14/15 Senators vs 20/21 Senators

[DaveMatthew]

In 14/15, we had:

• Erik Karlsson, 24 years old
• Mark Stone, 22 years old (rookie)
• Kyle Turris, 25 years old
• Mike Hoffman, 24 years old (rookie)
• Mika Zibanejad, 21 years old (2nd season)
• Cody Ceci, 20 years old (2nd season)
• JG Pageau, 21 years old (rookie)
• Curtiz Lazar, 19 years old (rookie)
• Jared Cowen, 23 years old

We made the playoffs that year. 3 years later, we were rebuilding.

This year, we have:

• Thomas Chabot: 23 years old
• Drake Batherson: 22 years old (2nd season)
• Tim Stutzle: 18 years old (rookie)
• Brady Tkachuk: 20 years old
• Josh Norris: 21 years old (rookie)
• Colin White: 23 years old
• Artem Zub: 24 years old (rookie)
• Erik Brannstrom: 20 years old (rookie)

We're 9-20.

Which young roster had more potential?
In 3 years, will we be re-building?

Click to read more...

 

[BatherSeason]

I actually believe that this core seems much deeper. Lazar, Cowen and Ceci lose it for the 14/15 squad.

 

[DaveMatthew]

I actually believe that this core seems much deeper. Lazar, Cowen and Ceci lose it for the 14/15 squad.

At the time, would Lazar have been considered as promising a prospect as, let's say, Pinto? Cowen as Zub? Ceci as Brannstrom?

If you did a more direct comparison:

Karlsson vs Chabot
Stone vs Tkachuk
Zibanejad vs Stutzle
Turris vs White
Pageau vs Norris
Ceci vs Brannstrom - who knows, IMO. Brannstrom has similar risks to Ceci.
Cowen vs Zub

 

[FormentonTheFuture]

Would be tough to say comparing those players alone, but the prospect pool is much better than it was in 2015 IMO. By a large margin. That will be the difference if they have success

 

[Korpse]

These cores were not at the same stages.

 

[DaveMatthew]

These cores were not at the same stages.

How so? Chabot is just as experienced as Karlsson was. Stone and Hoffman were rookies coming off great AHL seasons, just like Batherson and Norris. Stutzle is younger than Zibanejad was, but they’re both top 5 picks breaking into top 6 roles.

Why would the 14/15 core be at a further stage?

 

[JungleBeat]

Absolutely ridiculous how Dorion surround the core with pure garbage in 2017 and before.

 

[DrEasy]

In 14/15, we had:

• Erik Karlsson, 24 years old
• Mark Stone, 22 years old (rookie)
• Kyle Turris, 25 years old
• Mike Hoffman, 24 years old (rookie)
• Mika Zibanejad, 21 years old (2nd season)
• Cody Ceci, 20 years old (2nd season)
• JG Pageau, 21 years old (rookie)
• Curtiz Lazar, 19 years old (rookie)
• Jared Cowen, 23 years old

We made the playoffs that year. 3 years later, we were rebuilding.

This year, we have:

• Thomas Chabot: 23 years old
• Drake Batherson: 22 years old (2nd season)
• Tim Stutzle: 18 years old (rookie)
• Brady Tkachuk: 20 years old
• Josh Norris: 21 years old (rookie)
• Colin White: 23 years old
• Artem Zub: 24 years old (rookie)
• Erik Brannstrom: 20 years old (rookie)

We're 9-20.

Which young roster had more potential?
In 3 years, will we be re-building?

Will it be possible to keep the core you listed above together and healthy and performing at their peak when JBD, Sanderson, our future 1st rounder arrive and are themselves at their peak? If so, we should be good. There's a lot of uncertainty though: I mean look at what happened to Cowen, Lazar, Ceci. And in some cases the GM is overly patient (Ceci), in others not patient enough (Ziba).

