Ottawa Senators’ Struggles Could Lead To More Movement
The Ottawa Senators were facilitators of the biggest trade of the season so far, when they acquired Matt Duchene from the Colorado Avalanche while sending out Kyle Turris and a package of picks and prospects. That deal certainly shook things up in the Canadian capital, but so far not for the better. The Senators have gone 3-7-1 with Duchene in the lineup, and the former Avalanche center has just two points during that stretch. The struggles may lead to some more changes, as Bruce Garrioch of the Ottawa Sun reports.
Garrioch singles out Cody Ceci as the team’s top trade asset, noting that the Avalanche did try to acquire him in a deal for Duchene before the Nashville Predators were involved. Ceci’s high value isn’t all that surprising given his relative youth and experience, but some would say that it’s not warranted. The 23-year old defenseman rates very poorly in possession statistics, but at least part of that is due to his role playing against some top competition. Still, with just three even strength points on the year Ceci is struggling just like the rest of the roster.
The problem with Ottawa looking to acquire more talent though is that they don’t operate as a cap ceiling team. Moving out money—including Andrew Hammond‘s $1.35MM contract, that was already barely affecting the cap—was an important part of the Duchene deal, as the team can’t afford to pay out much more salary, especially if there are no playoff revenues on the way. That would suggest a player would be on his way out, but there are few obvious options.
Ceci is a restricted free agent at the end of the year, and will be expected a substantial raise from his current $2.8MM deal, but it’s obviously the Senators’ preference to keep him. Derick Brassard has just one more season at $5MM on the books, but would leave a gaping hole in the team’s center depth should he be moved. Bobby Ryan and Dion Phaneuf are both too expensive for their performance, but likely have too much money left on their deals to really drum up any interest, and you’re not trading Mike Hoffman, Mark Stone or Erik Karlsson.
The next move for the Senators might have to come internally as Garrioch suggests, but they’ve already given Thomas Chabot a bump in responsibility and it hasn’t worked. Bringing up young forwards like Colin White, Filip Chlapik or Nick Paul could be next, but none look like game-changing presences at the moment. There’s no clear answer in Ottawa, but you can be sure GM Pierre Dorion is working to find one.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images
Chabot's Minutes Suggest He's Here To Stay
- James Gordon of The Athletic writes that Ottawa Senators’ defenseman Thomas Chabot is here to stay in the NHL after his performance in the team’s 6-5 OT victory over the New York Islanders on Friday. It wasn’t just that Chabot put up a goal and two assists in the win, but it was the minutes that the 20-year-old got in the game, which was 15:23, a very high number from a coach in Guy Boucher who is known not to give minutes out to young players.
Evening Notes: Division Realignment, Roussel, Engelland, Chychrun
With the Toronto Maple Leafs making stops in Calgary on Tuesday and Edmonton on Thursday, the rivalry between those Canadian Eastern and Western Conference matchups are off the charts. The Athletic’s James Mirtle (subscription required) wonders if it wouldn’t be a smart idea to change the conferences, especially down the road when the Quebec Nordiques return to the NHL.
The scribe’s suggestion is create an all-Canadian conference to replace the Central Division, moving all eight Canadian teams including the Montreal Canadiens, Ottawa Senators, Toronto Maple Leafs, Winnipeg Jets, Vancouver Canucks, Edmonton Oilers, Calgary Flames and Quebec City in the same division. Non-Canadian Central Division teams would be moved to either the Atlantic Division or the Pacific Division where the Canadian teams left holes.
There would be two key outcomes to this move, including increased revenue as rivalry matchups in 34 out of each team’s 82-game schedule will increase ratings and increase ticket sales. Currently, Canadian teams only play 16 games against in-country rivals. Playoffs would also promote multiple Canada-vs.-Canada rivalries and also would increase TV ratings.
Mirtle mentions some downsides to realigning the divison, which would include increased travel times for other teams such as the Minnesota Wild if they were moved to the Pacific Divison, but still feels the NHL should seriously look into that over the next few years.
- The Dallas Stars will be without wing Antoine Roussel, who is expected to miss tonight’s game against the Chicago Blackhawks with the flu, according to coach Ken Hitchock. The coach added that Roussel is day-to-day regarding Sunday’s game against the Colorado Avalanche. Roussel has three goals and eight points in 25 games for Dallas.
