There has been a little more bickering than I hoped for in the comment section but thanks to those of you that have taken the time to provide constructive feedback on the articles. One more to go after today's. You may notice this one is a little familiar to the topic we saw on Tuesday but I thought it was only fair to include this one too.
A New Beginning
To see where the Sens are headed we should begin with a look at where they’ve come from. The Sens joined the league in 1992, suffering through 4 years of regular season failure. Then in the summer of 1996 a sense of hope for the future began, as the disappointment before our 11 year playoff showcase ended when a strong defence first coach was hired in Jacques Martin. Much like Paul Maclean is being talked about now, Martin was a systems and team first type of coach.
Alfredsson had just completed his Calder Cup winning rookie season, and though Yashin was a prototypical Russian player, he was able to help carry the first line and the team into the playoffs. Daigle, Cunneyworth, Dackell, McEachern helped round out the top 6 along with a still developing Bonk. The back end was being built around the future of Redden, Neckar and York, surrounded by the veteran leadership of Duschesne, Pitlick, Musil and Laukkanen. Denny Lambert, Pitlick and Cunneyworth were in charge of policing and protecting the team in those days.
In the following years the Sens added Phillips, Hossa, Arvedson, Rachunek, Fisher, Neil, Havlat, Volchenkov, and Vermette through the draft, and then in 2001 drafted the final piece of this puzzle in Jason Spezza. From there the Sens reached the playoffs for the next 11 seasons (excluding lockout) winning the division 4 times, reaching the conference finals twice and the lone Stanley Cup finals appearance against a tougher and deeper Ducks team. Pieces like Heatley were added along the way to help change the look/success of the team.
It felt like a journey that never quite reached its final destination, but every fan of the Ottawa Senators knows they enjoyed almost every minute of those 11 years and the experience of seeing how a cup contending team is built.
Fast forward to this summer, and I see a lot of similarities. Alfredsson has moved from the upcoming rookie to the experienced veteran with a bit of scoring left in him, a la McEachern. Jason Spezza has more than replaced Yashin, and to boot has taken his defensive and team game to a new level that Yashin never reached. Butler appears to be in line to take over on the offensive side much in the way Daigle did, without the cherry picking. Gonchar is expected to match the role Duchesne played, and should bounce back to do so this year. Karlsson in his early seasons has already surpassed the offence of Redden, but still has to work on other parts of his game to be better all around. Rundblad may eventually become the better comparison. Phillips adds that veteran element needed along a young defence.
Michalek has the skills to at least match the goals of a young Alfredsson, but is not the playmaker he was. Filatov and Regin can both surpass what Andreas Dackell was to that team, but they may also both fail at ever reaching their potential. Either way they will get chances in the offensive zone. The most interesting comparison I found is Radek Bonk and Nick Foligno. They both struggled but showed immense promise in their first few seasons in the league. Bonk developed into a decent 2C and eventually dropped to 3C and onto other franchises later on in his career, but while in Ottawa he was mostly a hard worker and loyal team player. Anderson is our modern day Tugnutt, and his Ray Emery type replacement is almost ready in Robin Lehner.
In the coming years we hope to have Cowen, Rundblad, Zibanejad, Da Costa, Noesen, Pumpel, Silfverberg, Wiercicoch and others yet to be drafted arrive to help lift the team to further heights in much the same way as Hossa, Havlat et al did.
The current Sens roster may not create fear for the elite contenders, but is definitely following a true and tested path towards joining the elite ... a path we have seen and enjoyed before, a path the fans will celebrate and support, a path that leads to glory and victory, a path that has taken our last piece of the previous puzzle, Jason Spezza, and lifted him to the first big piece of the new puzzle.
GO SENS GO!
Quite bizarre, but well written for sure. I like this one. Tough choice though... let me think about it over a "strategy meeting" at timmies
Would suggest though that the writer spell the names correctly - it's not hard to do and it knocks credibility when names of even current players are incorrect.
