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The 2019-20 season is over a month away, and when opening night gets closer and closer, I always like taking an early look at predictions. For this post, I wanted to give five predictions for the Senators season, although they are all on the bolder side. It’s not that I would pick these things in a regular scenario, but I tried to pick things that could be labeled as bold but also possible in my mind.
So here are some bold predictions for the upcoming season in Ottawa:
Drake Batherson is a Calder candidate
I’m very high on Batherson as a prospect, as it’s not very common for a 20-year-old rookie to score over a point per game in the AHL (62 points in 59 games). He was easily Belleville’s best player last season, and he even showed flashes of brilliance in Ottawa during his 20 games in the NHL. He needed to be more consistent in the NHL, and I think he will be able to do that for his official rookie season in 2019-20.
I can see him scoring 60-65 points while primarily playing on Ottawa’s top line, as he should pretty quickly move up in the lineup as their best right-winger. He is a true blue-chip forward prospect and should certainly be in the conversation for the Calder trophy, so I think he will build on last season and eventually become a finalist.
Marcus Hogberg plays more games than Craig Anderson
To begin the season, I feel like Anderson and Anders Nilsson will have a 55/45 split due to Anderson’s age and declining ability. However, I can picture Anderson getting injured for an extended period of time, plus his poor play will make it so that Ottawa will not be rushing him back, which will open the door for Marcus Hogberg. He will begin October in Belleville, but as soon as Anderson or Nilsson ends up on the IR, Hogberg will be the first call-up. I don’t wish any harm on Anderson, but it’s hard to ignore the fact that Hogberg needs games in the NHL.
I think we could end up seeing the games played looking something like this:
---Nilsson: 44
---Hogberg: 20
---Anderson: 18
Anderson does not have a contract for next season, and I think the Senators will go into 2020-21 with Hogberg as their “1A” type starter.
Chris Tierney gets traded
I see Tierney as a bit redundant moving forward just because they have plenty of middle-six centres. Colin White is a 2-3C, Jean-Gabriel Pageau is a 3C, Artem Anisimov is a 3C, plus Logan Brown projects as a 1-2C, and Josh Norris projects as a 2-3C. There is no guarantee that Brown and/or Norris turn into NHLers, but if they do, Ottawa will have Brown, Norris, White, and Pageau down the middle, and Tierney won’t have much of a spot. Even if they only end up with White and Pageau, it’s not as if losing Tierney would be devastating for the team.
Yes, he scored 48 points last season, but he only had 9 goals and heavily benefitted from his linemates. I think the Senators will see the progression of a few of their younger players and realize that they can still get a quality return for Tierney while he’s only 25 so they will ship him out for either a prospect or a winger. And Tierney becoming even more expendable will be possible because...
Logan Brown becomes their 1C by the end of the year
Right now, I’m assuming Colin White will be getting the most ice-time out of their centres. He is certainly not a 1C, nor do I think he will develop into one, but there aren’t really any other options. Pageau is nothing more than a 3C so he isn’t an option on the first line. Anisimov has spent time on a top line in the past, but that wasn’t because he was truly good enough for the first line, and he will most likely be playing in the bottom-six.
Tierney did lead their centres in scoring last season, but I expect a dropoff in production, plus he is also a 2-3C. So those are the four centres Brown will be competing with for ice-time on the top line, and White is the only one who has somewhat of a case to be there. However, I’m still higher on Brown’s potential, and if he gets paired with Batherson, that combination could be quite lethal.
Injuries and inconsistency are the only problems for Brown, but I’ll predict that he mostly avoids those two things and becomes the Senators number one centre at the end of the season.
They cut 40 goals off their goals against total
Ottawa somehow allowed a whopping 302 goals last season (31st in the league), which was 106 (!!!) more than the Islanders who were first in the league. I predict that the Senators are able to shave 40 goals off of that total and allow “only” 262 this season. That would have put them 22nd overall last year, which is obviously still not very good, but cutting 40 goals out would be a massive amount.
If Ottawa allows the same amount of shots against per game (35.7) and Anderson plays in 18 games as I predicted with the same SV% as last season (.903%), Nilsson and Hogberg will have to combine to have a SV% just above .912% for them to allow 262 goals against. That’s obviously an imperfect way to measure that because Ottawa won’t be allowing exactly the same amount of shots, but that just shows that I think it is doable if Nilsson and Hogberg are getting the majority of the games.
Nilsson had a .914 SV% in 24 games in Ottawa last season anyway, so cutting 40 goals from their goals against can definitely happen. Furthermore, if Christian Wolanin is getting regular minutes and Erik Brannstrom ends up playing in a decent amount of games, Ottawa could have a better blueline too. This prediction coming true would be a baby step, but one that is very much needed for a team that has to drastically improve defensively.
Do you have any bold predictions for this season?
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