- Las Vegas Review-Journal’s David Schoen writes that Vegas Golden Knights defenseman Deryk Engelland remains day-to-day after suffering an injury to his hand in Thursday’s game against the Minnesota Wild. The 35-year-old blueliner missed last night’s game against the Winnipeg Jets. He has two goals and nine points in 24 games this season and has been a key piece to the expansion team’s successful run so far this year.
- Craig Morgan of NHL.com tweets that Arizona Coyotes coach Rick Tocchet said that defenseman Jakob Chychrun might play Sunday against the Vegas Golden Knights. The 2016 first-round pick hasn’t played this year and is currently on a conditioning stint with the Tucson Roadrunners of the AHL. He had knee surgery in August and would make a big addition the Coyotes defensive core. He played 68 games for Arizona last year as an 18-year-old.
Mark Borowiecki Not Progressing Well From Concussion
While the Senators got some tough news yesterday on the injury front after it was revealed that defenseman Chris Wideman will undergo hamstring surgery on Monday that puts his availability for the rest of the season into question, that’s not the only bad news from their back end. Head coach Guy Boucher told reporters, including Postmedia’s Ken Warren, that blueliner Mark Borowiecki continues to experience concussion symptoms despite being inactive. As a result, it’s hard to imagine that he will be able to return to the lineup anytime soon either. That gives youngsters like Thomas Chabot and Ben Harpur a chance to really solidify a spot on Ottawa’s back end in the weeks and months to come.
Senators Claim Chris DiDomenico Off Waivers From Tampa Bay
Chris DiDomenico‘s stint in Tampa Bay’s organization didn’t last long. After being placed on waivers yesterday, the Senators have claimed the winger, per a team announcement (Twitter link). This comes on the heels of the Lightning claiming him from Ottawa just a week ago.
[Related: Updated Senators Depth Chart from Roster Resource]
In his time with Tampa Bay, DiDomenico only played in the minors on a conditioning stint. He suited up in three games with their AHL affiliate in Syracuse, scoring once during that span.
DiDomenico initially cleared waivers at the end of training camp but injuries up front gave him a chance to be recalled early on in the season to Ottawa. He initially made quite the impact as he recorded five points in his first five games. However, his ice time decreased after that and he picked up just a lone assist in his final seven games with the Sens before they placed him on waivers last weekend.
If the Senators were the only team to claim the 28-year-old, they will be eligible to send him down to their AHL affiliate in Belleville. If, however, any other team behind them in the priority list put in a claim, then they would have to re-waive him in order to try to send him back down.
- In other waiver news on Saturday, Oilers winger Iiro Pakarinen cleared waivers, per Pierre LeBrun of TSN and The Athletic (Twitter link). The team announced via Twitter that he has been assigned to Bakersfield of the AHL.
The Case For Points Percentage
It’s not often in sports that there is a need for something as trivial as a change in how standings are listed. Yet, that is the exact situation that the NHL faces. Ever since the league changed its schedule format a few years back so that every team played in every building every year, scheduling has become increasingly difficult and teams play out their seasons far differently from one another. The result, at any given point in the season, is a wide gap in games played between teams across the league – one that has stretched as high as 8 games between the teams with the most and fewest games played.
With a points-based standings system, a games played gap greatly misrepresents the success of teams relative to one another. While anyone can look and see that a 25-5-5 team is superior to a 22-10-11, the problem is that the standings say otherwise – both teams have 55 points – and the average layperson isn’t going to calculate a metric to differentiate the two when just casually looking at the standings. In the end, all teams play 82 games, but for the ease of fans and even some media members to better analyze how teams are performing in-season, and additional metric is needed.
That metric is points percentage, which of course is the amount of points a team has accrued (two-point wins and one-point OT/shoot-out losses) out of how many possible points they could have earned with a win in each game. Similar to winning percentage, the main standings metric for the MLB and traditionally listed on NFL and NBA standings as well, points percentage is an easy way to show how teams are doing relative to a .500 mark and, more importantly, relative to each other. The only problem is that, while very easy to calculate and very useful, no one in hockey is yet using this stat in their standard standings. NHL.com should, above everyone else, at least use points percentage in their standings, especially since it is a metric they have on hand, but they don’t. Instead, users can go to team stats, where it is a searchable statistic, and refine their search by conference and division to see relevant standings. Helpful, right? ESPN, TSN, Fox Sports, and CBS Sports are among the other major sports information outlets who have yet to adopt points percentage for their NHL standings, continuing to leave fans without complete information.