Day 2, Day 4 for the "finals", Day 1, Day 3 voted off the island (IMO).
Maybe the authors of the articles that got slammed earlier in the week would have been able to better express themselves if they had thought they were able to write more.
If you put rules in place regarding this search you should stick by them.
What happened was I mentioned the word limit the first time around and did not include it in subsequent posts. Found that 3/4 of them were over the word limit. Decided it was best to be flexible with the limit.
Overall the ideas were good though, if the writing style was fixed.
Day 4 is my pick as of now.
Glad people are able to look a little bit beyond just the subject being discussed. I felt bad that there were two articles that both covered an interesting subject.
Didn't want to pick one over the other just because I opened it first. Both were well done.
I hope he's better than Redden. But don't let the last few years soil your thoughts of a player being a Redden. Redden was an outstanding defenseman for many years and most teams would kill to have a younger Redden on their roster.
That's one of the most unfair criticisms of Redden. I'm not saying his last couple of years didn't suck, because they did but people are all too willing to forget how good he was.
It doesn't help that he's always linked to Chara either. At the time of the decision it wasn't the slam dunk it appears to be now. Hindsight is magnificent. What Muckler should have been able to see was that Chara was the better option for the future and that dmen like him come along less frequently than good puck moving guys.
Absotively
Although similar in nature, I think you did the right thing in posting them both. Personally, I think all entries, thus far,have been well written.
Good job on your selections, and thanks.
as a word of caution, I'd hesitate before making any form of comparison to Alfie with any player...Alfie was simply a class of his own and we aren't likely to see another player like him in a sens jersey for many years.
I think choice of subject is a pretty important indicator actually. Chirp can't (presumably) assign subjects for every article this person will write. Agree that basing it off only one article is tough, but someone who just writes a rant is (IMO) not as valuable as someone who does some research.
This one so far, fo sho
1 Sidney Crosby PIT
2 Alexander Ovechkin WSH
3 Evgeni Malkin PIT
4 Steven Stamkos TB
5 Daniel Sedin VAN
6 Henrik Sedin VAN
7 Nicklas Backstrom WSH
8 Ryan Getzlaf ANA
9 Martin St. Louis TB
10 Corey Perry ANA
I dont think that's a huge concern. Someone mentioned it before but it's kinda like a singing audition. You just have to come up with something and put your best foot forward.
Trying not to look entirely at the subject.
Ideally I would select someone that I could assign specific stories too. I think that's what we'll do with the two finalists.
Well with the uncertainty of Crosby even playing, I think that list starts off very badly, both Sedins are the hot ticket right now and should be 1-2 with Ovie as 4th, Perry should be ahead of St.Louis and Malkin should be like 7-8.
D. Sedin
H. Sedin
Stamkos
Ovie
Crosby
Backstrom
Malkin
Getzlaf
Perry
St.Louis
IMO Day 2 > 4 > 1 > 3
Again, thanks to all who submitted work.
@hax - what im saying is that just because you might like or dislike 1 article it doesnt mean that whoever is choosen will always write about a subject you want them to. So the subject of choice for 1 article shouldnt be a deciding factor IMO.
Seconded.
Yeah maybe "subject" isn't the right word. But more thinking type of article. Mostly because I think I'd want someone who's going to do some research and spin some stats etc. Fine to include some opinions of course, but I'd like to get something more out of it than just "oh, that's some random guy's opinion".
When someone's auditioning and they just do a rant/opinion piece versus someone that does something a bit unique or that clearly took some time to research.
That is the thing about these leagues, everyone has a different list. I would keep Crosby at 1 because he will play. I would move malkin down quite a bit. Perry should be ahead of Getzlaf and I dunno if Getz should even be on the top 10. That is without doing the research before I go into a draft though...
