Senators Looking to Trade Francois Brassard’s Rights

Fresh off the heels of inking goaltender Chris Driedger to a three-year entry-level contract (ELC) earlier this week, TVA’s Renaud Lavoie has indicated that the Senators are looking to move goaltending prospect Francois Brassard’s rights.

Senators are trying to trade the rights of G François Brassard. If they can’t, Brassard will be available for the June draft in Philly.

— Renaud Lavoie (@renlavoietva) April 4, 2014

Brassard has put together some decent numbers relative to his peers in the QMJHL this season. Amongst qualifiers, here are how his numbers broke down across the league:

As the numbers show, he was amongst the league leaders in every major statistical category while playing for a Quebec Remparts team that only lost 17 games in regulation during the season and finished seventh in the QMJHL standings. Brassard was the Senators’ sixth round selection (166th overall) in the 2012 draft.

The Senators only had a finite number of developmental spots for their goaltenders — two in Binghamton and two in Elmira — and with the organization already having prospects like Andrew Hammond and the aforementioned Driedger within their ranks, it’s possible that the organization simply decided that it could not afford to burn one of its allocated fifty professional contracts on this position of depth. Brassard’s situation was probably further complicated by the fact that the Senators also have another goaltending prospect, Marcus Hogberg, overseas playing in Sweden.

Now before fans go out and comparing Brassard’s situation to that of Mathieu Chouinard — who was drafted twice by this organization — keep in mind that Brassard’s situation doesn’t sound like it stems from the inability to agree upon a contract. Sylvain St-Laurent quoted Senators Assistant GM Randy Lee yesterday indicating that management was undecided on whether to offer Brassard a contract. Furthermore, he also mentioned that Brassard’s representative, Mark Corbeil, was scheduled to meet with the Senators by the end of the week to discuss his client’s future.

With Lavoie’s comments, it’s clear that the Senators are looking to move on because of their depth at the position – which quite frankly, is a win-win situation for both parties. The Senators obviously have the depth right now to be unable to accommodate the development of one of its prospects, and assuming that they can find a partner in a trade, Brassard should benefit by moving to an organization that doesn’t share Ottawa’s depth which in turn, creates more playing time for him.

If anything, it’s just a subtle reminder to prospect porn indulging fans that not every prospect that this organization drafts will develop and play for the Ottawa Senators.