The one site hockey fans should use: the old stand-by Hockey Reference. The reliable stats site lists points percentage right alongside points in its 2017-18 standings, allowing for an easy look at the true performances of teams so far this season. Do yourself a favor, and take a quick look. Points percentage is topical right now, as a perfect case study is playing out in the Atlantic Division. Yes, the season is only a quarter of the way in, but the margin in games played is already skewing the view of the league’s weakest division:
Fans of the struggling Montreal Canadiens are ecstatic to be back in a playoff spot with 27 points in 27 games and fans of the Detroit Red Wings are proud of their club for sticking around with 25 points in 26 games, good enough for fifth place in the division. What about the fourth-place Boston Bruins? Well, the Bruins have 26 points… but in 23 games. Due to the gap in games played between the B’s and the Habs and Wings, it looks like Boston is just another team in the mix. Yet, in terms of points percentage they are a ways ahead. The Bruins are currently at .565, right up there with the New York Rangers, Pittsburgh Penguins, and Washington Capitals within the Eastern Conference. The Canadiens are at .500, no better than the Atlantic’s sixth-place squad, the Ottawa Senators, and well outside playoff contention at this point. The Red Wings are at just .481, a success rate much closer to the Florida Panthers than the Bruins.
The whole outlook of the Atlantic is skewed due to the games played gap and points percentage is a clear way to show accurate standings. It is also a straightforward metric to calculate and display. So why haven’t more platforms adopted it? It’s time for the NHL and other sports media outlets to help out hockey’s spectators and format their standings to actually show how the season is going.
Erik Karlsson Unwilling To Take Hometown Discount
Erik Karlsson‘s contract doesn’t expire until the end of the 2018-19 season and he isn’t even eligible to sign an extension yet, but when you’re the best defenseman in the NHL, everyone is focused on your future and (potential) availability. So, it’s no surprise that a question of his future was posed at practice Thursday. However, the surprise, at least for many Senators fans, was his answer, as retold by the Ottawa Citizen’s Ken Warren:
“When I go to market, I’m going to get what I’m worth, and it’s going to be no less, no matter where I’m going… That’s the business part of it. That’s the way every player has been treated ever since this league has started, and I think the players have been a little bit on the other side of things when it comes to negotiations. I think it’s time to realize that when we go to the table, it’s business on both parts, not just (owners)… “I like it here, I’m comfortable here, I’ve been here my whole career… but at the end of the day, when it comes down to it, if it’s not the right fit and it’s not going to work out business-wise, then you’re going to have to look elsewhere because that’s what (owners) are going to do, as well.”
Karlsson isn’t incorrect – it is far more frequent in all pro sports to see a star athlete take a hometown discount to stay with a team than it is for a team executive to offer a premium contract to retain such an athlete. Karlsson clearly recognizes that he is one of the best in the game and is deserving of perhaps a record-setting contract, one that should at least erase P.K. Subban‘s $9MM mark as the highest AAV ever handed to a defenseman. A Norris-caliber defenseman hitting the open market at the age of 28 is beyond rare and Karlsson is ready to cash in. However, the big question – and one that could plague the team for the next year plus – is whether the Ottawa Senators will be the club that ponies up for Karlsson’s massive promotion.
Snapshots: Hurricanes, Senators, Fletcher
Carolina Hurricanes owner Peter Karmanos has been considering selling the majority of his share of the team for some time, and today John Shannon of Sportsnet confirmed with team President Don Waddell that they are currently in talks with billionaire Thomas Dundon. Chuck Greenberg had previously been linked as a potential buyer, but now it appears Dundon is the prime candidate.
Shannon confirmed that the deal would be for a controlling interest of the Hurricanes but that relocation would not be part of it. While that obviously doesn’t guarantee a long-term future for Carolina, it at least should calm Hurricanes fans for the time being. Dundon is from Texas, though not from the Houston area that has become the hot city in relocation and expansion speculation around the league.
