I don't catch many Stars games and haven't seen much of the Caps this year). But, unless he's an upgrade in another major category, I'll continue to think he'd be a considerable downgrade.