Max McCormick Signs ELC and the Senators are Hiring

Now that the Memorial Cup has ended and with it our exposure to Curtis Lazar, the Senators have reminded their fan base that yes, there are other prospects within their farm system.

The name Cody McCormick may not register much with the fan base, especially at a time when most of them are dreaming up ideal trade hauls and destinations to send Jason Spezza, but today the Senators officially announced that Max McCormick has signed a two-year entry-level contract.

From their press release:

A native of De Pere, Wis., McCormick recently completed his third season with the Big Ten Conference’s Ohio State Buckeyes, scoring 11 goals and establishing new collegiate career highs in assists (24) and points (35), while appearing in each of his team’s 37 games.

Drafted by the Senators with their second sixth-round pick (171st overall) in the 2011 NHL Draft, McCormick has participated in the team’s annual development camp in each of the last three summers and is expected to be present at this year’s camp.

McCormick is likely destined for Binghamton where he’ll join fellow Ohio State teammate Ryan Dzingel – who signed an ELC of his own towards the end of last season.

Looking back at the 2011 draft, Ottawa’s haul of prospects who have professionally within the Senators system is pretty impressive.

Mika Zibanejad (1^st round, 6^th overall), Stefan Noesen (1^st round, 21^st overall), Matt Puempel (1^st round, 24^th overall), Shane Prince (2^nd round, 61^st overall), Jean-Gabriel Pageau (4^th round, 96^th overall), Fredrik Claesson (5^th round, 126^th overall), Darren Kramer (6^th round, 156^th overall) and Dzingel (7^th round, 204^th overall) have already played professionally at the NHL or AHL level. Only McCormick and Jordan Fransoo (7^th round, 186^th overall) have yet to play professionally.

As an aside while looking at this draft class, I didn’t even realize that Noesen came back from his injury that he suffered early in the 2013/14 AHL season to play in four games (and register four assists) for Norfolk.

Anyways, it remains to be seen whether many of these players will have a profound impact at the NHL level or develop into the high-end players that the Senators desperately need, but they do afford the Senators organization a lot of depth and allow the organization to replenish the rosters of the farm teams as more prospects graduate to the parent team.

Perhaps more importantly, hitting on and hording prospects like McCormick who may have modest upside but safer floors will provide the depth necessary to allow the organization to draft and take a chance on more high risk/high upside players in the future.

The Senators Are Hiring

Dust off those resumes because the Ottawa Senators are hiring. While some of the jobs are standard fare for this time of the year, the organization is notably looking for a new Director of Marketing.

To any prospective candidate for the position, I only ask one simple thing: please take the team’s primary jerseys, load them into a space shuttle and fire them directly into the sun.

Thank you.