The Backhander: Kadri Gives Sens Fans The Douche Chills... Pageau Snaps Them Out Of It

It’s very easy to dislike Nazem Kadri.

Senators fans find it easy to despise anyone wearing the blue and white of the Toronto Maple Leafs, but it’s been a while since there’s been a real pain in the ass like the brash and talented Kadri, at least not since the days of Darcy Tucker, Tie Domi, Shayne Corson, Steve Thomas and Gary Roberts.

Last night’s exhibition tilt in Kanata featured Kadri at his antagonizing best – yapping at the refs, scoring a big goal, throwing softies at the only player smaller than him and generally acting like the superstar he is in his own mind.

Reading back that last sentence, I suddenly realize I’ve been afflicted with fan disease, something I’ve managed to avoid for most of the time I’ve done this blog. But Kadri is just that kind of player. He has that lethal combination of knowing how good he is (ie. contract holdout) and being that good for a team that year after year beats and bullies the Senators in every important game.

You can’t claim he isn’t effective. When you think of the most noticeable players on the ice last night, both Kadri and J.G. Pageau immediately come to mind and it’s no surprise the nastiest moment of the game happened to be a confrontation between those two along the boards.

Pageau threw a tough little hit on Kadri and the two ended up exchanging a few gloved shots before the inevitable swarm began. In that melee, David Clarkson tried to pry Pageau’s helmet off sideways which nearly resulted in Pageau’s head coming clean off. It’s hard to say if it was Kadri’s punch which bloodied Pageau below the eye or Clarkson’s fingernails, but somehow the Leafs ended up on the power-play and Kadri himself scored the goal, accentuating it with a “Yep, I just did that” hand wave as a celebration.

Sens fans everywhere had the douche chills.

Luckily for those same fans, they got to watch Pageau do his imitation of a young Denis Savard all night, dangling and racing around like a guy who doesn’t know or doesn’t care he’s the smallest guy on the ice.

There really is something special about this kid. In interviews he’s very soft-spoken, almost shy, but when he’s on the ice he has this real spirit in his play that goes beyond his all-too obvious skills. He’s not afraid of anybody or any situation. We all saw the hat-trick against the Canadiens in last year’s playoffs, Pageau’s first in the NHL. You could forgive a young, French-Canadian rookie being a little intimidated playing the legendary Habs in his first playoff series, especially with just 9 regular season games under his skates. Yet Pageau ended that series with his name being chanted in the stands, which is unheard of, at least in this town.

You could also predict that same player getting a bit of a swelled-head after all the hype and coming into this camp thinking a roster spot was locked up. Clearly, Pageau doesn’t have this problem. He was playing desperate hockey, going as hard as he did last spring and making a few well-paid veterans look like they were waiting for the 96 bus to Bayshore.

I don’t know how Paul MacLean or Bryan Murray can justify keeping this kid off the team. It’s going to mean someone on a one-way contract is going to be pretty pissed off being waived, demoted or traded, but there’s no denying how dynamic and exciting a player Pageau is right now.

Get ready for the next decade as Kadri and Pageau make this Battle Of Ontario their own.

***

The other real standout for Ottawa was Patrick Wiercioch who was nailing tape-to-tape passes all night coming out of his zone and looking dangerous on the first-unit power-play with Erik Karlsson. He still looks gangly out there, a bit like Scooby Doo on skates, but he’s clearly coming on as a real offensive threat and looks a bit stronger out there. If he permanently steps up to the first PP unit, that lets Ottawa keep Joe Corvo on the second unit which is a pretty good one-two punch of offensive defensemen. .... That was a hell of a backhand by Andre Petersson, who also had a real good night. It’s scary how many forward prospects this team has right now. You can see why Murray didn’t have much of an issue trading Stefan Noesen in the Bobby Ryan trade. Ottawa could lose two or three of these guys and still have a loaded prospect pool. Expect longer and longer tenures in Binghamton for young players, much like Detroit’s model.... Been hearing a lot of great things about Swedish defenseman Fredrik Claesson and last night was the first time I got to see him play. Seemed very steady in his 16 minutes of play, almost unnoticeable except for his goal. You know how the cliche goes, “the less you notice a young defenceman, the better....”

.... Very surprised to see Karlsson logging over 29 minutes last night, on top of the 26 he played against Winnipeg earlier this week. Maybe MacLean is trying to push that leg and see what happens. If that’s the case, I don’t there should be any worries about Karlsson’s skating. The guy looked incredible out there. I think there’s a huge season coming up here.... And if you’re worried about the Spezza-Ryan-Michalek line, don’t be. In a month you’ll be looking back and wondering why everyone was so worked up about pre-season hockey anyways. These guys will be ready to go when the puck drops for real.

Black Aces Vintage: 78-79 Topps Wrapper

How incredible is this 78-79 Topps hockey wrapper?

Image courtesy of Shoebox Legends.

The Backhander: Karlsson Does A Tap Dance on the Jets And Other Pre-Season Notes

A few quick notes on the Ottawa Senators returning to action in Winnipeg last night for some pre-season hockey:

The only important reason to watch that game through the Jets website feed (with 1972-era AM radio audio quality) was to get an early look at Erik Karlsson. If he had come out of the gates looking slow and awkward, that could have been enough for some Sens fans to call the season off right there and head to the closest Royal Oak for a bender. Thankfully, the franchise kid looked fine. More than fine. He was the best player on the ice and seemed to have a little of that old swagger back too, smiling in between shifts, winking at the ladies in the stands (that’s a lie but it’s a good lie). His skating was noticeably better than it was in the playoffs. You’d even be tempted to say he looked exactly like the pre-Cooke Erik Karlsson but a September evening in Winnipeg isn’t enough to bet the house. But it’s a promising start.... There’s something about seeing the captain’s “C” on a #19 sweater in the NHL that just looks right. We can thank Steve Yzerman and Joe Sakic for that. Jason Spezza wore it for the first time last night and it’ll look pretty good on a hockey card. .... That top line looked really strong and not just because of Bobby Ryan’s snipe goal (which was a beauty). To me it was a healthy looking Milan Michalek who was going “biceps, triceps, arseps hard” everytime he went over the boards. I’ve never been convinced of any real chemistry between Michalek and Spezza, but with Ryan now there to feed off #19’s passes, that frees Michalek to do that straight-line, head-down style and go to the net which just naturally makes more room for his linemates who like to dangle a little bit. Michalek was even diving for pucks in what was a meaningless exhibition game. Maybe this guy is back in business. If he’s going like that all season, it’s almost a bonus scoring winger for the Senators. I’m not too sure many people were banking on him being healthy enough to play that style or stay in the lineup. First impressions are good though....

The player that surprised me most was Stephane Da Costa, who seemed to create something every time he was on the ice. He’s been the forgotten prospect in the organization and I’d almost forgotten how talented he really is. Yet even if he stays on this path through the pre-season, I can’t see him earning a spot on this team. Not only are the Sens over-stocked down the middle, but one more mighty mite may be one too many with Cory Conacher and J.G. Pageau expected to play games this season.... Nice to see Jim O’Brien still exists as a player for this franchise after being buried late last-season due to rumoured ice-time complaints. I was more impressed with college kid Buddy Robinson who ended up with a goal going to the net and generally played like the behemoth he is. He’s probably way too green to start the season here, but sometimes just having size is enough to be effective with limited minutes in the NHL. Just look at Matt Kassian in last year’s playoffs and in Winnipeg last night. As long as Kassian lays the body on every shift and keeps his tree trunks moving, he has an undeniable presence out there. Robinson obviously has way more tools than Kassian does, but if he plays any games this season, it will be his size and strength that keep him around until he develops his offense and gets a feel for the league. I think he’s one of the first call-ups when injuries hit, as they inevitably do....