 

[Korpse]

How so? Chabot is just as experienced as Karlsson was. Stone and Hoffman were rookies coming off great AHL seasons, just like Batherson and Norris. Stutzle is younger than Zibanejad was, but they’re both top 5 picks breaking into top 6 roles.

Why would the 14/15 core be at a further stage?

The organization went through a retool rather than a rebuild prior. Stone, Hoffman, Karlsson, Pageau were the result of good drafting prior and a bad year netted them Zibanjead but they made the playoffs the following year. Spezza and Alfredsson were gone by 14/15 but Ryan and MacArthur were brought in. Most notably those teams were trying to make the playoffs. Some years they made the playoffs some years they didn't, they went to the ECF and then finished bottom of the league and key players were due big raises.

This is a rebuild. This team isn't competing, they will get more high picks and that's the key, while the cores may seem similar we should be adding even more high end and younger talent over the next few drafts to go along with what we already have.

There's obviously a lot of uncertainty moving forward and things could easily go south, but it's not a 1for1 comparison.

 

[DaveMatthew]

The organization went through a retool rather than a rebuild prior. Stone, Hoffman, Karlsson, Pageau were the result of good drafting prior and a bad year netted them Zibanjead but they made the playoffs the following year. Spezza and Alfredsson were gone by 14/15 but Ryan and MacArthur were brought in. Most notably those teams were trying to make the playoffs. Some years they made the playoffs some years they didn't, they went to the ECF and then finished bottom of the league and key players were due big raises.

This is a rebuild. This team isn't competing, they will get more high picks and that's the key, while the cores may seem similar we should be adding even more high end and younger talent over the next few drafts to go along with what we already have.

There's obviously a lot of uncertainty moving forward and things could easily go south, but it's not a 1for1 comparison.

There’s a difference in messaging sure. Although Pierre Dorion and DJ Smith were both pretty clear that their goal this year was to compete for the playoffs. They just abandoned that goal when they got off to a horrendous start.

But beyond messaging, the construction of the roster is quite similar. There are a lot of young, promising players being integrated into the team.

To the point that Murray brought in Ryan and MacArtur - that’s true. But Dorion brought in Murray and Dadonov. Murray brought in Methot to play with Karlsson. Dorion brought in Zaitsev to play with Chabot.

So the difference should not be so massive. It’s massive because of Dorion’s acquisitions. It’s not like he hasn’t made any moves. He’s just made the wrong ones.

Sens fans shouldn’t be content with a 9-20 record because there are young players on the roster and Bruce Garrioch uses the term rebuild in every sentence.

Even with the young team we have, we should be a lot better.

There’s something, beyond being young, that’s the issue. And unless it’s remedied, it’s hard to buy that contending days are ahead. (Cough cough it’s Dorion and DJ).

 

[Shruggs Peterson]

At the time, would Lazar have been considered as promising a prospect as, let's say, Pinto? Cowen as Zub? Ceci as Brannstrom?

If you did a more direct comparison:

Karlsson vs Chabot
Stone vs Tkachuk
Zibanejad vs Stutzle
Turris vs White
Pageau vs Norris
Ceci vs Brannstrom - who knows, IMO. Brannstrom has similar risks to Ceci.
Cowen vs Zub

Would it not make more sense to compare Turris to Norris and Pageau to White based on their role? Both comparisons would be very close imo

I agree that the prospect pool around this core is deeper and will impact their overall team success. I'm much more excited to see Pinto, Sanderson, JBD, Greig, Formenton etc. than the group of Shane Prince, Chris Wideman, Tobias Lindberg, Andreas Englund, Matt Puempel etc.

 

[Korpse]

There’s a difference in messaging sure. Although Pierre Dorion and DJ Smith were both pretty clear that their goal this year was to compete for the playoffs. They just abandoned that goal when they got off to a horrendous start.

But beyond messaging, the construction of the roster is quite similar. There are a lot of young, promising players being integrated into the team.

