Today was a chance for the players, management and coaches to reflect on the season that was. The 26th place finish doesn't sit well with anyone and the changes have already begun. Cory Clouston was dismissed shortly after the team's final game along with his assistants Greg Carvel and Brad Lauer.
In a media availability this morning, Bryan Murray indicated that the decision to replace Clouston was made awhile ago but that they felt it was best to wait until the end of the year. Murray also said that in the next coach he hopes to find a guy that can get players to respond. A tweet from Ian Mendes indicated that the club plans to hire a coach within a six week window beginning on May 1.
Murray also reiterated what he has said in the past in that the club plans to pursue a top six forward via free agency or through trade.
Clouston also addressed the media for the first time this morning since his dismissal on Saturday night. The former Sens bench boss had nothing negative to say about the organization and indicated that he has already received calls about various coaching vacancies. Good to see Clouston will have some options moving forward.
Meanwhile for a handful of players, preparations beginning for the World Championships. Spezza, Shannon, Da Costa and Michalek are all confirmed while Erik Karlsson is a maybe for Sweden.
Big day for Sens fans tomorrow as the draft lottery is scheduled for 8:00 PM. Steve Lloyd of Team 1200 has done a great job of breaking down the potential outcomes in an article you can read here.
I'll be doing a live blog tomorrow night for the Draft Lottery that kicks off at 7:30 PM. Hope you can all make it out!
On the D-men question: who is most likely to go? We will be entering next season with too many prospective D-men, and it is inevitable that Murray will have to move some bodies somehow. Kuba, Gonchar, Lee and Carkner come to mind. Who is most likely to go?
I know we all want Kuba gone gone gone; will his recent play help his trade stock heading into the off season? What is a probable return?
I also do not see any room for Matt Carkner as well. He will probably be the 7th D man, given that the younger players do indeed crack the roster. Is he a tradeable asset as well?
In regards to FA signings, I hope we can sign Jussi Jokinen. He's by far among the best in the Free Agent market.
Teemu Selanne
Alex Tanguay
Tomas Kopecky
Tomas Fleischmann
Milan Hejduk
Scottie Upshall
Mathieu Garon
Brad Richards
Jamie Langenbrunner
Nicklas Lidstrom
Kris Draper
Michal Handzus
Antti Miettinen
Andrew Brunette
Radim Vrbata
Christian Ehrhoff
Kevin Bieksa
Jussi Jokinen
Joni Pitkanen
Cory Stillman
Tomas Vokoun
James Wisniewski
Andrei Markov
Ryan Shannon
Nikolay Zherdev
Ville Leino
Alexei Kovalev
Simon Gagne
Mike Knuble
Brooks Laich
Jason Arnott
EDIT: Knuble just signed a one year contract with Capitals.
I've been watching some of the discussion on possible coaching choices and haven't noticed one name - Ted Nolan. On the downside, he's known for being difficult for management. But on the upside, he's known as a player's coach whose able to get teams working together. He also won the Jack Adams award. Thoughts?
can you make a list of RFA's?? the UFA list is uggggly, I would take shannon(obvious ly) and jokinen(maybe). . the rest can get bent.
...also, you missed 'tim connolly' and 'alex frolov'..not that it makes any kind of difference.
If NYR are actually interested in Brad Richards, I say Ottawa makes a pitch at RFA Brandon Dubinsky. take him out of centre and give Spezza a 30 goal scoring winger.. OR keep him at centre and make a healthy competition for Dacosta.
Spezza says players are always learning and coaches are too: "He'll get better at the things that he lacked in communication and such."
Fair enough connor. List of *notable* RFA's:
Michael Frolik
Troy Brouwer
Viktor Stalberg
David Jones
Jakub Voracek
Wayne Simmonds
Drew Doughty
Shea Weber
Sergei Kostitsyn
Keith Yandle
Devin Setoguchi
Patrik Berglund
Brad Marchand
Drew Stafford
Andrei Kostitsyn
Zach Parise
Brandon Dubinsky
Ryan Callahan
Steven Stamkos
Clarke MacArthur
Semyon Varlamov
Agreed that the UFA's aren't anything to go leaps and bounds for, but again, I would love Murray to go for Jussi Jokinen.
From that UFA list I am interested in Tomas Kopecky and Brooks Laich. I have no idea what the market is going to be like though....
I think people make the jump too quickly in their mind from having a guy in the system to trading him because we have more of a certain commodity.
Just because you have 8 capable dmen doesn't mean you have to start shipping them off to make a 23 man roster exact, especially considering the generous cap surplus The sens enjoy currently.
Kuba is the only guy who we will be trying to move.