Crosby
Ovi
D.Sedin
H.Sedin
Stamkos
Malkin
Backstrom
Perry
St.Louis
Getzalf
Maybe in retrospect you should of assigned a topic and then we could have seen where people took that and ran with it (You probably would have killed yourself though with the repetition) :D. Regardless, this has made the worst part of the offseason entertaining so kudos on that.
Thanks! To think, this contest will have passed one of the 8 weeks until training camp.
I think for the finals I will assign a topic for each finalist to write about.
It's been mentioned before, but all of our Leaf games are the second game in a back to back.
Overall it seems like we have a lot of back to back games.
While noting the games in my agenda and looking at the games assigned to my twenty game pack it felt like the schedule was a bit more intense than usual. Maybe it's just that I don't normally look at it as close as I have this year.
Does the NHL regulate the number of back to back games clubs have, i.e. do all teams have the same amount?
I agree, Redden was the model defenseman for a lot of his tenure in Ottawa. It can't be forgotten the contributions he did make. Looking over comparing the two teams though, our current defense does seem like it has a higher skill ceiling.
My thoughts exactly.
Regardless of the similarity in subjects, the article still has to be well written and flow nicely. I found this one did just that. I am not the grammar or spelling police so that matters to me a bit less and is something that can easily be improved upon. But writing style and the ability to captivate your audience is much more important.
I am torn between Day 2 and Day 4 but I think this one may be just ever so slightly ahead. Going to go back to day 2 a re-read it to make sure I have a decision when it comes to vote time instead of sitting on the fence.
Kudos go to all the finalists but a special thanks goes to Day 2 and day 4 authors as they have helped me get through a couple of hockeyless days of summer
Interesting List. In a keeper league it's a lot easier to overlook Crosby's injury because even if it takes a year to come back from you still have a decade of dominance hopefully. I'd still take the chance right now. My list would look like this (keeper league only):
1. Sidney Crosby PIT
2. Alexander Ovechkin WSH
3. Daniel Sedin VAN
4. Corey Perry ANA
5. Steven Stamkos TB
6. Ryan Getzlaf ANA
7. Evgeni Malkin PIT
8. Roberto Luongo VAN
9. Eric Staal CAR
10. Nicklas Backstrom WSH
That's a great idea! At least this way it would give the finalists a chance to follow up their pieces and we'll get a better glimpse as to what they can do on more than just 1 blog.
This really pisses me off. I'd rather see them swing a schedule where there would never be back-to-back games or where they would be the very rare exception. Hockey is a grueling sport, players and fans shouldn't have to endure a beleaguered product because of scheduling stupidity. And it *does* make a difference, which sucks, especially this year in the battle of Ontario. *growl*
Your rankings differ a bit from mine. All depends on strategy:
1.Crosby
2.D.Sedin
3.H.Sedin
4.Stamkos
5.Ovechkin
6.Malkin
7.Perry
8.St. Louis
9.Luongo
10. Parise.
Great idea - and I suggest you make the topic something matching what you'd expect the winner to do long-term. i.e. Bingo, propects, stats etc - whatever you plan for them.
For all of you that have H Sedin in the top 3-5, I'd be interested in hearing your reasoning? I've always found him to be slightly less useful in fantasy because of how low his goal total is. It's a lot easier to find a Spezza, Thornton or some other center later on who can match or exceed what Henrik brings, imo. Just interested in some other perspectives.
If Perry can repeat his offense from last year, his PIMs could make him top 3 in leagues that count that stat.
I've never bought the notion that the Sens chose Redden over Chara. I believe Chara desperately wanted to be a captain and the only way we could have retained him would have been to rip the "C" off Alfie and give it to the big guy. I also suspect that there may have been some unethical behavior on the part of Peter Chiarelli. I've always felt that he left town with Zdeno Chara in his back pocket.
Perry is a wicked fantasy option. A winger, who can score and get plenty PIMS.