And to the point that Murray brought in Ryan and MacArtur - that’s true. But Dorion brought in Murray and Dadonov.

So the difference should not be so massive. Sens fans shouldn’t be content with a 9-20 record because there are young players on the roster and Bruce Garrioch uses the term rebuild in every sentence.

Even with the young team we have, we should be a lot better.

There’s something, beyond being young, that’s the issue. And unless it’s remedied, it’s hard to buy that contending days are ahead. (Cough cough it’s Dorion and DJ).

I think most knew that this team wasn't going to compete I'm sure DJ and Dorion had no illusions either. That said, they want to create a competitive environment. They aren't looking to completely throw in the towel, but I have a hard time believing they aren't eyeing the 2022 draft and wanting a crack at the top of that draft.

It's not just the messaging it's the moves. MacArthur signed a 5 year extension and Ryan a 7 year extension at the start of the 14/15 season, these are players the team committed money, term and top 6 roles too in hopes of being in the playoffs. They paid a pretty big price to acquire Bobby Ryan too.

Dadonov to me is a stop gap, obvious hole on the right side between Batherson and Dadonov with really no one close to being ready to fill that hole. With Nilsson's situation they had to go get a goaltender, they didn't trade for a 36 year old MAF, they traded for a 26 year old Matt Murray they could see be with the team when it is ready to compete.

Maybe this team should be better I don't really see them that similar to the 14/15 team. Turris, Stone and Hoffman were further along in development than Norris, Batherson and Tkachuk. Zibanejad ahead of Stutzle, Zibanejad being in his D+4 season. MacArthur and Dadonov being quite similar but there is no Bobby Ryan.

 

[Dan Patrick]

Okay, I'll take the bait. So I'll start by saying these two groups are not comparable with the bottom group needing at least another year or two to get to where the top group was in terms of the same place. I also feel like it's a bit disingenuous given some of the years missing so I decided to fix it for clarity. Bolded is the information I added.

• Kyle Turris, 25 years old (6th season) (0.78 ppg)
  
• Erik Karlsson, 24 years old (6th season) (0.81 ppg)
• Mike Hoffman, 24 years old (rookie) (0.61 ppg)
  
• Jared Cowen, 23 years old (3rd Season) (0.17 ppg) [was a bust in 2014-2015 got traded 30 games into the next season and never played another game of pro hockey]
  
• Mark Stone, 22 years old (rookie) (0.8 ppg) [You have mark stone as a rookie but Batherson as a 2nd year even though both played two short stints in the NHL before breaking out so for clarity I switched both to rookies but you could just as easily say both are 2nd year players]
• Mika Zibanejad, 21 years old (2nd season) (0.575 ppg)
• JG Pageau, 21 years old (rookie) (0.38 ppg)
  
• Cody Ceci, 20 years old (2nd season) (0.26 ppg)
• Curtiz Lazar, 19 years old (rookie) (0.22 ppg)

Top prospects: (other than guys who made it in the list above)
Shane Prince
Matt Puempel
Buddy Robinson
Nick Paul (holy cow he's been around for a while)
Alex Guptill
Freddy Claesson
Mark Borowiecki
Ryan Dzingel

and

• Nick Paul: 25 years old (2nd season) (0.38 ppg) [you left Paul out but he is only in his second year and is still in that 25 and under group]
• Artem Zub: 24 years old (rookie) (0.3 ppg)
  
• Thomas Chabot: 23 years old (4th season) (0.73 ppg)
• Colin White: 23 years old (3rd season) (0.52 ppg)
  
• Drake Batherson: 22 years old (rookie) (0.62 ppg)
• Josh Norris: 21 years old (rookie) (0.52 ppg)
  
• Brady Tkachuk: 20 years old (3rd season) (0.62 ppg)
• Erik Brannstrom: 20 years old (rookie) (0.36 ppg) [has only played half the season]
• Tim Stutzle: 18 years old (rookie) (0.58 ppg)