Agreed on Jussi Jokinen though, I love his game now that he's got some NHL experience.
How do teams go about signing Restricted Free Agents again? Something about matching teams' offers or something like that?
Does anybody know if Roger's local network will carry the B-Sens playoff games? You'd think they would be made available to viewers in Ottawa (especially since we are not in the playoffs)
As I said last topic I would love to see a Binghamton Senators blogger to update us on the farm. A blogging contest between interested readers that follow Bingo is how I suggest we find them and their automatic name should be BSensChirp. Thumbs up if you like the idea ;)
C-Mac
Laich would be a very nice signing for Ottawa.
HELLBERG, MAGNUS SWEDEN-2 04/04/91
6' 5" 185 gp.31 avg2.04 s.o.5 sv%0.935
Most videos I've seen of Rundblad he's playing LD which fits in perfectly.
Bergenheim isn't a winner IMO, he's ok but never scored more than 15 goals.
Upshall, Laich and Fleischman would be my targets.
Fleishmann is a good target...51 points in 69 games last year. This year he had a bad injury so that is a writeoff.
Phillips/Cowen
Karlsson/Rundblad
Gonchar/Lee
But I think Cowen and Rundblad are both going to play at reduced minutes for a good while, jumping in and playing big time minutes at the NHL level rarely happens.
I think you'll see Lee substituting for Cowen and Gonchar for Rundblad.
I also find it awesome that this team hasn't missed Carkner one bit. While I do admire what he's accomplished to make it to the bigs, he just is SOL on talent.
Kuba wont be moved, he will be bought out. He's played his last game as an Ottawa Senator
You gotta avoid picking up guys based on their point totals beside awesome talents. Laich and Fleischmann and Bradley have all had inflated stats because they pick up garbage goals and assists from OV and Backstrom and Semin controlling the play.
Not sure why anyone is interested in Scottie Upshall, talk about a sideways move - Nick Foligno is the exact type of player and I'd go out on a limb and say he's better. Have you checked his NHL play, or are you just liking him because of a WJC from a decade ago?
I can deal with us signing a young UFA but I have a massive problem with us trading any assets or picks. We should be collecting picks and building, slowly to become a truly elite team. Teams that rush end up like Toronto has since the lockout.
They were linemates for all of their international competitions before Karlsson took the plane over to Ottawa.
I am pretty sure Karlsson and Hedman were paired most of the time before Karlsson flew over.
No. He will play better next year without an injury at the start of training camp. Couple that with his expiring contract and he will have trade value next season. Why throw that away?
I'm basing all of those off of age + watching them play and envisioning even better point totals on our team.
I am actually thinking about getting AHL live to catch the future Senators on their run if it is reasonably priced.
Doesn't look reasonably priced to me. Hopefully we can find streams.
Yeah $50 for what could be a series or a full run is not worth it to me. I'd pay maybe half that.
I feel I can go toe to toe with anyone and defend my positions but the coward who has usurped my name is too gutless to match wits. This is the final post by the real meadowdog so just know that those inane posts currently showing up under my name are from an imposter and a coward. It's been a slice.
I hope so.
@ Meadow
Which personality is this?
I answered your email last night.
with all the name highjacking thats gone on with the new site, its kinda cute but not really. Either can avatars be added to give a 2nd form of ID or display the username instead of the display name or both?
What do you think of my BSensChirp contest idea?
it is possible to change the display name on a registered account, is there any way for you to differenciate between registered users and form fillerouters? If so you could ban that users account. I'd hate to ban an ip, but you abuse, you lose.
I like it. I plan to reach out to a couple of people first to see if there is any interest. I think even just a once a week update would be good.
Yeah once a week would be cool too. I was thinking a game by game kinda thing like you under a seperate tab but any update on the farm is good.
The impression I've gotten from most hardcore B-Sens fans is that they don't really care about the big club.
Good point. They would probably ramble about what a swedish seive Lehner is and how we should trust Brust.
lol
Me too, like a Bsenschirp. I think it could also open up this site to the entire Bingo fanbase. :)
Quoting Johne:
1) Like the idea of "Ottawa"-based Binghamton reports (weekly, game-by-game or when nec.) The name also works - Simple, familiar.
2) Isn't there just a way you can make sign-ups exclusive? ie you get an account name and then no one else (registered or not) can use that name
3) On Clouston, there were obvious errors: stubbornness, communication, positioning/lin es.
There were also bad circumstances: injured #1, awful backup, players returning from injury, depleted practices and underperformers.
So yes, it was his fault and yes, circumstances were stacked against him - neither 'side' is right.
