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With the Senators playing 40 games so far in the 2018-19 season, I wanted to look back at their season so far. The halfway point is 41 games, although I’ll be doing a few halfway point articles around this time, so some will come after the 41st game. For today, I’ll be grading all of the forwards who have played at least 10 games, which includes 14 players.
For this exercise, it’s important to remember that expectations are important. I don’t expect Nick Paul to be a point per game player, so I’m not going to give him an F for not reaching that level. A higher grade does not necessarily mean I think a certain player is better than another, plus we all have different grading scales too.
Here they are though, and I’m sure there will be disagreement amongst everyone:
Mark Stone: A+
Name one area of his game that he hasn’t excelled at this season...you can’t. Stone has continued his point per game pace this season, putting up 43 in 40 games so far. I didn’t think he would be able to play as good as he did last season for an extended period of time, but he has been doing this on a horrible team for a season and a half. His ability to make others around him so much better is also an incredibly underrated aspect of his skillset.
Bobby Ryan: B-
I was surprised to see that Ryan actually has 22 points in 37 games so far. That’s 49 points in a full season, although it’s almost a certainty that he’ll miss more games this season due to some kind of injury. I haven’t noticed him very much from game to game, but that’s not terrible production from him so far. It’s nowhere near what you would expect from a $7.25M player, but we can’t expect that player anymore. He has been fine, but the only question is whether or not he can stay on the ice.
Matt Duchene: A
Duchene is nowhere near as good defensively as Stone, and that’s why I can’t quite give him the A+. However, he has been everything the Senators could have hoped for offensively. His 38 points in 34 games is elite production, and he gives Ottawa a legitimate threat down the middle. In fact, he’s been on over a point per game pace since January 5th, 2018, so it’s not even as if this is just a small hot streak. Ottawa desperately needs to re-sign him because he has helped the offense in so many ways.
Mikkel Boedker: C+
I don’t have too strong of an opinion on Boedker either way. I think most people would give him a slightly higher grade due to his 23 points in 40 games, but he’s always been a bit of a drag on his linemates in past spots, Ottawa included. I don’t think he’s necessarily a bad player per se, but he’s sort of a player that is just
there and won’t make that much of a positive impact at the end of the day. He is what he has always been, which is a third line winger who can score at a decent clip but is also going to give up a lot of shots.
Zack Smith: C
Considering Smith has 13 points but only had 19 last season, I guess he has at least been more productive this season. At the same time, it’s still pedestrian production from someone who is supposedly a top-nine player. It’s pretty clear that the most successful he has ever been in his career was mainly due to playing with Stone.
Chris Tierney: B-
Tierney has been a good surprise so far for the Senators by putting up 24 points in 40 games. His career high in points came last year when he scored 40, so he should be able to easily surpass that, and having another 45 point centre would be a good luxury to have, especially since JG Pageau is also about to return. His defensive numbers leave something to be desired, but I like his playmaking ability and he can play up and down the lineup. He isn’t anything spectacular, but on a good team, he’s nice to have in the bottom six.
Ryan Dzingel: A-
Dzingel has gotten better in the NHL three seasons in a row, and now he’s on pace for 57 points in a contract year. With anyone who suddenly gets better like this, it’s fair to be a bit skeptical at first, so I’d like to see if he can keep this up in the second half. Having said that, he’s at worst a 40-45 point player moving forward, and in the first half, he has been much better than that. He’s going to get handsomely paid in the off-season.
Tom Pyatt: F
Pyatt was finally waived yesterday, and I thought it would never happen. He has a measly two assists in 37 games and has the 2nd worst corsi in the entire league at 34.84%. Considering he was supposed to be a shutdown defensive winger too, he has certainly failed every test this season. That’s not a good look on Guy Boucher.
Brady Tkachuk: A-
Tkachuk cooled off after he made a brief appearance at the top of the Calder discussion, but he still has a very respectable 20 points in 29 games. For a 19-year-old rookie, that is extremely impressive. I wouldn’t give him an A or A+ just yet because we have to be careful to properly evaluate someone who plays with Stone, but we can definitely see that he is making an impact at the front of the net every single night. He has a phenomenal ability to create high-quality scoring chances, and he has cemented himself as a top-six (if not top-3) forward.
Colin White: B+
Much like Tkachuk, White has played a lot with Stone, so it’s obvious that that has helped his numbers. But at the same time, very early in the season and last year as well, he had some pretty horrendous linemates, so I don’t think White is a total passenger on these top-six lines either. It looks like he really changed his game over the off-season by becoming faster and stronger, and he can actually create much more offense than he could just one year ago. With 25 points in 39 games, he’s on pace for 53 points, which is comfortably in second line centre territory.
Magnus Paajarvi: F
Pyatt is one of the biggest black holes on the team, but Paajarvi has quietly been terrible in his own right. According to Evolving Wild’s GAR metric, he has actually been the second worst skater on the Senators with a -4.7 Goals Above Replacement (Pyatt is at -3.9). In the entire league, that ranks 12th worst as well. He has been an offensive black hole with just three goals and one assist, and it’s not as if he has been able to suppress shots either. Playing with Pyatt can most likely explain some of that, but in some regards, Paajarvi looks worse anyway. So at this point, there is nothing positive that he brings to the table and it would be more advantageous to see a rookie in his spot.
Nick Paul: C+
Paul hasn’t done much offensively by having just one assist in 14 games, but you can’t just look at his point totals---context is needed. He averages just 8:23 of ice-time per game, and sometimes that has been on a “fourth line” with just one actual consistent linemate. Furthermore, he has not been playing with linemates that can help him score, so his one point is not surprising. Despite being on the lowest rung, he has fantastic possession numbers, as he sits third on the Senators in relative corsi at +10.23%. It’s a small sample, but being on for 52.72% of the shot attempts on a team this bad is pretty damn impressive. He doesn’t create much offensively, but for a fourth line centre, all you can ask is that he is good defensively---and Paul has been.
Drake Batherson: C
I would have given him an A or A+ after his first three games because he had 5 points, but after that point, he really struggled. In the 14 games after that before being sent back down to Belleville, Drake the Snake had just one goal and two assists, and his corsi was even worse than Pyatt’s...33.24%. He just wasn’t doing much after those first few games, and I was more than fine with him being sent back so that he could regain some confidence in the AHL. He has been an A+ in Belleville with 25 points in 20 games, but he still needs some work in Ottawa.
Max McCormick: D-
McCormick was waived back on December 16th after playing just 14 games, and it was always extremely puzzling as to why he had a one-way contract in the first place. He doesn’t really do anything particularly well except hit people, but that has such limited utility. He is a useful AHL player, but nothing more. I didn’t give him an F simply because he has much lower expectations than both Pyatt and Paajarvi, nor was he ever expected to be relied upon (which might not be totally fair).
Make sure to tune in for the grades on the defenseman and goaltenders later on!
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