Joe Corvo was back in a Senators uniform, and despite all the tired “Uh Oh” jokes on Twitter, he looks like he’s going to be a good veteran defenseman for this team. He’s a definite downgrade from Sergei Gonchar, but if you think of his role in terms of what the Sens wanted from Andre Benoit and Matt Gilroy in past years, he’s an upgrade for the second power-play unit. He had one tough giveaway in Winnipeg, but who’s counting in the pre-season? I guess I was..... Cory Conacher stood out and there really is something nasty about Conacher’s game that I love, yet he still feels like an odd fit on this team right now. With Mike Hoffman getting the early chance to show what he can do alongside Kyle Turris and Clarke MacArthur, Conacher may end up being a part-time player. I did like his approach in Winnipeg and he may make a believer out of me soon.... Something like this had to happen, didn’t it? In Spezza’s presser upon being named captain, his assistants Chris Phillips and Chris Neil had to help him with his collar before the photo-op. Spezza just laughed along with the reporters as he was tended to like a little kid on his first day of school. It wasn’t exactly a Mark Messier captain moment, but then again, Spezza didn’t cry like Messier so he had that going for him. In the end, coach Paul MacLean couldn’t have picked three better guys to get the letters.

Murray’s Final Days As GM Anything But Peaceful

Senators GM Bryan Murray is just one of those guys. Likeable, even when delivering bad news.

He has that mysterious but undeniable calming influence whenever he gets in front of a camera, with that shock of white hair and grandfatherly tone, telling us not to panic despite the latest crisis he has to deal with, whether of his own doing or by circumstances out of his control.

When the proverbial shit hits the fan, as it always does with this born-dramatic franchise, Murray always seems to have a way of holding the strands together, whether that’s the strands of hope for the fans or the strands of their own sanity. And that’s on top of keeping his own cool. He’s mostly composed in public, even when his own neck is on the line, but those darting eyes sometimes hint at a man who can be highly emotional about his job.

We only get to see glimpses of it when the cameras pan to his box in the rink where he studiously hovers over a steaming cup of coffee, twitching every time a chance is missed or a big goal is scored on the ice. His reaction is usually to drop his pen, shuffle some papers and blink a lot. But don’t let that fool you. Murray is as competitive and gets pissed-off as anyone when things go south.

We saw a glimpse of that when cameras caught Murray screaming at Los Angeles Kings broadcaster Jim Fox in the Corel Centre hallways after a fight filled game in 2005 when he was the Senators coach. It was an epic rant by Murray which went something like this: “You say I can’t control my guys? That’s a fu**ing cheap shot on your part. You don’t have the right to fu**ing cut me up. I’ve never done anything like this in my fu**ing career. For you to say that is fu**ing wrong. You’re full of shit. You yappy little prick.”

You can say one thing about Bryan Murray. He’s a hell of a communicator.

While not dropping any F-bombs in his very public role as the respected and well-liked elder statesman of the franchise, you have to think he drops one on occasion in his own office, thinking out loud about some of the problems he’s facing in his twilight years as an NHL executive.

Losing Daniel Alfredsson and having to explain to the public how it happened on his watch was one of the more painful episodes of his tenure here. Firing three coaches in four years was another grueling experience, as rebuilding the roster just a few years removed from a Stanley Cup final appearance and trading fan favourites like Mike Fisher and Chris Kelly for draft picks and prospects.

Through it all he faced the fans with sometimes brutal honesty and kept the people who buy the tickets on-board with the program, all with that same disarming humour and tone.

Contrast that with Murray’s more volatile boss, owner Eugene Melnyk, who not only conducts himself much differently in public and elicits direct anger from the fans, but is arguably Bryan Murray’s biggest headache these days.

The latest in an increasing number of very public fiascos was Melnyk going on Toronto sports radio yesterday (as he always does, virtually ignoring the local Team 1200 in the process) and attacking Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson and deputy mayor Steve Desroches for a perceived unfairness in the casino process. He’s claiming losses of close to a $100 million dollars the past decade and doesn’t know how the team will “survive”. Coincidentally, his President Cyril Leeder abruptly resigned from every city board he could think of, which is very unlike Leeder, who is well-known for his commitment to the community. There are also hints the Senators won’t be involved civically in the future (outside of charities) unless Watson and his fellow martians start playing ball with the team.

Before that it was a potpourri of ugliness, from forensic investigations into Matt Cooke’s skate slicing of Erik Karlsson, a public battle over bonus money with former star Dany Heatley, unproven allegations of shaky finances, a drastically reduced team budget and the Alfredsson affair which turned sour after a promise of fair money to the franchise icon was broken by the organization, at least according to Alfie himself.

Melnyk granted the Ottawa Citizen an interview and, in my view, disparaged the character of the city’s favourite adopted son in a see-through pre-emptive strike before Alfredsson’s first local news conference. Contrast that with Murray’s words the day Alfredsson left, when emotions were still high and an aggressive stance would have been understandable. Instead, Murray’s words were filled with respect towards Alfredsson and a genuine regret at losing him in the free agent process. He even called it “devastating”, which are words that rarely come out of a GM’s mouth. It showed an empathy with how the fans felt and went some ways in calming the situation down (although his immediate trade for Bobby Ryan was the real balm). In contrast, Melnyk was still angry and defiant an entire month later, which seems to be his most defining characteristic lately.

Yet, despite being handcuffed with an internal team budget that forced him to balk at Alfredsson’s asking price, Murray has assembled a young contending team that’s ready to make some real advances in the standings this season and win some goodwill back from the fans. Meanwhile, Melnyk is out there spitting venom. Let’s be honest here. We’re all just waiting for him to mutter the familiar words “move the team” any day now, aren’t we?

In a fair world, Murray would be on the verge of going out a champion whenever he decides to retire (probably sooner than later), handing the reins to his nephew Tim Murray or Pierre Dorion and staying on as an advisor, the celebrated architect of a stable franchise. He’d be riding next to Alfie in the parade car, both hometown heroes.

He may still get to go out a winner, but his job just gets tougher and tougher every time his owner gets hold of a microphone or puts financial limits on the hockey side. This should have been an easier few golden years for the silver-haired veteran.

I remember seeing Murray on that weekend, two days after Alfredsson’s departure, walking out of a grocery store and across a parking lot, carrying a bag of groceries to his car like a normal schlub. Lots of people walked by and didn’t recognize him. There were no “good luck this year” outbursts or even whispers of “Hey, isn’t that...”. I passed him and noticed that same pensive look on his face, maybe wondering what went wrong, or more likely just wondering what he was going to cook on the BBQ that night.

Pretty soon the worries of running this team for a hockey mad city won’t be his problem anymore, but in my imagination, that day he seemed to me like a man with some heavy weight on his shoulders.

Imagination or not, it’s a good bet he’s feeling that weight going into this season.

Spitballing Forward Lines (aka Bullshitting)

Michalek – Spezza – Ryan

MacArthur – Turris – Zibanejad

Greening – Smith – Neil

Hoffman – Pageau – Condra

Subs: Kassian, Conacher

Line 1: This just seems too easy to put together, so expect Michalek to slip on a donut in the dressing room and force MacLean to call for Greening again, or even the unthinkable... which would be Spezza and Ryan having no chemistry. I can’t see that happening but stranger things have occurred... like Spezza and Michalek having no chemistry dating back several years. Yet this just seems like the right fit on paper going into the season and could be a hell of a line.

Line 2: We all know it’s going to be Turris in the middle, but I like the idea of making Zibanejad a winger right now. It allows Smith to stay at centre on the third line and loads a lot of skill into the top-6. Turris had some success with Alfie on his right side, so why not put in the young Swedish horse there this year and see what develops?

Line 3: You gotta have a grind line and this fits pretty good. Smith and Greening can both play a shutdown game with their size and Neil does a bit of everything . Plus, Smith seems to shrink when he’s shifted to the wing but thrives going up against big centres. Think of the battles this trio will get into with bigger, physical teams like the Leafs and the Bruins. Not that Alfie and the Red Wings will be given a pass. Neil “joked” on the Team 1200 when asked if he’ll hit the former captain by saying “For sure. I’ll text him before the game and tell him to blow his nose so I don’t get snot on my jersey”.

