Forget all the quotes about players arriving into camp in the best shape of their lives. Throw away all the quotes talking about how (insert any prospect’s name here) who really made a positive impression. Throw away all those concerns about Erik Karlsson cutting his hair and punt all those quotes about how management anticipates having a competitive club that can hang with any team on any given night.
It’s been a while. Not in a “Hey, it’s been 22 years since your last playoff appearance” while, but it has been quite some time since the Senators’ last game.
That ends tonight when the Senators kick things off with their season opener in the majestic city of Buffalo.
There’s nothing really new rehash since publishing the ’19 Talking Points for the Upcoming 2015-16 Season’ article, but thanks to the line rushes from this morning’s skate, there are a few points for discussion.
Here they are:
Hoffman-Turris-Stone
Ryan-Zibanejad-Lazar
MacArthur-Pageau-Michalek
Chiasson-Smith-Neil
Extra: Prince
Methot-Karlsson
Wiercioch-Ceci
Cowen-Borowiecki
Extra: Wideman
Clarke MacArthur indicated that he’s 50-50 on whether or not he’ll play this evening. will be a game time decision. If he can’t go, Shane Prince will draw in and probably bump Alex Chiasson up to the third line and Milan Michalek to his natural left wing spot.
Assuming MacArthur will play, what really strikes me is that three Senators forwards (Ryan, Chiasson, and Michalek) and one defenceman (Borowiecki) are playing their respective off-side. Up front, it’s a by-product of keeping veteran Chris Neil in the lineup and putting Curtis Lazar in a second-line role. My feelings about having Neil and Smith together are well documented, but having Lazar play a prominent top six to start the season is a wrinkle that I wasn’t anticipating.
Looking at last year’s production levels, only Chris Neil, David Legwand, Zack Smith and Colin Greening had worse Points/60 minutes of five-on-five ice time rates than Curtis Lazar. Although he started to shoot the puck with more regularity down the stretch last season and has been working on his shot with Daniel Alfredsson during camp, I’m skeptical of his offensive upside. In fairness to Lazar however, his defensive acumen was advanced beyond his years and maybe there is an opportunity for more offensive growth as he gains more confidence in this league, but I don’t know if he’ll ever produce at a top-six level.
Of course, his placement in the top six simply could be the result of Dave Cameron trying to spread out his scoring and defensively responsible players across three lines instead of loading up his top six. But if the Ryan and Zibanejad combination struggle away from Mike Hoffman like they did last season, maybe it would be better for the team in the long-run to return Hoffman to the second line instead of loading up a first line of with Hoffman/Turris/Stone.
As much as I like the idea of putting Hoffman with defensively responsible players like Stone and Turris, those two don’t need Hoffman to produce and generate offence. They proved that down the stretch last season.
Other News and Notes:
– Ian Mendes’ latest delves into how the Senators arrived at trading Robin Lehner this offseason instead of Craig Anderson. Not surprisingly, Murray acknowledged that he never really entertained the idea of moving the goalie who’s still here, Anderson. Whether he’s being truthful, who knows? It’s entirely possible that he simply feigned Anderson’s availability to help create leverage and drive up the price on his other goaltender.
If you think Murray is concerned about trading a goaltender within the Atlantic Division after he sold low on Ben Bishop, he’s not.
“I did it in the conference with Ben Bishop and I knew Ben was a good goalie. I really liked Ben as a person, but to be fair to the player, you have to give him a chance to go somewhere and have a career,” explains Murray. “It’s not my job to bury guys. It’s my job to give guys a chance if they don’t have an opportunity with our organization.”
Sometimes I wish the organization would leave the best interests of a player to the individual or his agent(s), but c’est la vie. At least in this instance with Lehner, he prioritized maximizing the return and that’s all you can really ask for.
– Sticking with TSN.ca, Travis Yost had an article that examined whether or not the numbers portend a return to goal-scoring prominence for Bobby Ryan. Although Ryan’s shot volume has not changed much from its historical norms, Yost notes that Ryan is taking less shots from high-scoring areas. It feels safe to assume that Ryan’s hand injury factored somewhat into his 2014-15 numbers, but now that he is healthy, this season will give us a better idea on whether Ryan can exceed his production levels from his first two seasons.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
