There has been no bigger story on the Ottawa Senators this season than Anthony Duclair (Thomas Chabot‘s heavy usage might be a close second). The 24-year old forward was acquired as part of the return for Ryan Dzingel, but frustrating stints with four teams already in his young career made it hard to expect much of him in Ottawa. Instead, Duclair has completely turned things around and now sits with 21 goals through his first 38 games of 2019-20.
That kind of production is an incredible leap for the young forward, but on a one-year $1.65MM deal it also places a ton of intrigue on his future. The Senators are in an obvious rebuild, but Duclair now represents arguably their best offensive weapon and could be a huge part of their future.
When he got off to his hot start this season, many speculated that Duclair could be another trade chip for the Senators to use for future assets. Not so fast says Darren Dreger of TSN, who examined the situation yesterday:
I supposed there could be the threat of trade–again the Ottawa Senators are still very much in a rebuild format, so they could dangle Anthony Duclair out there. But again, given the offensive production of Anthony Duclair this year it makes sense that the Ottawa Senators will do everything they can up to January 1st, maybe soon after January 1st, to get a contract done.
Earlier in the segment, Dreger suggests that a three-year contract extension could work for both sides given that Duclair is two years away from unrestricted free agency. That would buy out a year of open market value on the young sniper, but also provide him with some security that he hasn’t had so far in his young career.
January 1st is the threshold for anything to get done, as Duclair can’t sign an extension until then given he is currently on a one-year contract. That gives him two more games to continue his torrid scoring pace and provide even more leverage, though you can’t get much hotter than 21 goals in 38 games. That is a full-season pace of 45, nearly equaling the entire rest of his career—Duclair had scored 48 goals before coming to Ottawa, and now has 29 in 59 games between this season and the end of last.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images
Seems like a Penguins type of target.
His advanced stats are awful, has a terrible history. Would be such an Ottawa move if they give him 3 years
Kind of a weird spot to be in if you’re the Sens. He’s been quite good this year, his production has not been PP dependant(5 PPG vs 15 ESG) and he’s youthful enough to be a long term piece. On the flip side, his shooting percentage is nearly 19% so regression should be expected, he has never been this good as a pro and 15 of his 21 goals have been scored in the past 19 games so this could just be an insane hot streak. If it were me as GM, I’d much prefer to do a 1 year deal vs a 3 year deal and see if Duclair is actually this good or if it’s a mirage.
I think this is kind of a tough call but if I’m the sens g.m. I think I got to try to sell as high as I can to really get this rebuild underway. Tank as hard as I can hope for that number one pick while also hopefully getting multiple high draft picks/ almost ready nhl ready prospects. I would love feedback on this.
I think they already have seven picks in the first two rounds of the next two drafts, with three of them more than likely top ten overall. Might be time to start adding vets and extending guys like this.
They only have two first rounders this year (theirs and the Sharks) which if the standings stay the way they are will probably both be top 10. Their two extra 2nd rounders (Dallas and Columbus) looked like late 30s until this past month, but now they’re 50th and 41st respectively and trending in the wrong direction. But a Pageau and Duclair package could likely get them at least an 18th ovr this year and another 1st next year (plus some 3rd rnds they can use to trade up) from any WC team that needs to boost their offense.
They really screwed up last year by only getting one 2020 1st round pick out of Duchene, Stone, Karlsson, and Dzingel
he’s still a RFA this upcoming year, no? sounds like its worth waiting on an extention, unless he’s willing to a concede a bargain