Line 4: Now it gets sketchy. Condra is a lock, but nobody else can say the same. Pageau is awfully small and skilled for a fourth centre it’s his job to lose at the moment. As for Hoffman over Conacher, I always account for one surprise every training camp and I think this is going to be it. It’s just a hunch, but Hoffman’s speed is so ridiculous and Conacher’s short stint with the team was so underwhelming, that I can smell an upset here. Of course, Conacher has had more success than Hoffman at the NHL level and he’s the favourite to stick, but I’ve always liked Hoffman (what little I’ve seen of him) so I’ll live dangerously. Kassian will go in there more than most people realize as both Bryan Murray and Paul MacLean like having that threat in the lineup during the regular season. Kassian may not be able to skate with Pageau or convert too many 2-on1’s, but he’s going to be like his big brother named Chongo and won’t let the kid be menaced by anyone out on the ice.

I’m sure you disagree with my lines completely, so go ahead and give me an earful.

Top 5 Contract Priorities For The Ottawa Senators

They’ve barely wiped the blood off the floor from the Daniel Alfredsson bar brawl that occurred this summer, but hangover or not, the Senators have a lot to get done over the next year or two contract-wise to keep this team moving forward. Here’s where they can start:

1(a) Jason Spezza and 1(b) Bobby Ryan – Lumping these two together makes sense because if one goes, it may just spur the other to leave as well. They both have 2 years left on their deals before a chance to test the market. Putting the “C” on Spezza won’t automatically ensure his loyalty to the organization or convince him to take less than market value. He’ll want big money and likely want a scoring winger by his side for the duration of his next deal as well. Right now that’s Bobby Ryan and the Senators find themselves in a similar situation to Ryan’s old team, the Anaheim Ducks, who were faced with losing both Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry before signing both to huge deals. They made some much needed room by dealing Bobby Ryan this summer and Ottawa may have to wave goodbye to pending UFA Milan Michalek after this season to fit in extensions to Spezza and Ryan, although Michalek’s bad knees may have sealed his fate anyways. If the Senators can’t convince Ryan that Ottawa is the place to play, Spezza may follow Alfredsson right out the door thinking that this team can’t compete for a Stanley Cup. These two deals could be Bryan Murray’s last major mark on the franchise, for good or bad.

2. Jared Cowen – This is a little too obvious because he’s unsigned going into training camp, but his importance beyond this season can’t be overstated. He’ll never surpass Erik Karlsson as the franchise defenseman but he’s going to be the rock back there for many years much like Dougie Hamilton in Boston. It’s not surprising to hear the Senators allegedly offered him an 8-year, $28 million deal. With the cap going nowhere but up and teams falling all over themselves for big, mobile defensemen like Cowen, it would be a good investment for Ottawa to lock him down. But I’m sure Cowen might envision a future where he’s earning around $4-5m a season if his development pans out. He may not be jumping at the chance to lock himself in at $3.5 for close to a decade.

3. Marc Methot – The surprise of last season still has two years left on his deal but the Ottawa native fits in so well with this franchise that it seems a foregone conclusion they’ll want to sign him long-term. In a way, he’s the next Chris Phillips (more on him later). Personality-wise and hockey-wise, Methot and Phillips seem very similar, although Methot is the better player right now. There does seem to be an invisible cap on defensive defensemen so it will be interesting to see how much higher than $3m the Senators would be willing to go, but there’s no doubt he’ll ask for a raise.

4. Colin Greening – Now it gets harder. The former college kid Greening is a UFA after this season and it’s still unclear whether he’s going to be a power-forward on the top two lines or a fourth-liner who plays smaller than his size. He’s already 27 and sometimes needs a kick in the arse from coach Paul MacLean to get out of sporadic funks. He now has both Bobby Ryan and Clarke MacArthur ahead of him on the LW depth chart and Michalek plays the left side as well depending who else plays with Spezza. Unfortunately for Greening, he seems locked into the bottom two lines unless something changes. Yet guys with his size and skill are valuable and there’s no question about his character. He could end up being the replacement for Michalek in a year or even right away, depending on the state of Milan’s knees. But what do you pay him?

5. Chris Phillips – There’s still some good hockey left in the 35 year old veteran and his leadership is obvious to everyone who even casually follows the Senators. It’s hard to envision a guy who could easily be the next captain leaving this summer as a UFA. The Senators blew it badly with Alfredsson, so it would be nice to see Phillips finish his career in Ottawa, even if he eventually winds up as a sixth defenseman by the end of it. Yet there doesn’t seem to be any signs of a big drop-off in play right now. He had a strong season last year, and with the losses of Alfredsson and Sergei Gonchar, he’s one of the last true veteran voices left. On top of that he’s durable, has a knack for scoring big goals and is widely respected. A two or three year deal seems reasonable at this point and I’d be surprised if Phillips was looking to move elsewhere.

Other than the players mentioned here, the Senators are in pretty good shape. Kyle Turris, Chris Neil and Zack Smith are all locked up for 3 years or more. Karlsson’s deal doesn’t run out until 2019 and even though Craig Anderson’s is up in 2015, they have his heir apparent in Robin Lehner ready to go. Not to mention Swedish goalie prospect Marcus Hogberg who seems to have appeared out of nowhere causing a few hardcore prospect nerds to wet their pants in excitement.

Of course, the trail forward can bend a little if the Senators remain committed to being in the bottom third of league spenders. It was that philosophy which led to the messy departure of Alfredsson and could force out other fan favourites in the future.

Going the cheap route tends to put a stink on a franchise that’s hard to shake off, and players like to believe in the myth that their owner can add salary to get them over playoff hump. When that doesn’t happen, it can wear on veteran players and it clearly did on Alfredsson, who also had to deal with playing well below market value for years. Spezza hasn’t had to do that so far, but he’ll be less willing to sacrifice after seeing what happened to #11. Some of the trust and goodwill has been lost along the way.

Bryan Murray has some work to do to repair the damage and keep this team and its fans happy.

Karlsson Now The Undisputed Young Face Of The Franchise

With Daniel Alfredsson having walked away from the Senators (or “bungled away” by the team itself, depending on how you interpret the saga), there’s suddenly a large void in leadership and marketing iconography, and... well, to put it bluntly, kids were crying. Grown men were getting drunk and wiping away tears of shame. Some were even writing weepy country songs and sending them to the Team 1200. It’s not pretty right now, folks.

Some people handled it well, like my wife, who when I tried to explain the magnitude of the situation, just said “Who gives a shit. Go clean the kitty litter.” It was a sobering experience, as going face-to-face with human-sized cat turds can often be.

Yet, in the wake of every Senators fan’s nightmare scenario, there was lots of positivity. Jason Spezza was the instantaneous, consensus choice to get the captain’s “C”, which is the right pick, but also a little surprising considering his past relationship with some fans in this city. There’s been more lauding of Spezza’s character in the last 48 hours than he’s ever received in his Ottawa career. The old fan punching bag suddenly doesn’t look so bad, especially when this Senators team couldn’t score a power-play goal to save their lives in his absence last year.

And of course, there’s Bobby Ryan, parachuted into town at the essential last moment of the day by one of the smartest GM’s in the league. If Bryan Murray didn’t pull off that late-afternoon move, there’s no telling how much worse the fan reaction would have been. There would have been a lot more country songs, that’s for sure.

Thankfully, Ryan is exactly what this team needs – a goal-scorer in his prime with size and star-power. There’s a bit of baggage there, with Ryan’s previous trade demands and unhappiness in Anaheim (uncomfortably similar to Dany Heatley), but he’s going to have a nice honeymoon in the capital for at least two seasons. And if he plays with Spezza as expected and the duo light it up, you’ve got Ottawa’s answer to Toews and Kane, or Getzlaf and Perry.

But it won’t be Spezza or Ryan who sell the tickets in this town, or be heroes to 10-year old girls and 50-year old men alike. It will be Erik Karlsson, the new, better looking Daniel Alfredsson.

Karlsson has everything this team needs in a marketing tool. He’s young, funny, hip, he posts pictures of himself on Twitter wearing “jorts”, he speaks near perfect English, he’s the best defenseman in the league (sorry PK) and he’s probably the most exciting player to watch in Ottawa since the days of Martin Havlat. And don’t forget he’s just 23 and signed for the next six seasons, all of which will be prime years.

