During the course of Sunday night’s 6-2 rookie tournament victory over the Toronto Maple Leafs in London, the Ottawa Sun‘s Bruce Garrioch updated the masses on the status of the Senators’ contract talks with free agent to be Marc Methot.
The Senators and Marc Methot’s camp held talks today. No progress. Those discussions will continue. #Sens
— Bruce Garrioch (@SunGarrioch) September 14, 2014
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsOkay, so it’s not exactly the most encouraging news, especially since Senators general manager relayed the message during an exclusive interview with TSN‘s Bob McKenzie that he had told both Methot and his agent that a trade would be made if an extension cannot be reached. Maybe it’s not ideal for the negotiations to drag into the season and potentially serve as a distraction to Methot or his teammates who will be inevitably be posed questions from the media about the defenceman’s uncertain status.
There’s also the sizeable risk that an injury could put Methot on the shelf for an extended period of time and worsen his trade value should the team decide to follow through on its threat to move him. Or maybe the threat to trade Methot is just posturing done through the media to get Methot to come off the terms that he’s looking for. I mean, when’s the last time the Senators moved veteran assets at the trade deadline because they feared not being able to get anything in return for their services?
It’s been quite some time and even players like Anton Volchenkov and Filip Kuba have been held onto because the Senators, for better or worse, put their own short-term interests ahead of the fact they would lose either player for nothing come July 1st.
Perhaps the Senators believe that Marc Methot is different – that he’s too good to lose for nothing. Obviously we’ll have to wait to see how this plays out, but if fans really want to look at this through a positive light, training camp is slated to open this week, but there’s still plenty of time for the two parties to come to terms on a new deal. Hell, even as recently as this past July, the Senators waited until the last possible moment before they re-signed Milan Michalek to a new three-year extension. Even if you hate the Michalek deal, at the very least it’s a small reminder that the Senators can surprise you…
Senators Radio Play-by-Play and Colour Commentator Announcement
This afternoon on TSN‘s ‘The Drive’, Ian Mendes revealed that Dean Brown and Gord Wilson will be the Senators’ radio duo for their preseason games, all 82 regular games and any prospective playoff games. Personally, I think it’s fantastic. Having grown up with this franchise since day one and having worked with Dean Brown on some of the old Sportsnet and Hockey Night in Canada broadcasts, I couldn’t be happier to see him kept in the fold. I’ve seen first-hand how much work he puts in and how much he enjoys doing it. I also really enjoy his call. It wouldn’t have been the same without him.
Other News and Notes…
– Over at the Ottawa Citizen, the excellent Wayne Scanlan detailed how competitive Senators training camp is going to be considering how few openings on the roster there are. Interestingly, Wayne believes that the biggest battle will be between Curtis Lazar and Mark Stone. I’d like to believe that Mike Hoffman will get a lengthy audition to prove that he deserves to be here in a scoring role, especially when the track record of guys like Milan Michalek and Colin Greening have been pretty unimpressive away from Jason Spezza, but who knows how that will that shake out?
– From the Ottawa Sun‘s Bruce Garrioch,
The Senators weren’t sure last night how many players they’d have at camp. Somewhere between 50 and 60. Probably some PTO’s in that group.
— Bruce Garrioch (@SunGarrioch) September 16, 2014
– Just the other day in the Ottawa Sun, Binghamton head coach Luke Richardson pumped Nick Paul’s tires.
“He’s a big guy. He looks like he can be a big core centre,” said Binghamton coach Luke Richardson. “The organization just lost one of those guys (in Spezza) and he came back in the same deal.
“Obviously, he’s not going to replace Jason Spezza right away, but he has the promise to do something like that. (Paul) is a big talented guy, with a big reach, who can skate. You love those guys.”
Considering that assistant general manager referred to Alex Guptill and Nick Paul as projectable future NHL players, he was also quick to point out that neither of the two were blue chip prospects. That’s not to say that Nick Paul isn’t legitimate. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with a projectable third line NHL center, but I just wouldn’t be as inclined to buy into what Luke Richardson is selling.
– Hockey’s Future has revealed their top 20 organizational prospect rankings for the Ottawa Senators. To the surprise of no one, Curtis Lazar tops the list and Cody Ceci, Mark Stone, Matt Puempel and Chris Driedger round out the top five.
– Again over at the Ottawa Sun, Don Brennan wonders if Vincent Dunn is the next Chris Neil. Dunn seems like more of a shi(f)t disturber than Neil who fits in the Patrick Kaleta, Brad Marchand, Alex Burrows, Brandon Prust pest category more than anything. Dunn apparently was also recently suspended for pulling the hair of an opponent in a scrap during his team’s first QJMHL game.
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