Remedying the State of the Senators’ Blue Line

For the past few seasons, it’s been transparently clear that Ottawa’s Achilles heel (apologies to Erik Karlsson) has been the team’s blue line.

Over the past few years, the organization has glossed over the collective ineptness of the blue line for two reasons: 1) Erik Karlsson has developed into one of the most dynamic players in the league; and 2) management has misplaced trust in the group’s development exclusively on the basis that the age of its players.

When a top-heavy first pairing of Marc Methot and Erik Karlsson can dominate territorially and generate a ton of even-strength points playing 25 to 30 minutes a night, it can help mask a lot of the group’s deficiencies because of how dominant that partnership can be.

Unfortunately, having their best two defencemen partnered together is a double-edged sword. Although they have a tendency to produce and dominate puck possession when they’re on the ice, there will always be 30 to 35 minutes per game when the duo is resting on the bench and puts the pressure on the second and third pairings to hold their own.

Through stretches, Senators fans have seen the Patrick Wiercioch and Cody Ceci pairing thrive. In other stretches, like the beginning of this season, they have underwhelmed.

Wiercioch’s emergence as a viable alternative to Jared Cowen on the team’s second pairing was integral to the Senators’ success down the stretch last season because it helped buoy Cody Ceci’s play.

Here is a table of Ceci’s five-on-five ‘With or Without You’ numbers from last season (via HockeyAnalysis.com):

Coming into this season, the hope was that the second pairing would have continued success, but through Ottawa’s first 12 games, the pair have struggled to replicate that success.

As a positional player who relies on his reach and stick to disrupt passing lanes on the defensive-side of the puck, Wiercioch has struggled to find his rhythm. He has not looked as sharp from a puck-moving perspective and because of it, the Senators are spending more time within their end where Wiercioch can get exposed trying to defend the opposition’s cycle.

Whether it’s through the struggles of his partner, Ceci, at least from what I’ve seen on social media, has been given a pass. Yet, for all of his skills and physical tools, he has failed to establish himself as a leading man on any pairing. It’s somewhat surprising considering his talent and offensive production in junior, but Ceci has always struggled when playing away from another puck-moving defenceman. Even this season, for as average as Wiercioch and Ceci have been, Ceci’s underlying numbers away from Wiercioch have been even worse. Granted, we’re talking about a very small sample size through the team’s first 12 games and the natural left defencemen alternatives to Methot or Wiercioch are horrendous, but historically, it fits the trend.

It’s frustrating because I expect more out of Ceci. As a first round pick who can skate and has a decent skill set, I expect more and want to see a little bit more growth and development. Maybe that’s not fair considering he’s only 21 years old and has room to grow, but at some point, I want to see more return from the former blue-chip prospect.

Speaking of a lack of quality left defencemen as alternatives partners for Ceci, the third pairing of Jared Cowen and Mark Borowiecki has been awful.

Here is a look at the percentage of shot attempts the Senators generate at five-on-five broken down by which defensive pairing and center are on the ice:

While the duo lacks NHL experience thanks to Cowen’s series of injuries and Borowiecki taking the collegiate route before spending a few seasons in Binghamton, neither player is that young from a relative standpoint. At 26 years old, Borowiecki is the team’s third oldest defencemen on the roster behind Chris Phillips and Marc Methot.

The organization’s loyalty to Borowiecki stems from their appreciation of his work ethic, competitiveness, the city listed on his birth certificate and willingness to throw a hit. His non-distinct resume and perseverance through the minor league system is lauded by the organization as some kind of great player development success story, but for all of his likeable intangibles, he should be the seventh defenceman on what’s widely panned as a weak Ottawa blue line.

Jared Cowen’s on the different end of the development spectrum. As the ninth overall selection from the 2009 Draft, expectations for Cowen have always been high because he has the blend of size and tools that NHL front offices salivate over. While injuries to his knees and core (hip, hernia) have negatively impacted his development, his hockey IQ and ability to anticipate or process the game that have failed him and hindered his performance.

I don’t know whether it this organization’s loyalty to Cowen because of his pedigree and the emotional attachment in moving on from a high draft selection or a lack of outside interest that has caused the Senators to hold onto Cowen in hopes that he could either figure it out or see his trade value increase, but maybe Cowen should never really have been projected to have great future success in the first place.

In an excellent piece written over the summer detailing prospective defencemen that the Maple Leafs could draft, The Leaf Nation’s Shawn Reis looked at predictive assumptions for the quality of a defencemen by comparing point per game rates of a prospect during their draft year with where they were taken in the first round of a draft.

In looking at CHL defencemen taken in the top ten of the NHL Draft since 2005, Reis noticed that it’s a terrible idea to draft a defenceman who has terrible point per game rates. Notably, only Dylan McIlraith (0.37) and Keaton Ellerby (0.36) had lower point per game rates than Cowen’s 0.44.

There were other red flags as well. Although his size and skill set helped him against younger and less physically developed talent, Cowen never really thrived when the competition improved. Although his poor performance at the world junior championships was attributed to his recovery from knee surgery, maybe he was just never good enough to adjust to a higher calibre of play.

Judging by what I’ve heard or read from the respected NHL outsiders out there, it seems like the market for top-four defencemen doesn’t really exist. Knowing that it’s unlikely or will cost a premium to acquire some outside talent to improve the Senators’ blue line, to help remedy the situation:

Spread out the talent. Move Methot to the second pairing and slot Wiercioch alongside Karlsson. According to an end of the year interview with Bryan Murray, Ceci expressed in an exit interview that he often felt like he deferred to Wiercioch because he moved the puck deftly. In playing him with Methot, he’d become the de facto puck-mover and have breakouts run through him and he’d enjoy playing with a better defensive partner.

Some may scoff at the suggestion of playing Wiercioch with Karlsson, but the two have had some incredibly good underlying numbers (59.7 CF%) playing together in the past. It’s not like alternatives like Cowen or Borowiecki are sexy either. As we’ve seen before with Filip Kuba, Karlsson can have considerable success playing alongside positional guys who can move the puck efficiently.

Get Chris Wideman on the third pairing and rotate Borowiecki and Cowen in and out depending on whoever is playing better. As a puck-moving specialist, Wideman brings an element to the third pairing that it currently lacks: the ability to get the puck out of the zone and transition the play.

Alternatively, the Senators could look at flipping Cowen’s contract to a team like Philadelphia for a rental. If the Flyers are having difficulty moving Luke Schenn’s contract (in the last year of his contract that pays him $3.35 million but carries an AAV of $3.6 million), why not offer Cowen and a prospect to get out from underneath Cowen’s remaining term? Not only would it save the Flyers $500,000 in cap space, maybe they think they’re smart enough turn Cowen around and see this as a high reward/buy low reclamation project.

Wideman’s presence and balancing the talent distribution can allow the Senators to mitigate the risks created by rolling out a top-heavy first pairing. At the very least, Wideman’s presence alone would be a sizable upgrade on the third pairing, but in balancing the depth across all three pairings, it could bring some stability to a group and by breaking up Karlsson and Methot, the net effect would allow management to evaluate the development and upside of players like Ceci and Wiercioch as they play alongside better partners.