The Senators couldn’t have invented a better replacement for Alfredsson than the skinny kid they drafted 15th overall in 2008. And expectations were low for both Alfie and Karlsson when they broke into the league. Alfie seemed to come out of nowhere and overachieve instantly, while Karlsson just looked too small to make a difference right away. Now we’re likely talking about two future Hall Of Famer’s.

For all the crap luck this franchise has had over the years, financially and player-wise, they’ve managed to hit the jackpot twice.

The Senators have a real tough choice ahead of them with the captaincy. Spezza is the right fit right now, but what about in two years when his deal is up? If Eugene Melnyk still owns this team by then, there’s no way to tell if he can afford to keep Spezza in the fold. It’s going to take a big contract to get it done and Melnyk already balked with the Alfie deal, which should have been the easiest decision in the history of the Senators.

There’s no such worries with Karlsson for the next six years. You could give him the “C” and not have to worry about it for a long time. Yet that could alienate Spezza in the same stroke. Not an easy decision.

My guess is they go with Spezza for now, and it sounds like his teammates would be entirely behind that decision, with Karlsson getting an “A” along with Chris Phillips and Chris Neil, Ottawa’s last two “legacy” players on the roster.

Regardless of who gets it, we all know the Senators are Karlsson’s team now. If they win a Stanley Cup, it will be because of him. If they sell out every night, it will be because of him. If a Senator ever makes the cover of GQ, it will be him. When little kids come to the games, they’ll be asking their parents to buy them Karlsson jerseys. He’s the perfect fit at the perfect time for this team and probably the only character capable of rallying the community around this franchise again after the Alfie fiasco.

The Senators are turning a page, and on that next page is a grinning Karlsson in a turquoise shirt and jorts with a flow of locks that would make Ron Duguay weep.

Murray Sends Jolt Through Ottawa With Huge Bobby Ryan Trade

On a day that Ottawa GM Bryan Murray called "devastating", one which saw face of the franchise Daniel Alfredsson walk away to the Detroit Red Wings, Senators fans were emotionally rag-dolled around like Bryan McCabe at the hands of Zdeno Chara.

Murray swung a blockbuster trade late in the afternoon, bringing in winger Bobby Ryan from Anaheim in exchange for Jakob Silfverberg, prospect Stefan Noesen and a first rounder in 2014.

It went from "everything is terrible" to "what the f**k" in about six long hours where nobody from Senators management tried to explain the failure to sign Alfredsson, causing a day-long furor locally where fingers were pointed in all directions, most noticeably at owner Eugene Melnyk and Murray himself.

You can imagine Murray was absolutely hell-bent on completing the Ryan trade before having to face the media and trying to explain how Alfie escaped his grasp. The move for Ryan was impeccably timed and absolutely necessary from both a hockey and PR standpoint. Combined with a very smart signing of left-winger Clarke MacArthur, those two moves potentially add about 50 goals to the Senators lineup this season.

That's after you subtract Alfredsson and Silfverberg's expected totals, but anyway you look at it, this is an upgrade statistically in the short term. Sure, if Alfredsson goes on to win a Stanley Cup and Silfverberg eventually scores 40 goals, Sens fans will be retching in unison. But for now, Murray absolutely pulled this day out of the fire.

The big winner of the day is Jason Spezza who is a strong candidate to be named the new captain, and now has a real goal scoring winger in Ryan with a possibly healthy Milan Michalek as well. If his back holds up, Spezza should be right back in contention for the Art Ross Trophy next season.

In MacArthur, Murray gets a winger with 20 goal potential to play with Kyle Turris, allowing players like Cory Conacher, Jean-Gabriel Pageau and Mika Zibanejad to develop at their own pace instead of being thrust into a top-six role they likely aren't prepared for just yet.

In light of the Alfredsson fiasco, it was a very solid move by an experienced general manager who knew he had to make a splash, if only to prevent fans from flipping cars on Elgin Street tonight.

Murray then went on to face the press at around 5:00 eastern and the Alfredsson story became a little more clear.

As said before, Murray used the word "devastating" multiple times talking about the phone call he received from Alfie Thursday night, informing him of the bad news. In Alfredsson's prior media availability, he made it clear that the decision was "a selfish" one,  and was made solely to "win the Stanley Cup" but the details on the confusing negotiations with Ottawa were not really addressed.

Murray's version of events were a little different than the way he presented it the day before. This time he admitted to exchanging numbers with Alfredsson's agent J.P. Barry but both sides rejected the terms. There was an initial offer by Barry which Murray rejected and a counter by Murray which was rejected as well. This is significant for a number of reasons.

We were led to believe that, essentially, a "blank cheque" was offered to Alfredsson to return. Now we know that Murray, at least once, suggested a dollar amount that was rejected by the captain's side. Did this unsatisfactory offer start Alfredsson on a path to looking at other options? I'd say that's a safe bet. Obviously the Senators didn't come out aggressive and it looks like it cost them big time, depending on what you believe.

As I talked about in my previous post, something happened recently to turn Alfredsson from "Mr. Ottawa" into a guy seriously listening to offers from Detroit and Boston. It might have been this talked about rejected offer, it could have been older discussions with Murray about how much money the Senators had to spend on other players, or it could have been just what Alfredsson indicated, that he wants to win the Stanley Cup and Detroit offered a better chance than Ottawa.

One thing is clear to me after hearing both sides speak - Murray didn't want Alfredsson to leave. We can debate the negotiating style, and why Murray didn't come on strong with an early offer that Alfredsson couldn't refuse, but I think Murray was sincere in his comments and understands the ramifications in the fan-base at the loss of the captain.

The hockey obsessives can digest the loss of Alfredsson by pointing out the goal scoring added to the team and turning stats around to make this look like a clear win for Ottawa, but the ham-and-eggers, the fans who don't sit on Twitter all-day, the ones who just watch the games, will have a much harder time with this.

Alfredsson was their guy. He WAS the Ottawa Senators. He's been around so long that teens who cheered for him in the 90's now have kids of their own who cheer for #11. The Senators have built their marketing around him for years and in the process created a local legend. It's tough to explain to fans that the captain who already said he wanted to stay an Ottawa Senator is now playing for another team.

At the end of the day, the Bobby Ryan trade really turned things around for Ottawa and set this team up for the future. It's a huge move and provides goal-scoring this team hasn't seen since the days of Dany Heatley.

Yet there's still a bit of a stench to the loss of Alfredsson and it's still hard to imagine this team without him.

The fallout will continue over the next few days, but with Bobby Ryan in a Senators uniform, it will be a lot easier for fans to get over the blunt force trauma of seeing the once unthinkable happen.

Senators Somehow Bungle Alfredsson Contract... Dark Day For Organization

How the Ottawa Senators managed to screw this up is a question that will be asked for a long time.

Daniel Alfredsson playing in a Detroit Red Wings jersey is (allegedly) about to become a reality and the Senators are left to face a PR fiasco that will be as long and harsh as an Ottawa winter.

Writing this before both GM Bryan Murray and Alfredsson himself have had a chance to speak to the media, I’ll take an educated guess as to why this went down the way it did.

Money and respect. That’s always what it comes down to with star players.

And I’m not talking about money that should or shouldn’t go into Alfredsson’s pocket, but money that the Ottawa Senators weren’t willing or able to invest in making this team better, which would have made Alfredsson want to stay here for his last chance to win a Stanley Cup.

And don’t be surprised if this also had a little to do with the Senators taking their first true legacy player for granted.

For years, Alfredsson has been the face of the team and played for peanuts last season on a team-friendly cap-circumventing contract. Naturally, Alfredsson would expect the team to show gratitude and respect in return.

Instead, according to Bryan Murray himself, the team never offered Alfredsson a salary number to negotiate from. They asked Alfredsson to provide the number himself. That’s a little strange but not necessarily a bad thing. Most players would love to be provided a blank cheque from a team.

But put yourself in Alfie’s place for a moment. While Ottawa waits for you to negotiate your own contract, taking a strangely passive approach (this is all surmised from Murray’s own words in his July 4th press conference and not from rumour), other teams come breaking down your door saying they need you on their team to win a Stanley Cup. That has to be impressive and tempting. But Alfie is an Ottawa guy.

