Ottawa Senators (present and past) TIDBITS & QUICK HITS!

Naw he won't play LW. He doesn't like it.

DefenceWinsChampionships wrote:

wprager wrote:All of those high picks we have we got from teams that no-longer wanted them, for one reason or another.  Not that I'm unhappy with Turris, but he did not progress like Phoenix expected him to.  He was actually rated as the top NA skater by Central Scouting (Kane went 1st overall -- wonder what happened).

Anyway, I'm talking about a player of a higher calibre than either Turris or Brassard.  Ryan *used to be* that player but, again, we got him from a team whose GM said he couldn't spell intensity.

I like Bobby, I think he is a much better player than his stats (with the Sens) have shown so far.  But, again, he really hasn't been that game breaker here.

I'm not too worried. With a better center he'll put up more points this year.

There's no doubt Brassard is a better set-up man than Zibanejad. He is also a left-handed center. So, yeah, I think he's poised for a much better season than the last two. Might want to get better gloves as well, as he's been playing through a broken finger in each of the last two seasons.

I'd like to see Hoffman with Turris and Stone. Both righties. We could have a legitimate 40 goal threat. Then a second line with Brassard/Ryan and MacArthur.

So, Hoffman with 40-ish and Turris/Stone combining for another 50, a total of 90 goals for the top line. Ryan back to 30, plus 40 between MacArthur and Brassard for another 70. Add 40 more for the third line of Smith-Pageau-Lazar, 20 for Karlsson and 20 more between Ceci and Phaneuf. 240 goals. Add another 20 for the 4th line (maybe a stretch) and 10 more for the remaining D-men and that's 270 goals. Am I overly optimistic? Most likely -- last season the Sens had 230 (so nearly a 0.5 goals/game increase) and Dallas led the league with 265.

If Turris had stayed healthy, with MacArthur in the lineup, and Phaneuf here for the full season, that 230 would certainly have been higher. 270 is a stretch, for sure, but another 7 goals last season would have put us top-five, and that's definitely achievable.

Did Hoffman really get 13 points in his last 13 games last season? I thought he was supposed to have dropped off down the stretch.

I don't think Ceci and Phaneuf are getting 20 goals, Prags.

spader wrote:I don't think Ceci and Phaneuf are getting 20 goals, Prags.

Ceci had 10 last year and is still improving. Phaneuf only had 4 but he's certainly capable of more. 20 between the two of them is not out of the realm of possibility. Anyhow, being top-five in the league is a very achievable goal.

The Score ranked the NHL farm systems. We came in 29th. I don't quite see how we aren't higher than that, but that's sports media for you. 

It's been a tough year for the Ottawa Senators' farm system.
The Binghamton Senators finished with the fourth-worst record in the AHL and their highly-touted draftee, Thomas Chabot, failed to impress at development camp. They still have Colin White, Logan Brown, and Matt O'Connor, but the herd is thin.

http://www.thescore.com/nhl/news/1064617-ranking-the-30-nhl-farm-systems

I don't think the Score knows a thing about hockey. Nothing.

If they were specifically talking about Bingo then, yes, they will continue to be terrible. Chabot/White/Brown will not be in Bingo this year (maybe Belleville next year).

If they were meant to be assessing the Sens' prospects and ranked them 29th then that's just short-sighted.

Hockey's Future has them at #21:
http://www.hockeysfuture.com/team-rankings/fall-team-rankings-2015-16/page/3

And since that ranking they added Brown, plus the emergence of Perron. Dahlen could also become a great round-2 pick. I expect a rebound season for O'Connor and another big season for Chabot, plus Perron in the pros. We'll where we are at the end of the year.

Top-200 Fantasy Ranking: https://www.nhl.com/news/top-200-overall-fantasy-hockey-rankings-for-august/c-281263848

Six Senators players in the list (plus Turris was pushed just out of the top-200 with the arrival of Brassard -- they are assuming that Brassard will be Ottawa's 1LC).

I don't subscribe to that. Turris (if healthy) will be the #1.

wprager wrote:If they were specifically talking about Bingo then, yes, they will continue to be terrible.  Chabot/White/Brown will not be in Bingo this year (maybe Belleville next year).

If they were meant to be assessing the Sens' prospects and ranked them 29th then that's just short-sighted.

Hockey's Future has them at #21:
http://www.hockeysfuture.com/team-rankings/fall-team-rankings-2015-16/page/3

And since that ranking they added Brown, plus the emergence of Perron. Dahlen could also become a great round-2 pick.  I expect a rebound season for O'Connor and another big season for Chabot, plus Perron in the pros.  We'll (see) where we are at the end of the year.

Agreed. I have no idea how to rank that team. I don't know the league well enough.

PTFlea wrote:I don't think the Score knows a thing about hockey.  Nothing.

