After losing Jason Spezza to Dallas and not finding a replacement for his position in the trade itself, the Ottawa Senators went out and signed veteran pivot David Legwand to a two-year deal.
At the time of the signing, the thought was that Legwand would sort of take on a third-line role with the team, elevating Mika Zibanejad -- a player in dire need of more minutes next season -- to a second-line role behind Kyle Turris. But, I'm not entirely sure the line creation is going to be that simple.
For one, it does seem as though David Legwand believes he's coming in as the team's second-line center. He told this to the team site on the day of his signing:
“I think I can take up the second line center spot and play good minutes for the team and help out in all areas of the game,” Legwand said. “Whether it’s the power play or penalty kill or 5-on-5 I think I can help and helping out with the young guys who are just coming in. They’ve got some solid prospects in their system that are up and coming too.”
GM Bryan Murray has intimated that this is a pretty fluid thing, though. His comments about Mika Zibanejad a few weeks ago certainly shed some light as to where this team is hoping things go -- with Zibanejad on the top-line, Turris on the second-line, and Legwand somewhere in the bottom-six.
“He’s very close. I really like him at two. The one guy that might vault ahead in the future – whether its’ this year or a year down the road – Kyle’s been… I can’t take a thing away from Kyle. He’s been great and when we got him here, we said ‘We’ve got one of the best number two centers in the league.’ And if I can leave him there, I’d like to do that. But Zibanejad, with his speed and size, if he can just develop a little bit quicker now maybe than we thought he’d have to, he might have that ability to jump to one. But Kyle can play there if he has to. He matches up real well with most of the centers in the league now.”
I don't think there's any reason why the team has to be locked into any specific lineup, though I wonder why the team thinks Kyle Turris translates better to second-line center material. On an elite team, that's probably the case. But are we entirely sure that Zibanejad's going to be able to leapfrog him here in short-order? I love Zibanejad, but it's not as if Turris is a slouch. He's been driving play for the better part of three seasons now, and it's because of him that the team was able to pull the trigger on a Jason Spezza trade and not feel like they were immediately chasing down a lottery ball.
Which brings us to Legwand: the team clearly has high expectations (as they should) for Zibanejad and Turris. Does this put him on the third-line, despite where he thinks he's going to play? Perhaps.
And let's not forget that Paul MacLean's favorite center, one Zack Smith, hasn't even been referenced. Even if Smith plays on the fourth-line, you can rest assured he'll pick up fairly big minutes on some nights, skating regular shifts with Chris Neil and Colin Greening.
Then, there's Lazar (who could see some action out at wing), Grant, Pageau ....
Lot of decisions to make for MacLean in the upcoming months. And I don't think he can stick with an unproductive rank-and-file for too long, because there are a lot of guys in need of ice-time down the middle.
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Ottawa Senators Blogger • 
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