Yet when you look at Ottawa’s situation, with reports of an internal cap of 50m, rumours of an owner having financial issues and a blueline that just got weaker with the departure of the much maligned but underrated Sergei Gonchar, you can see why Alfredsson has possibly grown tired of playing for a team that wants to win the Cup but just doesn’t have the resources to compete with high-spending teams.

When you watched that Stanley Cup final between Chicago and Boston, it wasn’t hard to look at Ottawa and realize a team full of prospects and a few injured stars wasn’t even close to the kind of competition on display. And with a tight budget that already cost the team a playoff veteran in Gonchar, you can see how Alfie thought his best chances to win next year lay elsewhere.

Now, you’ll come back at me with “Detroit doesn’t have a shot either”. That's debatable but when’s the last time Alfredsson truly had linemates that were on the same level as he was? Not since the days of Jason Spezza and Dany Heatley. I’m guessing he’s looking forward to playing with the likes of Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk. No knock on Kyle Turris but he’s just not on the same level.

You could also see that Murray was perturbed in that same July 4th press conference by the fact that Alfredsson playing one more year was broken by Swedish media and not the organization. That might have been a clue that there was some kind of friction between the two parties. Murray was also combatitive about the team being perceived as "cheap". There was something rumbling there below the surface that may have been an indicator in retrospect.

There’s a lot of blame to go around but the truth is likely that the Senators didn’t make enough of an effort to make this guy happy. That's a generalization and no doubt we'll be deluged with PR from the Senators that they did all they could, but it will be hard to take seriously.

When a guy who has bled for you for 17 years is suddenly pissed off, there should be no surprise that this thing went south.

The fact is that Alfredsson doesn’t want to play for the Ottawa Senators anymore. There should be a lot of searching for answers as to how this suddenly came about from a guy who was the de-facto Mayor of this town.

The Backhander: Notes From A Squeamish Summer In Ottawa

Lots of nail-biting today about the spectre of Daniel Alfredsson leaving town as a free agent, possibly to the big bad Boston Bruins. Fuelled by talk of Eugene Melnyk being broke (I’d love to be that kind of “broke” by the way) and the fact that the contract wasn’t signed within two minutes of Bryan Murray and Alfie meeting face to face, nervous fans are reaching for the tranquilizers just to keep it together in their workplaces while they desperately troll Twitter in search of any news.

I do know that Bryan Murray doesn’t want to be known as the man who let Alfredsson leave town.

After all, Murray plans on living in the area after he retires. How fun would it be to walk into a grocery store and have children hissing at you and check-out ladies refusing to bag your frozen pizzas and back-bacon? Right. It would be intolerable.

So expect Murray to get this deal done before Friday. If it comes down to not being able to fit a 5-6 million contract under budget, start throwing other players overboard. Hell, put coach Dave Cameron back on a bus to Mississauga with a bag of chips and some beef jerky if it means saving a few bucks. Just get it done.

And it will get done.

***

Ken Warren of the Ottawa Citizen reported recently  that the Senators are “operating on a self-imposed $50 million salary cap” which fed into recent speculation that Eugene Melnyk and the Senators are having financial issues. I’m not prepared or even really interested in sorting through that quagmire of rumours right now, but a $50 million cap on salaries for this season is not exactly a slash-and-burn scenario.

According to Cap Geek, the Senators spent roughly $53 million last season in salaries, $52 million in the 2012 season and $56 million in 2011. As you can see, the Senators plan to spend just a little less than they have in the recent past and if this team can manage to be a contender heading into the playoffs, it hasn’t been ruled out that they could add some salary. Until Melnyk meets the press and answers a few questions before the start of next season, we won’t really know the implications.

If this is a budget meant to keep the team from tipping over into financial hell, then obviously there’s a big issue here. Every fan bought into Melnyk’s vow to spend whatever he could to help this team win a championship not long ago. If somehow there’s not even enough money to keep this promising team intact (ie. Alfie, Sergei Gonchar), then all hell will break loose in due time. But for now, a $50 million budget isn’t a total doom scenario.

And just remember, no matter what kind of shit hits the fan, Erik Karlsson is signed for the next 6 years. How bad can it really be?

(Cue Kiss burning down the Canadian Tire Centre with pyro later this month....)

Sens Opt For Skilled Character Player Curtis Lazar

The rumoured deal to move up in the draft didn't work out for the Senators so GM Bryan Murray decided to play it safe and pick Curtis Lazar from the Edmonton Oil Kings, a guy who physically looks like a mix between Chris Neil and Zack Smith but has a set of hands that might allow him to score a few more goals at the NHL level.

You could have been fooled into thinking he was raised in Carleton Place or Arnprior (just look at the guy, eh?) when he sat down with TSN's James Duthie for the traditional post-pick interview, but the genial, aw shucks kid was born far from the Ottawa Valley in Vernon, B.C. There's that temptation when you look at him and hear him talk to envision a Zack Smith-type leading the charge on the third line in about 3 or 4 years, but Smith never scored 38 goals in junior like Lazar did last year.

Lazar has average size at 5'11 and 195 pounds but all scouting reports I've read so far say he's not afraid to drop the gloves or be involved physically. Obviously a 38 goal season in the WHL doesn't necessarily translate into the NHL but the potential for offense and physicality in one package is undoubtedly what made Bryan Murray opt for Lazar over someone like Anthony Mantha, a 50-goal scorer in the QMJHL, who was still available. Murray also passed over Kerby Rychel from Windsor, a guy with better stats and better size than Lazar.

Clearly there was something about Lazar's character that they valued over the obvious advantages of Rychel's stats. Some people groan and moan about hockey's obsession with "character" over numbers but the ISS had Lazar ranked 12th, well above Rychel and Mantha, and the Hockey News had him ranked 9th. For the Ottawa Senators to get him at 17th appears to be a minor steal at this point but here's where we trot out the old cliche about not knowing who wins and loses the draft until 4 or 5 years. You know the drill.

The Senators already have a lot of high-end skill on the right side of 30 in Mika Zibanejad, Jakob Silfverberg, Kyle Turris, Erik Karlsson, Matt Puempel and Jean-Gabriel Pageau among others. Sure, they need scoring NOW but you won't address that in the draft for the following season. The Senators made what everybody who watches junior hockey seems to agree is a "safe pick", and Bryan Murray made a point to call Lazar "dependable" in the initial Duthie interview and I'm sure we'll hear a lot more of those phrases in the media in the next few days.

Lazar has been compared favourably to Ryan O'Reilly and Dave Bolland and famously fought the bigger Darnell Nurse in the Junior Prospect Game. If the hockey gods were trying to make Lazar appeal to someone like myself, that's not a bad start.

At first glance, it doesn't seem like the most glamorous pick but it rarely is at 17th anyways. It's hard to find anybody with something bad to say about Lazar and these are the kinds of guys coaches love - responsible but with potential to score goals.

That seems to sum up Lazar right now and I'd be shocked to find anybody overly disappointed in the pick.

Gimme Shelter

In case you crashed out and missed the final Hockey Night In Canada closing montage of the playoffs, here it is and it's worth catching up on. It must have cost a ridiculous amount of money to license one of the greatest songs of all-time from The Rolling Stones, and it would have been a hard sell to CBC execs considering it was aired in the early hours when only the drunken maniacs and die-hards are still awake to soak up every last visual of the season.

But HNIC does everything with class and that's how they rolled out of another great season on the air. You could put this song to a video of Jacques Martin eating Muslix and you'd still be moved.

There's a few great Senators moments in here, including Chris Neil screaming "Let's see how tough you are in Ottawa!" and, of course, the monstrous demolition of Lars Eller by Eric Gryba in the first round.

Congratulations to the Chicago Blackhawks, and to an old fave of mine, Ray Emery, for winning the only trophy that matters.



Black Aces will be around offering a take on any major Senators draft news or signings in the next few weeks.