This is the first rebuild our franchise has undergone - the last time we did this was our initial building of a franchise. We got Phillips, Redden, Yashin and Alfie relatively early in our history. Daigle turned out to be a bust, but we turned Yashin into Spezza/Chara and continued to draft key pieces (Havlat, Hossa [into Heatley], Volchenkov).
I feel like this time around, our only advantage is our goaltender. As much as I loved players like Kelly, Fisher and Vermette, most franchises can replace them with similar prospects.
I don't see a well-rounded Redden (in his prime) or Chara-type in our backend, but we do have immense, more specialized talents. We obviously don't have the clear #1 forwards this time around. Only Spezza (Michalek is borderline).
Part of me thinks our return to cup contention will hinge on finding a late-draft gem like Alfie, Zetterberg, Datsyuk etc
Cowen, Lee, Rundblad, Karlsson, Wiercoch, and Gryba should be a solid group of defense prospects to build around. It's inevitable that we'll get a couple more of these guys through 2nd/3rd rounders over the next 2-3 drafts.
He should have been euthanized long ago.
There will be plenty of downtime this summer when you'll wish there was something going on, so hopefully Chirp puts the hunt for another blogger off until then
Maybe Mark Stone (7th round?) can be that gem.
Are patios open yet? I'm getting thirsty!
I think he's a lock to make it. He's on every lineup I've posted. His only threat of being pushed out is Da Costa and I didn't see enough there yet.
Wouldn't you be a letdown too if you get benched, demoted to 4th line AND played with Kovalev.
We shoulda gotten Ladd eh man?
I think Leino is very overrated and a product of a highscoring offense. Someone will pick him up with a hefty pricetag and I hope it's not us. But if the price is right, he's worth a gamble as a LW.
Give the team another full year to develop and build chemistry, THEN decide what holes you need filled. The UFA market is weak, and rather than make a move just for the sake of making one, why not be patient?
Eugene has already accepted a 2-3 year rebuild, why put all your eggs in one basket in your first year? Isn't that what got us in trouble in the first place; spending money just because we had it to spend?
If Murray DOES sign a winger, I would like to see Michalek moved out, as he will become redundant (unless for some reason alfie can't play)
Young
Cheap
Short term (No longer than 2 years, preferably 1)
Lawrence Pierce asks: I think Homer gets stupider every year.
Well, that's not a question, but gotta side with Tyrant here and say that every time you comment it just gets crazier and crazier.
How on earth does our second-best offensive threat become redundant if we sign a winger?!? Hell, we could sign TWO FIRST LINE WINGERS and still have a perfect spot for Michalek as a high-end 2nd liner. Like Spezza, he picked up his game towards the end of the season, or didn't you notice?
Having a businessman make hockey decisions is like having a computer programmer un-clog your pooper. Put away those wrenches, Euge!
Agree Johne, I like Upshall. Can score and pretty rugged.
I agree... why the UFA/RFA forward this season.. unless it's a team in cap hell.. but that would mean giving up picks/prospects . But the Sens do have 12 picks this year..
The UFA crop is better in 2012 is it not? Wait until then.... let the young guys play to see what you got.
Michalek is a pretty fast skater and is not scared to go to the net with the puck.
I don't think he is redundant at all. But that's just my opinion.
I still would like to see Murray draft Adam Lowry in one of
the later rounds.
Also Adam Lowry plays for the same junior team that Zack Smith that played the Swift Current Broncos
I agree totally with Johne about Milan Michalek.
Last year and also this year, the line of Michalek - Spezza - Alfredsson was a flop !!
Michalek is a 2nd line LW, and can play with fast youg guns
and of course go to the net, and score dirty goals.
He is still young, and I would not trade him.
He will surpass Heatley in goals and total points in 2011-2012 !!
4 mil for 25goal scoring 50 point getting, 2nd/3rd liner who has no chemistry with anybody?
I love his heart and effort, but its Fisher all over again.
DORKIEWIECZ, thanks for saying my "posts" are crazy. I don't mind when people attack the things I say (I do it to others all the time), but Tyrant takes it to a whole new level and attacks me personally.
Thanks for keeping it classy!
I know this is a huge long shot but what are the chances BM targets Zach Parise??
Im just curious we have a bunch of cap space...
This will not be a signing, the pool is severely lacking in legitimate top-6 talent.
Upshall? Nice depth, not a top-6.
Leino? Borderline 2nd liner.
Bergenheim? Career best 15 goals. Checking forward.
Laich? Moving in the right direction.
People talk about not trading depth, but the reality is that there are only 6 spots on a NHL team's blueline.
The way to get this winger is through a trade.