I love LA at #30:

The Ontario Reign captured the Pacific Division last season, but their crop of high-impact prospects remains slim.

Umm, yeah, they are the best team in their division but they still suck.

As for the Sens, they have a lot of their youngsters already playing in the NHL (Stone, Hoffman, Pageau, Puempel, Paul) and some in Europe (Englund, Hogberg). The best of their latest crop cannot play in Bingo. So, yeah, Bingo will be terrible but it's just a weak argument to exclude them or to say Chabot didn't impress at camp. That was a development camp. When Pierre was asked about this he said his personal take on it was that a development camp is meant to develop player, not to be a competition. Of course they are always being watched and evaluated and perhaps Chabot is the kind of player who takes well to outward criticism. I don't know. We'll see how he responded when he comes to the main camp. I liked what I saw in pre-season games against NHL-ish teams, and he just had a long season with the Memorial Cup appearance. So that could have had something to do with his poor performance at a development camp. I'm not going to scuttle him for that in light of everything else he has shown.

AHL success has nothing to do with how good your prospects are. Most good AHL teams are made up of nobodies/career AHLers.

Ev wrote:AHL success has nothing to do with how good your prospects are. Most good AHL teams are made up of nobodies/career AHLers.

If you have the best prospect pool in the NHL (and the best prospects are in the AHL) then I would expect the AHL team to do well. It's not a direct correlation 1 through 30, for sure, but there should be some connection. Same the other way. AHL lifers are not that common and they rarely make a huge difference to the team's overall success. IOW you can't stack your team with non-NHL-bound players and expect to win a championship or even a division. So if a particular team wins their Division then I'd expect that team to have some decent prospects. Not 1st, or top-5 or even top-10, but certainly not 30th.

Also the article doesn't explain the bottom ranking other than to say the crop of high-impact prospects is slim.

Compare this to what they say about the Caps, sitting at #24:

The Hershey Bears remain one of the strongest clubs in the AHL, but in terms of young prospects, there isn't much to choose from.

The club's 2014 first-round pick, Jakub Vrana, has shown promise. Defenseman Madison Bowey has also been a bright light, and that's a positive sign with defense being the Washington's weakest point.

How is that any different from their assessment of LA's prospects?

Here's Tampa, at #21:

The Lightning's prospect pool isn't what it used to be and if you're unsure as to why, just take a look at their current NHL roster.

Eleven Lightning players have come up from the Syracuse Crunch since the 2012-13 season. Slater Koekkoek and Brayden Point are among those who could follow suit, but for now the majority of the organization's young talent can already be found within the big club.

OK, so eleven of them have recently graduated, leaving Koekkoek and Point, and that's good enough for 21.

Just a very weak article.

The Score did a head coach ranking and a GM ranking. The articles are really stupid though. The Sens are ranked 23 because "it'll be tough for Dorion to make a distinctive stamp on the franchise" and it is "imperative that he do so." That's all the information they shared about their reasoning. 

Once again, their evaluation criteria appears to involve darts. Francis in Carolina finished next and got a glowing blurb about his strategic moves and great drafting. There's no logic to it.

Don't bother reading any prognostications IMO. None. The only ones worth anything are McKeens and a couple of prospect things like that.

Like, really...what do they know that we as big fans don't? Absolutely nothing.

PTFlea wrote:Don't bother reading any prognostications IMO.  None.  The only ones worth anything are McKeens and a couple of prospect things like that.

Like, really...what do they know that we as big fans don't?  Absolutely nothing.

These aren't prognostications, they're rankings. But I hear your point. It's a thing to talk about, and at this point in the summer, those are few and far between (hockeywise, that is).

spader wrote:

PTFlea wrote:Don't bother reading any prognostications IMO.  None.  The only ones worth anything are McKeens and a couple of prospect things like that.

Like, really...what do they know that we as big fans don't?  Absolutely nothing.

These aren't prognostications, they're rankings. But I hear your point. It's a thing to talk about, and at this point in the summer, those are few and far between (hockeywise, that is).

Oh...I hear ya. I'm lucky as a sports fan that I can turn to baseball in the dog days.

That said...we're getting close to training camps etc.

PTFlea wrote:

spader wrote:

PTFlea wrote:Don't bother reading any prognostications IMO.  None.  The only ones worth anything are McKeens and a couple of prospect things like that.

Like, really...what do they know that we as big fans don't?  Absolutely nothing.

These aren't prognostications, they're rankings. But I hear your point. It's a thing to talk about, and at this point in the summer, those are few and far between (hockeywise, that is).

Oh...I hear ya. I'm lucky as a sports fan that I can turn to baseball in the dog days.

That said...we're getting close to training camps etc.

There's apparently a World Junior Showcase starting today with some Sens content.