The Annual Who Goes... Who Stays List

It was tough for Ottawa fans to watch the last two games of that Pittsburgh series, but the good news is there’s interesting times ahead as GM Bryan Murray tries to improve this team over the summer. Ottawa is going to have a lot of cap space but it’s unknown how much money owner Eugene Melnyk wants to sink into the payroll at this stage. Until the UFA market opens in July, most of the work will be internal and here’s where I think the current roster stands with management, broken into two sections – Players Under Contract and Free Agents (both RFA and UFA). (Source: Cap Geek)

Players Under Contract

Jason Spezza – Status: Safe. Look for a healthy Spezza to get back to the 80 point range in 2014. He’s still in his prime as a point producer but he’s only got two years left on his deal. There will be talk of an extension fairly soon but GM Bryan Murray might be a little twitchy about that back. It’s also time Murray got Spezza a true sniper to play with. Not so easy to accomplish.

Milan Michalek – Status: Safe. There’s not much Murray can do with a guy having knee problems, other than wait. He won’t get good trade value so the best he can hope for is that Michalek returns to camp in September healthy. Ottawa needs his speed and scoring desperately. If Michalek can’t find that old gear he’ll likely leave as a UFA next summer.

Chris Neil – Status: Safe. This one’s easy. Neil is the most competitive guy on the team after Alfie and does his job as good as anyone in the league. He’s probably a Sens lifer with three more years on his deal.

Mika Zibanejad – Status: Safe. He had a fine rookie year and has the potential to be a horse down the middle with a little more weight on him. The only issue is that he pushes Zack Smith down to the fourth line centre role or makes him a winger. But I guess that’s really Smith’s problem, not Zibanejad’s. I’m not entirely sure his chemistry with Jakob Silfverberg is all that natural. The duo seem chained to the ankle at times by MacLean and they tend to disappear together.

Jakob Silfverberg – Status: Safe. All he needs is more time to figure out the league and he’ll be pushing 30 goals with that ridiculous shot. Like I said above, it would interesting to see him moved away from Zibanejad from time to time, and get a shot with Spezza. The playmaker and the sniper seem a match made in heaven, no? Both right-handed shots but Spezza can pass pretty good with his backhand too.

Kyle Turris – Status: Safe. Signed long-term and seemed to put a tough season behind him with a great playoffs. At times he struggled being the go-to guy down the middle with Spezza out but has proven he can score clutch goals. As we said last summer, Turris needs to find a way to put some meat on his bones.

Cory Conacher – Status: Safe(ish). That’s a tentative safe but I’m guessing Murray will want to give Conacher a full year with the Sens coaching staff to try and get the yield he wanted from the Ben Bishop trade. The truth is Conacher didn’t look very good, barring a few big moments in the playoffs. He has speed and grit but looked confused at times or just out of the play. He has to score goals or turn into a third line pest with speed. Not sure how it will turn out but he’s going to get a chance at least.

Colin Greening – Status: Safe. Bad season but a surprisingly strong playoffs puts Greening back on track to get a new deal this year. They need him to become a power forward and it looks like he’s going to put the nice college boy attitude on the shelf and be a little greasier.

Zack Smith – Status: Safe. The only problem is where to play him. He’s too good for the fourth line but Spezza, Zibanejad and Turris are ahead of him down the middle. I can’t see him being traded because the Sens need his grit as much as they need Michalek to start scoring again. He’s also signed long-term at a very friendly cap hit.

Jim O’Brien – Status: Trade bait. He lost whatever small role he had this year and it’s clear MacLean doesn’t want to use him. It’s been said by reporters like Bruce Garrioch that O’Brien was unhappy with his playing time. That almost certainly means he’s gone, by hook or by crook. Wasn’t a Murray draftee so that also works against him.

Jean-Gabriel Pageau – Status: Safe. Ottawa’s new golden boy is likely here to stay. But how long until MacLean is forced to play him on one of the first two lines? He was that good in the latter part of the season and in the playoffs. This guy could be the next Daniel Briere.

Matt Kassian – Status: Likely To Return. Kassian was brought in to make sure guys like Patrick Wiercioch and Chris Phillips didn’t have to fight but surprised by playing a semi-regular shift on a line with Neil and Smith. He’s better than many gave him credit for but he’s going to be in and out of the lineup depending on the toughness of the opponent. He also seems hugely popular in the room which is typical of enforcers. No reason to move his contract.

Erik Karlsson – Status: Safe. No need to explain this one. Everybody just wants him healthy again.

Chris Phillips – Status: Safe. Last year of his deal and expect him to get another one, probably for a little less money. He’s as solid as ever and a true leader for the team. Can’t see him leaving next summer.

Marc Methot – Status: Safe. This guy was a revelation to most, like me, who didn’t put a priority on watching Columbus Blue Jackets hockey the past few years. He’s now an essential part of that defence core. Far exceeded expectations.

Jared Cowen – Status: Safe. He looked very good coming back early from the hip injury. Had a tough few games against Pittsburgh in the second round, but so did everybody. It will be interesting to see what kind of money he gets next summer coming out of his entry-level deal. He’s a cornerstone of the franchise going forward.

Eric Gryba – Status: Safe. Had to play big minutes in a year he probably should have been in the AHL. Yet he earned the trust of MacLean and figures to be part of the top-six next season. The only snag could be if Gonchar is re-signed and Murray wants to bring in another offensive d-man on top of that.

Craig Anderson – Status: Safe. Unbelievable year, even with the major ankle injury that broke it up in the middle. Somehow there are still skeptics but they are of the tinfoil hat variety. A couple of tough games against the Penguins juggernaut doesn’t diminish his value to the team at all.

Robin Lehner – Status: Safe. He’ll work with Anderson in what could be the best tandem in the league next year. He’ll get over 30 games in while he bides his time.

Free Agents (both RFA and UFA)

Daniel Alfredsson – Status: UFA – Wanted Back. It’s up to him. He can write his own deal and give it to Murray to sign. My feeling is he returns and plays in the Olympics. Had a hell of a year.

Guillaume Latendresse – Status: UFA – Gone. Let’s face it. He didn’t make a difference. He still has hands but little else. It’s also clear that MacLean had little use for him. His defining moment was being bullied by Montreal’s Ryan White in the playoffs and skating away, only to have MacLean basically bury him for it.

Peter Regin – Status: UFA – Gone. He got a chance at the start of the season but couldn’t produce any offense, so MacLean wrote him off completely. This season was viewed as his last chance and it didn’t work out. He’s probably pining for the Cory Clouston days.

Mike Hoffman – Status: RFA – Wanted Back. Only injuries holding him back. The guy can skate as good as anyone in the NHL and you get the feeling he would have been a regular if he could have stayed healthy.

Erik Condra – Status: RFA – Wanted Back. Key penalty killer and defensive ace. He should get a 3 or 4 year deal and be a permanent fixture on the third and fourth lines for years to come. Every team needs guys like Condra.

Sergei Gonchar – Status: UFA – ?????. This is the biggest mystery going into the summer. The consensus seems to be that Gonchar and the Sens will part ways but don’t be so sure. He had a strong year and plays a lot of minutes both regular strength and on the power-play. Seeing that the Senators biggest weakness is offense, losing Gonchar would hurt more than people realize. It would be a tricky negotiation to get the money right, but we also don’t really know what Murray thinks at this point. He could be ready to move on and so could Gonchar. If he does leave, Murray will have to bring in someone with skill to replace him because even with Wiercioch, that leaves only two offensive oriented d-men on the roster with no logical replacements within the system. It would probably be cheaper and easier just to re-sign Gonchar for a year.

Mike Lundin – Status: UFA – Gone. Like I said earlier this year, Lundin is the most anonymous player in the history of the Senators. It’s hard to even picture what he looks like, let alone get a read on his play.

Patrick Wiercioch – Status: RFA – Wanted Back. I’m sure the Senators loved the way he developed this year and he will get a chance to play regularly on the power-play next season, especially if Gonchar leaves. Not sure what kind of money he gets, but I’m guessing he’ll be a bargain by the time the new deal expires.

Andre Benoit – Status: UFA – Borderline. He had a good year as a support player and has a lot of skill and a knack of getting shots through from the point. I’m sure Ottawa would like to have him in the same role next year but he has little time in his career to make money and he’ll probably jump at the best offer available anywhere. I’d say it’s 50/50 he returns.

