You can follow me on Twitter @ShackTS
When the Senators signed centre Paul Carey on July 1st, fans were ecstatic that the team
finally signed a big-name free agent.
Okay, maybe that’s not exactly what happened. He was signed to a two-way contract, and my initial expectation was that this was a Belleville Senators signing. However, upon further inspection, I feel like Carey could be used quite a bit in Ottawa in the upcoming season.
The almost 30-year-old has bounced around the league and played 287 games in the AHL and 92 in the NHL. I like to think that I’ve at least
heard of almost every player in the NHL and AHL, but I can’t say that I had heard of Carey, despite the fact that he played 60 games with the New York Rangers last year. Suffice it to say, when Ottawa signed him, I didn’t think much of it. But the Senators depth chart at centre is currently Matt Duchene, Jean-Gabriel Pageau, Colin White, and maybe Zack Smith if he’s moving back to centre, but I doubt it.
Then there’s Logan Brown who has a good shot at making the team, but even then, that’s only four centres. I think Carey is going to be slotted into the fourth line centre role, as it’s not exactly ideal if Brown or White are getting such low time on ice anyway. If Carey gets this role, then White can easily be shifted to the right wing, or perhaps him or Brown will be given some time in the AHL.
If he’s being used as a top-six centre in Belleville, then that would be fantastic as he has averaged 0.63 points per game (52 per 82 games) in the AHL, and in 2016-17 he had 55 points in 55 games in Hershey under new Belleville coach Troy Mann. He can be a useful organizational player:
It would be great to have a consistent scoring threat in the top-six in Belleville to go alongside some of the Senators prospects, but I feel like the organization has other plans.
There just really isn’t much centre depth with the team right now, unless Brown and/or White can take their game to the next level. And since Carey spent the entire year in the NHL last year, I think the Senators have him in mind to replace Nate Thompson. The team has also had a massive veteran exodus since last summer with Marc Methot, Clarke MacArthur, Chris Neil, Kyle Turris, Dion Phaneuf, Alex Burrows, Nate Thompson, Johnny Oduya, Derick Brassard, and Chris Kelly all leaving, so I’m not surprised to see them wanting to add a veteran voice to the group.
Besides the few weeks that the Senators had Nick Shore, they haven’t really had a
solid fourth line centre since Chris Kelly in 2007, and hopefully Carey can buck that trend. The only thing is, he was the opposite of impressive in his stint with the Rangers. In his 60 games, he was 20st out of 21 skaters on the Rangers (min. 500 TOI) in relative corsi at -5.41%, was on for 16 5v5 goals for and 30 against, and was also second last on the team in xGF% with 41.47% (
thanks to Corsica for the data
Furthermore, his
hockeyviz charts are horrendous:
His shots against don’t look as bad compared to the rest of the Rangers, but he has absolutely
zero offensive impact. 14 points in 60 games on the fourth line isn’t terrible, but he isn’t going to be helping the Senators if he is hardly able to create shot attempts when he’s out there on the ice.
Carey is almost 30, and is definitely not an exciting signing, but expect him to be playing quite a bit in Ottawa. He’ll most likely be another massive possession drag, but I guess if it means Brown and White can get the proper amount of time to develop, then it could tangentially be a good thing. I just hope that once either of them is ready, Guy Boucher and Pierre Dorion aren’t stubborn about Carey’s place in the lineup.
Ottawa Senators Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»