My reasoning for H. Sedin is that he puts you miles ahead in the assists category. There aren't too many players that are capable for 75-85 assists in a season. He is also gets great +/- playing for Vancouver. I find choosing a sniper early on helps the deficit in the goal category. I would take Daniel before Henrik though because goal scorers are harder to come by, and he also plays wing which is a shallower position.
I don't blame management one bit for it, at the time they we're both defensemen, elite defensemen at that, who deserved a payday. Captain Hindsight is so smart, Redden was the wrong choice. If you look at the state the team was in then, Volchenkov was rising in the ranks as a shutdown dman and not much on the depth chart for an offensive dman. Redden mind you had a 50 point season (career high), which if you need an offensive dman, why would you look elsewhere? His offensive production wasn't a fluke either, he had averaged ~40 pts or so over the last couple of years and even gave us 36 and 38 pts the following two seasons (when he was 'terrible').
Yes the wrong decision was made, but with the CBA being so fresh and GM's trying to adhere to the cap and not circumvent it *cough cough*, it was simply unfortunate timing or I believe we could have signed both of them.
I guess it all depends on what kind of stats the League keeps and the value of its stats. Our league, goals and assists are the same value, where it counts is on the PP, no PIMS.
Perry did have a better Fantasy year than H. Sedin but its unknown wether he can duplicate it. H. Sedin you know he will.
Very good point, he's definitely a really good player. Thanks a lot for sharing, I like the sniper winger early strat too.
I mainly play yahoo rotisserie leagues these days. Standard is G, A, +/-, PIMs, PPP, SOG for forwards. Definitely with just G, A and PPP the rankings would be very different and I agree both Sedins must get bumped up there.
I believe the Sens were actually intending to opt for Chara instead of Redden but Chara wanted to move on. I think when the Sens drafted Brian Lee the previous summer, erroneously projecting him to be an offensive force, he was supposed to be the replacement for Redden. The team knew they would be unlikely to fit both Redden and Chara under the cap. If they were planning to let Chara walk I think they would have drafted Staal or Bourdon.
It's funny originally my article was going to be more stats comparison instead of just name/role, but as you said the length made it hard to include. I would enjoy a chance to write a more stats based article if I am lucky enough to get that opportunity. If not I could always help you out if you're looking to add a stats section to the website at any point. Just let me know. Good luck with the search, it's been a fun week reading all the contributions and great feedback from the other readers!
congrats on writing this article. I think you've gotta be one of the finalists. I usually agree with your comments on here as they're usually somewhat optimistic, well-formed and fact based, and if I disagree you're always a gentleman and a scholar. so before anyone calls this a mancrush, I'm just saying you've been a fine contributor to this community for a long time and that should also weigh in on Chirp's decision.
For just BM:
http://hfboards.com/showthread.php?t=875812
Which progressed to all GMs:
http://www.hockeydrunk.com/hockey/odds-of-a-draft-pick-playing-a-nhl-game
I think Chara was really upset with the way Muckler handled Hossa. Do you think that had an impact on what he decided.
Chara was very upset to leave Ottawa. In hindsight, it was a bad move... but you can't go back. Let's hope Cowen can make us forget Chara.
August is going to be such a loooooonnnnnggg month.
sarcasm?
Not only because he was able to put all of my personal thoughts into a factual and concise manner, but because even the biggest cynic ( Took ), will have a hard time discrediting what the auther is saying, with all the evidence there to back them up.
I believe this one should be the winner, because he has taken most of the readers comments over the past few months regarding where we stand in the rebuild, and with past evidence, proven that the next 3-7 years will be a very enjoyable ride... so rejoice Sens Fans rejoice!!!
Are there any comparisons you guys found you agreed or disagreed with? I'm interested to see how others would compare the players of the old time line to the new one.
Andrew's Theory made a good point about it being very hard to compare anyone to Alfie with all that he has done and given in his career.