All Hell Breaks Loose In Kanata After Game 4 Collapse

There’s no disguising it. That was likely a fatal loss for the Senators in Game Four last night against the Penguins. Blown out, left for dead, vultures in the rafters.

An enraged Coach Paul MacLean pulled a John Tortorella after the game by throwing the game notes onto a podium and walking out of his press conference, presumably to go lay a cruel but necessary beating on assistant Dave Cameron behind closed doors. That was the kind of brutal night it was.

The fallout has been heavy -heavier than you’d think it would be considering how outmatched Ottawa is by their opponent - and the debris is collecting around three specific players. Namely Craig Anderson, Sergei Gonchar and Daniel Alfredsson.

Let’s quickly try to sort through it for the sake of everyone’s sanity so we can go enjoy that sunny weather here in Ottawa.

First, Craig Anderson.

He’s the best goalie in the league right now, but nobody can be expected to put up a wall against the best offense in the NHL. It’s just not possible over a series. You can do it in a single game and you can do it in individual periods, like Anderson did last night in the first, but they’ll always score on you eventually. That’s how the Penguins are built.

It doesn’t help that the Senators have been consistently sloppy in their own zone this series but the best defensive team would still be giving up 3 or 4 goals a game on most nights to this group. Momentum swings in the playoffs are sometimes unstoppable and that’s what happened last night to start the second period. If Anderson hadn’t played one of the best periods of any goalie in Senators history, it would have been 5-2 Pens to open the second, not 2-1 Ottawa.

Anderson is the Senators best weapon – and only real hope to make this a series. Unless MacLean has some wild scheme to radically change the chemistry and throw the Penguins off stride, I can’t see Robin Lehner starting in Game 5.

Secondly, Sergei Gonchar.

Rough, rough game for the vet. And whenever Gonchar gets a penalty or even stumbles on a word in an interview, the dyed-in-the-wool Gonchar haters come out and set fire to Twitter. He was as much a victim of bad calls as he was bad luck. The first penalty for interference was an early game call that wouldn’t have been made in the third. Every defenseman does that play a hundred times a game. It was a bad call. No harm, no foul – Ottawa scores short-handed.

The tough one to start the third, a high-sticking call on Matt Cooke that lead to a Pens goal, was a case of a defenseman battling a forward in front of the net. Cooke sold it pretty well but what was Gonchar supposed to do? If he’s not hard on Cooke in front of the net, the Pens score and he’s the one blamed. It’s all in the realm of acceptable battles but Gonchar got a little overzealous and hit a bent-over Cooke in the back of the head.

Yet he had some ugly defensive plays for sure and that’s hard to watch in such an important game. But like I said, momentum is a bitch and once the Penguins got rolling, all of the Senators defensemen were skating on cement. Jared Cowen had a similarly tough night with the speed of the Penguins.

Gonchar has been an invaluable presence on that blueline this year and has had a good run in these playoffs so far. To bury the guy for one bad game against an almost unstoppable offensive team is a bit rich. The future Hall Of Famer will bounce back like he always does. He’s too good not to.

Thirdly, Daniel Alfredsson.

I wish I didn't have to get into this one, but there’s no way to ignore it because it’s now a verified shit-storm of almost Bryzgalovian proportions.

You all know he said “Probably not” when asked if the Senators had a chance to come back and win three in a row.

He also said “But we've never quit, and we're not going to stop now. The odds are against us in every way. I don't think there's much going for us. Maybe that's the way we like it."

To me, this was a guy who was asked moments after a crushing loss when the emotions were still raw and unprocessed through the “don’t say something honest” filter that all NHL players have installed in their brains. I’m sure he regrets those two words now that he’s slept on it, but in context with the quote that followed it, it doesn’t sound like a guy throwing in the towel. It sounds like a captain who knows the odds are stacked against his team but is not about to say “die”. Just like the Senators have done all season long.

Some people will see it as heresy, but those people weren’t just humiliated on home ice in what could be the penultimate game of their entire career. You’d be emotional too. In fact, in the same situation, you might blurt out “We’re completely f***ed and I’m going to go out right now and get shitfaced. Thanks for coming.”

Think of it rationally for a minute. Do you really believe a guy like Alfie, with all that character and class, meant to say he was throwing in the towel on the team?

Come on. He shouldn’t have said it that way, but sometimes shit happens, as they say.

The Senators will move on and nobody will be playing harder than Alfredsson. Should be a good one Friday night.

Leader’s Clutch Goal Gives Chance For Teammates To Shine

Not a bad one-two punch for captain Daniel Alfredsson this weekend.

He somehow ties Game Three short-handed as the final minute ticked off, setting up Ottawa’s double-overtime win on Sunday night, and Monday morning he’s announced as one of three finalists for Mark Messier’s Leadership Award.

Not bad at all.

And he'll probably take home that trophy from Messier, and not just because they both share #11 in common. Messier knows that Alfie doesn’t have much time left to win anything, and the time is now, seeing the kind of near-absurd adversity this Senators team had to go through and the fact they’re playing in the second round when nobody this side of hell gave them a chance.

The other two nominees, Jonathan Toews and Dustin Brown are both deserving but neither had a job as monumental as Alfredsson’s. There’s also the cumulative effect of his whole career here, being the face of the franchise through bankruptcies, rebuilding, the Heatley and Yashin gong-shows as well as the good years where the Stanley Cup seemed within reach. Messier almost doesn’t have much choice but to give it to Alfie because any other decision would seem unusually cruel. Alfie has been through it all and is still coming up big when the time is right.

Even though I’ve seen the kind of drama we all saw in Game Three played out many times before, I wasn’t getting ready for overtime. As the minutes bled away in the third and that Penguins 1-0 lead feeling more like a 3-0 deficit, it became a sort of “drink your beers now because we’re all going home in 5 minutes” mentality. It just looked and felt like Ottawa’s season was winding down thanks to their one major weakness – an inabiliy to score goals. It’s been a bigger hassle than their all their injuries - and definitely related.

And then that Erik Karlsson penalty came with just under two minutes to go and you could hear the drunks singing “Good Night Irene” all the way from Renfrew. Luckily all Alfie could focus on was getting the puck into the Penguins end at least one more time and going to the net. The result was pretty stunning. The bolts rattled in the girders of the rink while all across Ottawa people threw out their backs jumping off couches and bar stools. Pets were permanently traumatized by the sudden screaming and toppling of coffee tables. Yet nobody was really surprised it was Alfie raising his stick. That sort of thing just seems to follow him around.

One of the great things about Alfredsson being so clutch is that it gives opportunities to other players to do the same. If Alfredsson doesn’t tie that game up, there’s no double-OT Colin Greening goal and that guy doesn’t get to experience that same feeling and all the confidence and glory that comes with it.

Craig Anderson gets to walk away from that game with a much needed boost of confidence after a rough Game Two. He earned it himself but he can’t score the goals. A one-goal loss would have been painful for Anderson after everything he’s done for this team. Jason Spezza gets to feel like he made a positive contribution after being away so long. The one thing a guy coming back from a long layoff wants to see is his team win so nobody can say you were a hindrance. All of these positives just flow from Alfie’s last-minute goal. And it’s not just Greening, Anderson and Spezza. It’s everyone watching that on the bench. You don’t necessarily need to play on the same line to make the players around you better. When you do your job, it gives everyone else an opportunity to excel at theirs.

Even if Ottawa never wins another game in this series, the young guys probably learned a hell of a lot about the NHL playoffs from that one Alfredsson goal. All it takes is one play to turn things around. You can’t quantify that with stats or analysis of systems. It comes down to character in the end, like so many things do in hockey at this time of year. That’s an old cliché but it’s a cliché because it’s always been true.

Down 2-1 in the series with at least one more game at home, Ottawa has a chance here and that’s more than most people thought for almost 9 periods when Ottawa couldn't even get a lead. Yet the Penguins are far from being devastated over that loss. They know they still have control of this series and will be coming for Ottawa in Game Four. The only difference is, thanks to Alfie – and now Greening – the Sens knows they can beat this team. And it can happen again.

So get your living room back in order and get your dogs calmed down. It’s only going to get more intense as we get into the core games of this series.