That trade should involve the NSH 1st, Regin, Wiercioch, and one of the 2nd's. Now ask yourself, what do you think the return could be for that package?
The answer is that Ottawa will get a LEGITIMATE 30+ goal scorer from SOMEONE. I honestly think this would be enough to get Nash out of Columbus.
Rebuilds don't have to take 3-4 years of sucking people! Wake up!
but honestly, how do they do "final draft rankings' before the junior playoffs are done? seems like theres lots of hockey left to be played.
Who do we target?
Only his name, Jamieson Oleksiak
Who knew that you were so correct about Ladd.
I dont know how likely it is but I do know I would not rule it out at this point.
Things were a lot more fun when almost everyone posted as anonymous
Just wait for the live blog tomorrow night when everyone chats as Johne :/ lol
Your opinions are always entertaining and often dead on.
Please don't repeat them so often this year though.
http://www.nhl.com/ice/page.htm?id=68892
Haha I didn't think anyone missed the anonymous comment days.
Murray get both of these guys - do it.
Welcome aboard! Love seeing all the new faces around here lately.
For the record I was too : ( Was screaming for BM to grab him when he was flipped to the Hawks for Ruutu. Then again that summer and last year...
Never happened... What could have been.... we'll never know.
Didn't think I was the only one. See if I'm right about Fleischmann this year.
Things were a lot more civil and hockey-oriented in the anonymous days.
I don't recall too many jerks hiding behind USER ID's and trying to be big men in cyberspace.
anonymous usernames helped that? I'd like to hear your expanded theory on that one...
1.Ryane Clowe
2.Rick Nash (I am dreaming)
I think that Rick Nash would be the perfect winger to play with Jason Spezza.
I would give up both Foligno and Regin and Wiercioch and Nash 1st round pick and a 2nd round draft pick for Rick Nash.
I would like to see BM trade for Devin Setoguchi. He is a RFA and San Jose will not be able to pay him. You may be able to get him for Nashville's first rounder.
When it comes to offer sheets, I'd love for Murray to target Brad Marchand. Kid got better and better as the season went on. Could we be possibly looking at a repeat of Claude Giroux here? and while highly unlikey I obviously wouldn't have any objection to BM sending one NJ's way for a certain someone if negotiations go to hell
I personally wouldn't touch Scottie Upshall. Seen some posts about him. Milan Hejduk, Selanne (If he plays again) or Jason Arnott would be nice acquisitions on top of the ones I mentioned earlier. Especially Arnott,,, Ontario boy... He can finish his career in Ontario.
...not Rick Nash.
Same old, same old for trade suggestions... a late first, a lagging prospect, another that needs work and could be decent, plus a 2nd - basically all spare parts for an amazingly talented, sniping franchise player.
Why do you think Columbus is THAT desperate to get rid of Nash? This is not video game hockey - you can't just keep throwing in expendables and think they 'add up' to an established superstar.
It would probably involve less pieces and our pick instead of Nashville's, that is, IF Columbus had an aneurysm and decide to deal him.
are u crazy ?
As good as iginla is, the only person I would trade out of that group is kuba.
And why the heck is da costa in there
And chirp, when's the chirp of the week coming back, I already sent my entry lmao
There will be plenty of days with nothing to talk about in the future. Don't you worry!
Take a look at his previous post ;)
Actually, Nash is well-known even by non-hockey fans here in C-bus, but it is the only hockey name people recognized. He is on every billboard, in every commercial. The only way the BJs trade Nash is for an equally marketable player or a homerun of a trade, not for a handful of rebuilding parts.
The talk continues to be to get Nash a centerman, not to trade Nash. The occasional Spezza to C-bus pops up with same kind of offers going back to OTT that OTT fans want to offer C-bus for Nash..
I don't know about getting Nash. I think it would take a much higher defensive prospect than Weircoch. What about Bobby Ryan, David Booth or Weiss from Florida. But I think with these last 2 it would take a lot less than what you listed. For Bobby Ryan you would have to give up a lot and I can't see Anaheim parting with him either.
There could be other really good young top 6 forwards in the West that we don't see a lot that may be an option as well. I don't know a lot about some of these.
Is it worth trading with Chicago to get Hossa back? Or is that contract just too long to deal with. This guy is like a 'bull in a china shop' and it would be just great to get him back. Does Chicago have to clear cap space for next season as well?
However, Murray did mention in the season ticket holder hot-stove that any top 6 forward he gets would be under 30.
Agree either of them would be great. But isn't Clowe one of the reasons SJ is winning -- along with Couture? He is relatively young with Marleau, Thornton & he who shall not be named, who are getting older.
Would really love to screw over SJ in a deal like that.