You can follow me on Twitter @ShackTS
The most interesting story heading into training camp for the 2019-20 season will be seeing which rookie forwards make the team. There are way too many forwards trying to make the team, as they would need about six more spots to fit everyone in. I’d love to see all of Drake Batherson, Logan Brown, Rudolfs Balcers, Jonathan Davidsson, and Filip Chlapik make the team, but the reality is that only two or three of them can, with there being no room for surprises either.
Despite the narrative about the Senators being a young team, they still have some veteran players who are taking up roster spots and aren’t going to be contributing very much. Mikkel Boedker is one of those players, as he will be playing in the bottom-six, but there’s no reason why he should be getting consistent minutes. He played in 71 games last season while averaging just 14:01 of ice-time per game---that ice-time ranked 10th amongst forwards, so it’s not as if he is seen as an integral part of the team.
If you take into consideration Boedker’s $4M salary and his name value as a former top-10 pick, it would make sense to keep him in the lineup, perhaps even in the top-six. However, if you strip away his reputation, he is a bottom-six player who is doing nothing more than blocking prospects on their way to successful careers.
We already know the kind of player Boedker is, too. He had 35 points in 71 games last season, and he is going to give you around 40 points per season while posting very poor defensive results:
It’s not that he is a horrible player, but he is redundant in a lineup full of mediocre players. We know what he is going to produce, but we don’t know what Logan Brown, Rudolfs Balcers, Filip Chlapik, or Jonathan Davidsson are going to produce, and the team needs to figure out which prospects are worth keeping around and which need more seasoning. There’s value in knowing that a prospect is a legitimate NHLer, but Ottawa can’t know that if they always dress their veterans.
Boedker only has one year left on his contract, and it’s pretty clear that he isn’t going to be a part of this teams future after that. So what is the point of having him play regular minutes? There might be a team that is willing to trade for him at the deadline, but I’m not so sure they would want his $4M cap hit. Even so, it’s not worth playing him in 100% of the games in the slight chance that a team is willing to give up a draft pick for him. I have no idea what kind of person he is in the dressing room, and there’s something to be said for having “character” players around, but healthy scratches don’t become cancers in the room just because they aren’t on the ice. Boedker can still be a positive influence on the team even if he isn’t playing every single game.
A hypothetical lineup to begin the season could look something like this:
Tkachuk-White-Batherson
Duclair-Tierney-Ryan
Ennis-Pageau-C. Brown
Boedker-Anisimov-Davidsson
That would leave L. Brown, Balcers, and Chlapik out of the lineup, which is not ideal, especially for the former. With Boedker out of the lineup (and potentially another veteran), Ottawa gets to play another rookie, albeit most likely in the bottom-six. I’m not saying Boedker needs to always be a healthy scratch, but he should see his fair share of the press box.
Now, Boedker is not the only veteran who should be in and out of the lineup. Tyler Ennis played in only 51 games last season, and he is by no means a lock to play every night. Artem Anisimov has the name value just like Boedker, but he will be playing in the bottom-six and should get the night off sometimes in favour of someone such as L. Brown. Still though, Boedker is someone who I wanted to focus on specifically because he seems like an obvious candidate.
Injuries will occur and make these decisions easier, so maybe Boedker won’t have to miss as much time as once believed. I never want to
wish for players to get harmful injuries, but the strange thing is that it would be beneficial for the Senators to have Craig Anderson and some veteran forwards and defensemen go down throughout the season with non-serious injuries so that their young players can get enough ice-time.
It’s going to be tough to get all of the rookies the right amount of ice-time in Ottawa and Belleville, and even while taking injuries into consideration, the only way to do that is by scratching veterans such as Boedker every so often. He isn’t important to the team’s future, but their rookies potentially are, and that’s what matters most. Hopefully he will realize that if his deployment is cut back even further.
Ottawa Senators Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»