ESPN Insider‘s Corey Pronman published his first mock draft (note: paywall) and with the 11th overall selection, he had Oliver Kylington, a Swedish defenceman going to the Senators. Back in November, Pronman had Kylington as his fifth ranked prospect (again, paywall). The thought of adding another smooth skating offensive defenceman to the mix is pretty exciting, but it was the rest of Pronman’s synopsis that delivered a sobering reminder of the state of the Ottawa Senators’ system.
“NHL scouts were buzzing over Kylington after the recent Five Nations under-18 tournament, with one head scout saying there’s no way he doesn’t make his personal top 10. The issue with all these “top-10 guys,” however, is that only 10 players can fit into the actual top 10 on draft night. Ottawa’s system is empty, and their big club needs help in several spots, so there’s no reason for them not to take best player right now.”
Pronman’s classification of Ottawa’ system as “empty” will raise some eyebrows. Last August, he ranked the Senators as having the 23rd ranked farm system, but in fairness to him, he has consistently noted that one of the reasons why Ottawa’s system is thin is because he has accounted for a number of the team’s prospects graduating to the parent roster. Players like Curtis Lazar, Cody Ceci, Mike Hoffman, Mark Stone and Jean-Gabriel Pageau have all become regulars on one of the league’s youngest rosters.
In fact, according to NHLnumbers.com, the Senators have the fifth-youngest roster in the NHL with an average age of 26.4 years. By contrast, the league’s second-oldest team (Philadelphia) has an average age of 28.4.
That two-year gap isn’t a very big, but because of it, I believe it helps create a false equivalency in which fans believe the Senators have an immense amount of upside simply because they’re statistically one of the youngest teams in the league. While a number of the team’s youngest players are playing well, there are valid concerns over how much more these players can grow and help elevate this team to a contending status.
Although players like Shane Prince, Matt Puempel, Mikael Wikstrand, Andreas Englund, Marcus Hogberg are still prospects within the system, none of these players project safely as top six forwards or top four defencemen. And really, when your assistant general manager is repeatedly plugging non-prospects like David Dziurzynski on the radio, it’s usually a good sign that the cupboards are getting bare.
Lacking elite talent, this roster needs help and in theory, this roster’s cost-efficient nature should allow the Senators to have the financial flexibility to insulate these players during the most inexpensive years of their NHL careers.
Fans have been fed the “we’ll spend more money down the road when the team is more competitive” line for the past few years and unfortunately for them, there’s no guarantee that’s going to happen. With the number of the RFAs on this roster and thanks to Ottawa’s inability to shed unwanted veteran salary (ie. the $3.5-million in real dollars owed to David Legwand, the one-year left on Chris Phillips’ deal, the two seasons left on Milan Michalek’s contract, and an impending buyout coming to Colin Greening), the organization probably will not have the financial flexibility necessary to properly insulate this core.
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