- Another team that has been surrounded by rumors of a potential sale is the Ottawa Senators, and though he can’t definitively deny it won’t eventually happen, TSN’s Darren Dreger reports owner Eugene Melnyk will be not selling anytime soon. NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman recently said that a downtown arena is “vitally important” to the Senators’ long-term future in Ottawa, something Melnyk has been trying to convince the city of for years. Currently in discussions over the Lebreton Flats area near downtown Ottawa, a new building would certainly be a step in the right direction for the franchise.
- This morning, The Athletic published a piece by former NHL executive Frank Provenzano about general managers working in the final year of the contract and the dangers that can pose for a franchise. Now, after quite a bit of digging, Michael Russo reports that Chuck Fletcher of the Minnesota Wild is doing just that. Fletcher was quite active at last year’s deadline to try and push the Wild over the edge in the playoffs, only to see his team bow out in the second round once again. Now, stuck near the bottom of the standings in the Western Conference a “lame duck” GM could be pushed do to something drastic. There’s no reason to believe Fletcher would make such a move, but be sure to keep an eye on the Minnesota situation if their struggles continue.
Snapshots: Chabot, Johansson, Berglund
Just a day after sending him down to the minors, the Ottawa Senators have called defenseman Thomas Chabot back up from AHL Belleville. The team is finding it hard to keep the promising blue liner in the AHL and for good reason. The 2015 first-round pick has looked better and better with each game played in the NHL, now with three points and a +2 rating through five 2017-18 contests. He also handled more ice time well in his most recent stint, including extensive action on the power play. In fact, Chabot’s 2:34 average power play time on ice is second only to Erik Karlsson among Ottawa defensemen. The Sens are running out of excuses to not keep their prized prospect in the big leagues, especially when he has shown superior play in the NHL versus the AHL and appears to have already outgrown the minors. There was no specific reason given by the team for this latest recall, but one would think that Chabot could be up for a longer stint this time around.
- Another fan base ready for an exciting addition back to their roster is the New Jersey Devils. Devils beat reporter Amanda Stein reported today that Marcus Johansson has been cleared to re-join the team and should be ready for New Jersey’s upcoming road trip. Johansson has not played since November 1st due to a concussion, but appears to back at full strength for a Devils team that has exceedingly outperformed expectations this season despite several medical absences. Johansson, of course, was New Jersey’s big off-season acquisition, coming over via trade from the Washington Capitals. However, Johansson has only seen ten games of action in 2017-18 and should be primed to add to his mere five points thus far when he takes the ice again this week.
- Fellow Swede and injured center Patrik Berglund appears poised for a return from injury soon as well. St. Louis Blues beat writer Lou Korac reports that the long-time Blue could be back as early as Wednesday from off-season shoulder surgery that has kept him off the ice so far this season. Yet, like fellow core teammate Jay Bouwmeester, the Blues have hardly felt his absence this year. The NHL’s best team has been rolling in 2017-18 without Berglund, Robby Fabbri, Zach Sanford, and until recently Bouwmeester. Yet, logic would dictate the team would only get better upon Berglund’s return and that should scare the other 30 teams in the NHL.
Andrew Hammond Sent Back To Belleville
When the Colorado Avalanche traded Matt Duchene earlier this season, they acquired not only a solid package of young prospects and picks, but a salary-dump goaltender in Andrew Hammond. Hammond’s contract was too expensive to be sitting at the AHL level for the Ottawa Senators, so they shipped him off to Colorado to clear room for Duchene’s added costs.
With two NHL goaltenders on the books and a full crease in San Antonio, the Avalanche immediately started to shop Hammond around looking for a potential asset for the 29-year old goaltender. After all, Hammond had shown the ability to succeed in the NHL for at least short bursts and could be useful to a team with injuries in the crease.
It seems like they were unable to find a buyer though, as Colorado has once again loaned Hammond back to the Belleville Senators of the AHL, effectively sending him back to Ottawa while picking up his salary tab. His $1.35MM cap hit will mean that Colorado still takes a $225K hit even with him buried in the minor leagues, and his actual salary of $1.5MM will continue to be paid out by the Avalanche.