I liked your article very much. I think the only thing I found to be a bit of a stretch was comparing the policing of the two teams. Denny Lambert was, at best, a mediocre
middleweight whereas Pitlick and Cunneyworth really didn't fight that much at all. Those 1990s Sens teams were critisized for being soft whereas today's team has four legitimate tough guys. Advantage modern sens.
That move forced Ottawa to move Chara, which they didn't want to do for obvious reasons. I never heard any bad talk about Chara and members of the org so I'd find it hard to believe he was just shipped out. To add to all this, I was at Baton Rouge around this time and who walked in but Chara with his agent Matt Keator. I was at the table next to them and heard them talking about a trade, but didn't catch the whole story. It wasn't long after he was dealt.
Chara was never dealt. He walked away as an unrestricted free agent. We got nothing in return.
Agreed, it's no Dennis Vial fighting with his off hand because his other one is still broken, but we have a good tough bunch of enforcers these days. Would be nice to run into the Leafs and/or Ducks in the playoffs again.
I'd rather the leafs continue their lack of playoffs for another decade...
Very interesting to see both of those listed. Thanks a lot for sharing the links. Almost makes you wonder why BM didn't get Osgood as our backup for this coming season (joking).
I absolutely must agree!
Chirp out of curiosity who has the most back to back games, and does any other team ie MTL vs Boston, have as many with their arch nemesis... I smell a conspiracy here!
Then again the Laffs will need all the help they can get against the Sens!
I think as a fan-base we're pretty well plugged-into the events of the past 10-12 years of Senators Hockey. If this had been a comparison to a team from 30 years ago it might be more of an entertaining read. I also found there to be a few awkward word groupings and was never pulled into the story in any way.
Hey Jabs,
just wanted to let you know, I put in my comments before reading any of the blogs, because I did not want to see what others thought before putting in my perspective.
I have always enjoyed you comments (and yes I am biased because I am one of the overly optimistic Sens fan) but really liked the comparisons, and if anything, our team of today is stronger in all catagories, which only means our next 5 years should yeild a Stanley cup :)
Great piece (#1 IMO)and good luck to all the entries, they were all good
I freely admit that I agreed with the decision at the time since it *looked* like a guy like Chara would have less impact in the "new NHL" and Redden hadn't really made it clear he was planning to stink going foward. Not that I was happy to see Z go, but I won't pretend I would have done anything different as GM at the time.
IMO: Day 2 is the only contributor that I felt had a compelling article, and good insight. I do support the idea of having the top 2 finalists write on the same topic to better compare/contrast.
Thanks for making the summer a little more compelling with this search Chirp!
30 years ago would not have beeb as relevent,
12 years ago, we were feeling the pain of a losing team, and frusrated, but who would have know that a few years later we would be challenging for the cup, and even come only 3 wins away from winning it all. That was a great ride, and I believe we are now sitting in that same position, where in a few more years we will be enjoying some more wonderful rides
COMMENT: I enjoyed your article and want to encourage more.
CHIRP: Why the funny behavior?
that exact same thing happend to me,
also like to chime in and comment on Chara/Redden
They did try to move Redden and he said no, NTC
it was said that the spoke with the both of them, and Chara was not willing to accept as low as Redden. Redden did go with a home town discount (in hindsit, it wasn't really) where Chara would not, and thats when Muckler made his decision to keep Redden.
only way to have saved that, would have been to have that conversation before the trade deadline, and move him before so we could have got back some asset...
Guess I disagree. Saying that the team 12 years ago was responsible for the Sens getting to the Cup 9 years later is a red herring; if you're going to make that statement then the Cup appearance should be within 2-3 years of the team 12 years ago.
