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After posting part 1 of the mailbag on Friday, I'm back with part 2 to answer more of your questions! Don't worry if yours wasn't answered, there will be one more on either Monday or Tuesday!
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Ornumsi: What will be the favourite replacement activity for Sens fans when the circus that is the Sens gets too much for fans to tolerate? I’m a big fan of snowmobiling...In the span of just over a year, The Sens could actually lose Hoffman, Stone, Karlsson, Duchene, Ceci, and not pick anyone in the top 31…
Ha, one of those players is not like the other ones...But yeah, I’ll just say this: being a fan of the Boston Red Sox perfectly balances out the misery associated with the Ottawa Senators, so a great replacement activity is being a fan of an amazing team in another sport.
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A: What do you see the sens 4 lines being assuming no trades go down, to start the year?
Here’s my unofficial guess for the first game: Dzingel-Duchene-Stone, Boedker-Pageau-Ryan, Tkachuk-Smith-White, Pyatt-Brown-Paajarvi, with McCormick as the 13th forward.
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Dhamon316: Hi Trevor, two part question. What gaps, if any, do you think the Senators need to fill to get out of the lottery zone, and who do you think the Senators could realistically acquire via a Karlsson trade to fill some / all of those gaps?
To become a good team, they obviously need a complete overhaul. To not be in the bottom-10, they can’t really do anything to improve their goaltending, but they absolutely need Craig Anderson to at least be average. Besides that, it’s hard to say “they should acquire these players” because I know that they won’t, but they clearly need another top-four defenseman and a second line centre. As you say though, they might be able to get a couple of NHL players in return for Karlsson, but those holes that are going to be filled will be counteracted by having an even bigger hole on the right side of the first pairing.
If we’re looking at things realistically, from Tampa Bay, I’d look at players like Cal Foote, Taylor Raddysh, and Anthony Cirelli. From Vancouver, Olli Juolevi, Sven Baertschi, and Adam Gaudette are options, and from Vegas, Colin Miller and Alex Tuch would appear to be available. I’m not sure if Ottawa would be able to get multiple NHL-ready players in a deal though, as I think they would want at least one prospect and a pick in return.
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Baron: What are the odds that Mark Stone leaves by year-end?
With the way that everything is going, I’ll bet it’s more likely than not. If nothing gets better by January, you know that he won’t want to re-sign when he’s eligible to do so. There are of course a lot external factors at play here though.
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Phate: If Karlsson is moved, where does Ottawa rank in terms of young bluechip cores. (Duchene, Stone, Tkachuk, Brown, Chabot, anyone else?) Top 3rd, middle 3rd, bottom 3rd of league?
Hmm, I’d say in the 20-24 range. That would go down a lot if Duchene and Stone left as well, because their prospect group is above average but not elite. Besides that though, they don’t have much young NHL talent, so the only players factoring in here are their prospects, and lots of teams have both. I’d have to look at it more closely to give a better answer, but it seems like that’s where they would rank.
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FakeUsername: How many of the Ottawa Senators' issues would be solved with Eugene selling?
Literally everything. Obviously a new owner would have to assemble a good front office and coaching staff too, but an owner that can spend, has a vision for the future, and is willing to adapt would save the franchise. Not every potential owner is going to be that, but at bare minimum he will be able to invest the proper amount of money into the team. Nothing will truly change until Melnyk is gone.
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Cprevost7: If the senators want to get rid of Bobby Ryan so bad, why not send him away for a 3rd or 4th or 5th or whatever the first offer is that they receive? Im sure a team with cap would trade just one single pick for him?
His contract is so bad that Ottawa would have to incentivize a team to take him on. He has 4 years left on his deal at $7.25M, and the only reason a team with a lot of cap space would take that on is if they got a pick or prospect as compensation. In reality, the Senators would have to give up something like a first round pick and maybe even more just to unload Ryan.
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Rae: Not based of asset return and purely based on being a fan of Karlsson, what team would you want to see Karlsson play for (besides Senators)?
If he played on the Canucks, I’d be able to see him more in person, but I’d also hear about how amazing he is from my friends every single day...I think the best place for him would be Tampa Bay though because that team is incredible, he gets to live near the beach, and he gets to play with his buddy Victor Hedman. I’d also love to see how many points he’d be able to rack up on a stacked team like that.
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Matt: What would you say is the worst trade in Ottawa Senators history?
Probably the late Pavol Demitra for Christer Olsson. Demitra was lighting it up in the AHL with 81 points in 48 games, and he went on to score 768 points in 847 games over his NHL career. Meanwhile, Olsson played just 25 games for the Senators and was never seen from again. Honourable mention: Jonathan Dahlen for Alex Burrows because that trade was maddening the second it happened and it still is.
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Danial Leduc: Assuming Karlsson and/or Stone leaves, what timeline would you give the Sens for their return to contention and out of rebuild mode?
Based on this wording, I’ll assume that they keep Matt Duchene, even though he could easily be gone as well. Without Karlsson and Stone, they would have players like Duchene, Brown, Tkachuk, Chabot, Wolanin, Gustavsson, and other prospects to build around. They have a decent farm system, but it’s not the cream of the crop. The team would be bad for quite a while, and I wouldn’t expect a return to contention for three seasons (including this one) at the absolute minimum. More conservatively, I’d say five years. It will be a long road back if any of their big 3 UFAs are gone.
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Andre: How many rookies will make the team this year?
It depends on who is injured by opening night, so it’s tough to say. I’ll guess that Colin White, Logan Brown, Christian Wolanin, and Brady Tkachuk make it initially, although Tkachuk might only be there for an audition.
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Josh Fernandes: How have rumours from ownership gone from almost done to now not not looking good? Also any new updates on change in ownership?
It's a bit of a mystery to be honest. It seems like every couple weeks there’s a new rumour regarding an imminent sale, and every time I get a bit of hope but it hasn’t led to anything yet. I do think that Melnyk will be gone some time in the next couple years, but I’m not sure if it’ll be in time for the team to retain Erik Karlsson or not. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire, but we’ve been smelling smoke for about nine months now.
Stay tuned for part 3 of the mailbag!
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