Goal-Challenged Sens Need To Get Flyers Ugly To Beat Pens

The Penguins are good. But you already knew that.

You have to go back to the 2002 Detroit Red Wings to find a similar collection of superstars all playing together in the same sweater. When Jarome Iginla and Sidney Crosby have a sub-par night and the Penguins still beat you 4-1, you’re going to have problems beating them four times in seven games.

Forgive me for being a tad fatalistic, but this reminds me a little of the old Winnipeg Jets when they were stuck in the same division as the Edmonton Oilers. The lost to Edmonton in the playoffs 6 times from 1983-1990, and that was a Jets team that had Dale Hawerchuk and a strong supporting cast of players that could have done a lot of damage if they played in any other division.

This is Ottawa’s fourth crack at the Penguins since 2007 and they have a respectable 1-2 series record, considering the upheaval Ottawa has been going through as the Penguins rose to dominance with Crosby and Malkin. Right now, things don’t look good for the Senators to even up that record but the same format that doomed the Jets will now work in Ottawa’s favour starting next year.

The switch to a divisional playoff format will be a boon to the Senators. Starting next season, Ottawa’s division will consist of Detroit, Boston, Toronto, Montreal, Buffalo, Florida and Tampa Bay. With apologies to Toronto fans, there’s not one team in that grouping that have the makings of a dominant power on the rise... other than Ottawa.

There are good teams with a bright future, like the Leafs and the Habs, a few teams like Boston and Detroit that are on a slow decline, and the rest are big question marks. It’s only Ottawa that has two number-one goalies, a Norris Trophy winner who hasn’t even hit his prime yet, and a crew of elite prospects that are the envy of the rest of the league. There won’t be a first or second round series that will seem unwinnable, even for Toronto fans who will likely be traumatized for a few more years.

All of which probably leads you to believe that I’m saying the Penguins are unbeatable right now and Ottawa has no chance, so “let’s wait for next season”.

Not really. I think Pittsburgh can be toppled – and the Islanders came close – but Ottawa is going to have to drastically improve offensively for it to happen. And they won’t be able to sacrifice what got them here in the first place, namely toughness, penalty-killing and great goaltending.

That’s going to be hard to do against a team that can score enough to cover up all their defensive mistakes. Just like the 80’s Edmonton Oilers who almost put every Winnipeg Jets coach in the nuthouse permanently.

Right now the best way of gaining some ground seems to be through the rattling of Tomas Vokoun but there’s no indication that’s going to happen anytime soon. He was strong coming in for poor bewildered Marc-Andre Fleury in the Islanders series and was solid in Game One against the Senators. For Ottawa to win this thing, it’s going to be by breaking the law a little, and Chris Neil will be at the centre of that.

Taking too many penalties will kill you against the Pens but the Senators will have to walk the line with the refs and cause mayhem for this Pittsburgh team to come unglued. They’re not going to beat them with their power-play, but they might have a chance by winning every other battle. All Ottawa has to do is look to the Flyers. The biggest pain for the Penguins has always been Philadelphia, who go out of their way to try and bully the Pens. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. But the fact that it works some of the time is enough, especially when you simply can’t compete offensively. Erik Karlsson is at half-speed. Jason Spezza may not be healthy enough to play. What else are you going to do?

This series doesn’t get truly out of reach until Ottawa loses at home. Even if they drop Game Two, it will be interesting to see how they respond in their own rink.

But it does seem like a bit of a letdown in atmosphere after that Montreal series, doesn’t it? It felt like that for me leading up to the game and in my feelings towards it after as well. The test for the coaching staff will be to get that first-round adrenalin going again for the players. The test for me will be to get that feeling back through beer.

Maybe somebody needs to get hit... and hit hard... for Ottawa to spring back to life. Keep your eyes on Neil.

The Melnyk Show Threatens To Cloud Sens/Pens Series

For everyone's sanity everywhere, let's hope this doesn't turn into the "Eugene Melnyk" show.

Round One for Ottawa was defined by Michel Therrien's "no respect" tirades,  (or "no rispeck" as they came to be known on Twitter) and it seemed to snowball into a lot of people having an easy laugh at the expense of the proud Montreal organization with the Habs melting down both on and off the ice. Brandon Prust and P.K. Subban followed the lead of their unhinged coach with bizarre statements to the press and screaming at teammates on the ice. Even poor Carey Price, a very likeable and elite athlete, remained in an almost terrorized emotional state after the series, telling the media "I don’t even go to the grocery store anymore. I hardly do anything anymore. I’m like a hobbit in a hole."

In short, it was endless distractions from within and without that prevented Montreal from getting back on track in that series. They probably wouldn't have beaten Ottawa anyways but it shouldn't have looked that bad.

Yet for Ottawa, the tables might be turning a little here as they enter Round Two against Pittsburgh. Suddenly the cameras and the microphones are rushing over to their side, almost entirely because Senators owner Eugene Melnyk has a "thing" with the Penguins.

Whenever Melnyk speaks, there's a fallout. He tried to ban Montreal and Toronto fans from the Ottawa rink and he was ridiculed everywhere. He's running some sort of secretive forensics investigation into Matt Cooke's accidental skate slash on Erik Karlsson's Achilles tendon - a story you all know too well for me to bother recounting here - and it's bringing Sens fans more grief from all corners.

Now he's attacking Penguins fans on Twitter with this beauty:

Now, I'm sure Melnyk is genuinely disgusted with the crap he gets in his Twitter feed. Anyone who's spent even 15 minutes on Twitter loses a little of their optimism for the human race. But Melnyk is just feeding the fire here, turning the focus onto him when he's got two perfectly capable hires in Bryan Murray and Paul MacLean who know what to say and when to say it during a playoff series.

This doesn't necessarily relate back to the Matt Cooke obsession he has, but it's all part of the same narrative. The conspiracy theory angle never works. Just ask the Vancouver Canucks how their never-ending beef with the officiating worked for them. Ask Michel Therrien how his "no respect" rants worked against his team. Playing the "eternal victim" is an unwinnable game.

The Senators story this season is incredible - overcoming injuries that would have destroyed most teams, and battling their way to the second round by taking down an original-six franchise that still has a huge grip on a large section of NHL fans in the capital city.

Ottawa players doesn't need Melnyk to come to their rescue right now. They don't need to talk about Matt Cooke after every game, every practice. They don't need it to be brought up. They have things under control.

Melnyk is a passionate, opinionated owner who's undoubtedly committed to NHL hockey in Ottawa. For that he gets everyone's eternal thanks. But there is a line that can be crossed where his intensity becomes a distraction.

Beating the Penguins will be tough enough for the Senators without Karlsson and Daniel Alfredsson having to answer questions about Melnyk after every game.

"Young Guns"

When you get NHL players in an acting situation, the result is usually a giant setback for the acting industry, and for our community as a whole. Here's the exception... four Ottawa Senators - Kyle Turris, Erik Condra, Zack Smith and Craig Anderson (plus a surprise guest for the punchline) really bring it for Napolis Café. Scenery is chewed. A must-see if you haven't somehow run into this on Twitter yet. Zack Smith is an absolute star here:



Which brings to mind the great Pittsburgh Penguins car commercial from a few years ago that includes current Sen Sergei Gonchar (who wisely skipped the Napolis spot). Let's just say Gonchar's performance here makes Dolph Lundgren in Rocky IV look like Laurence Olivier.



The Penguins have a history of doing ads. Mario Lemieux did a ton of them, often awkwardly:







Here's Marcel Dionne and Frank Mahovolich selling CCM equipment. Wait for the big laugh at the end. What we see is probably Take #35.

Black Aces Vintage: Classic Auctions Swag

If you've never had a chance to head over to ClassicAuctions.net, here's just a few samples of the many historical Ottawa Senators memorabilia pieces that have passed through their hands over the years. It's pretty amazing to go through their catalogue of closed lots and see what's out there, not just for Senators items but for anything NHL related. You could waste a day going through this stuff. And I have... today... trying to come down a little from the Senators absolute demolition of the Montreal Canadiens in Round One. Of particular note is that Pittsburgh vs. Ottawa program from 1927. Looks like the Senators staff will be printing off a few new copies sometime next week... See you then.