I look forward to the exciting years ahead as the Sens return to contender status, but I'm hoping that we're not waiting another decade to make the Finals!
http://twitter.com/wyshynski - New Puck Daddy: Looking ahead to 2011-12: Ranking the NHLs top defensemen http://yhoo.it/nxaYh2
what I am saying is that at that point we were very frustrated, and after that we went 11 straight years of making the playoffs, with a Stanley Cup final, which is pretty good, ask any Laff fan. And to add to that, we are in a much better position now, then we were back then, so yes I am saying that we are on the verge of 5 great years, IMHO of course
Thank you very much for the feedback and constructive criticism. Obviously with the sens this was the only time in their history that's comparable as there was no team 30 years ago, but I just wanted to provide an article that touched more on the idea that this team can compete for the playoffs this year, like we did in `97, and is building towards perennial contention. Cup winning teams are not built in 2-3 years, it's a continual process, but I too hope it's not another decade away. If it's done right, it should be a lot sooner. Thanks again, and hopefully I'll get another chance to win you over.
Since the topics were so similar it might be worth having a "final" between them (will also help to fill content in what should be another slow week coming up) either as a head to head with the same topic, or two new original submittals.
I hope you make it to the Finals JAB; like to see you get another kick at the can.
Thanks to you and the rest of the people who submitted articles (not just the 5 being hi-lighted this week). Coming on here and offering up criticism, constructive or otherwise, is a luxury the rest of us have after all the time and hard work the rest of you guys put in.
I didn't like 1 and 3 that much but there was still some positives with the writing styles etc.
What's the rush to get down to two?
Or maybe have a poll to see which one of the five drops off and let the other four stay for another week? Kinda like Chirp bachelorette?
Not sure that I'd care to read another submission from the day 1 and day three contributors. I thought the four hundred word limit was about 390 words too long for those guys.
But the point is they chose to write very opinionated pieces and while I hated it too, I think they we're well written and tried to support their ideas. All that being said, I think if everyone was given a more specific topic to write about and go from there, they might actually put together an article that you and I both like. I still like the articles from 2 and 4 way above the rest. But good writing is still good writing.
Chara could have been talked into staying but wasnt about to make the first move. once muckler made his preference for redden known, he began to explore other options. apparently eben at that point he was still interested in staying but it would have taken a call from mickler personally which muckler never made,,,
sigh....
i remember being excited when muckler came in and relieved when he left. the way he handled chara, hossa and redden set this franchise back for years with respect to our record as well as our reputation as a desirable city to play in.
With all due respect, my submission would have been much improved if I wasn't so concerned with being 15 words over the 400 cap. According to my version of Word, today's is 708 words. That's nearly double!
Furthermore, I definitely would have chosen a different topic if I knew I was unrestricted.
SCRAP THE WHOLE CONTEST, MULLIGAN. (It's a long summer anyway, right?)
Thats all the past and while I loved and hated some of Muckler's moves, I can say the same of Bryan Murray. I actually don't know if we'd be any more of a contender today had we managed Chara/Hossa/Red den/Havlat differently. I'd say that we would be more of a Red Wings (consistantly very good for a very long time, hell we had a pretty stellar playoff streak going up to 3 years ago), while that is a good thing and those are/were damn fine players, but not game changers (maybe Chara, he's a beast amongst men, but you still have to consider Tim Thomas to be the Bruin's game changer). Hossa certainly was no game changer, he couldn't be the difference in Pittsburgh or Detroit and lucked out on a beyond stacked roster in Chicago to win a cup. I HATE defending Dany Heatley but Hossa for Heatley was a win for Ottawa during his crybabyless tenure. I doubt we would have ever seen the finals without that trade, so kudos to Muckler on that.
Is it Sens fans? Is it Chirp? You're all so supportive, mature and offer constructive criticism of one another.
There's no "way to go f*g," there's no trolling.
I don't know what it is about this site, but it's just as much the civility and intelligence of the fans posting as it is Chirp's content. Congrats to all or most of you for making this a next-level site.
We really have created something pretty cool here and even though we have our off days (the bickering!) this really has become an awesome place to talk about the Ottawa Senators.
Thanks to everyone that reads and contributes to this site on a regular basis.