Top prospects: (in no particular order)
Sanderson
JBD
Pinto
Sokolov
Formenton
Daccord
Jarventie
LBrown
Klevin

So I think a couple of things become pretty obvious pretty quickly, the top group not only has several more years of experience (19 years in the NHL versus 12 for the bottom group), a worse ppg than the bottom group (top is .47 ppg average and bottom is .51 ppg average), the top group also had a much much worse prospect group feeding it over the coming years. While trying to find a prospect list for the 14-15 season I actually found more than a couple of posts that said outside of Nick Paul, Dzingle and the guys who were rookies that year there weren't any other prospects that had the talent to really help the team which proved to be all too true. So to answer your question I would almost certainly take the bottom group not only for the talent already present on the team but also for the players that we will be adding to the team over the next two to three years.

TLDR: Not only is the top group older, more experienced and worse offensively (even with one more forward than Defencemen), but it also has a much worse prospect pool with less to add to the team in the coming years. The bottom group has at least another year to play before they can really be compared at which point I imagine it won't even be a contest. Yes Stone and Karlsson are better than anyone on the bottom list but I like the bottom lists chances of winning a cup a lot more looking at the players at the same time.

 

[GCK]

Even with the young team we have, we should be a lot better.

There’s something, beyond being young, that’s the issue. And unless it’s remedied, it’s hard to buy that contending days are ahead. (Cough cough it’s Dorion and DJ).

How much better would this team look with
Lehrer .905 SA% 9-12-3 record
Anderson .923 SA% 14-13-8 record
Hammond .941 SA% 20-1-2

Rather than
Murray .880 SA% 7-12-1 record
Hogberg .859 SA% 2-5 record
Daccord. .913 SA%. 0-2 record

 

[Dan Patrick]

How much better would this team look with
Lehrer .905 SA% 9-12-3 record
Anderson .923 SA% 14-13-8 record
Hammond .941 SA% 20-1-2

Rather than
Murray .880 SA% 7-12-1 record
Hogberg .859 SA% 2-5 record
Daccord. .913 SA%. 0-2 record

More so than that (although I'll admit the goaltending has been suspect at times this year) the 14-15 team had two solid defensive pairings with Methot-Karlsson and Borowiecki-Gryba. Not that the third pairing made us world beaters but just having two stable defensive parings is about 100% better than our current team can claim.

 

[DaveMatthew]

How much better would this team look with
Lehrer .905 SA% 9-12-3 record
Anderson .923 SA% 14-13-8 record
Hammond .941 SA% 20-1-2

Rather than
Murray .880 SA% 7-12-1 record
Hogberg .859 SA% 2-5 record
Daccord. .913 SA%. 0-2 record

Much better, for sure.

Which begs the question:

• Are our goalies that bad?
• Are they bad because our defense and system is terrible?

I’m not sure which one would be worse.

We’re locked into Murray for 3 more seasons, and Dorion believes more in DJ than in any other thing in his entire life.

Neither is an easy fix.

 

[Micklebot]

How much better would this team look with
Lehrer .905 SA% 9-12-3 record
Anderson .923 SA% 14-13-8 record
Hammond .941 SA% 20-1-2

Rather than
Murray .880 SA% 7-12-1 record
Hogberg .859 SA% 2-5 record
Daccord. .913 SA%. 0-2 record

Goaltending is definitely night and day,

There's also the difference in the supporting cast;

2021	Age	Pts/GP
Evgeny Dadonov	31	0.38
Mike Reilly	27	0.37
Chris Tierney	26	0.34
Nikita Zaitsev	28	0.34
Austin Watson	28	0.28
Derek Stepan	30	0.3
Artem Anisimov	32	0.29
Erik Gudbranson	28	0.1
2015	Age	Pts/GP
Bobby Ryan	27	0.69
Clarke MacArthur	29	0.58
Milan Michalek	29	0.52
David Legwand	34	0.34
Alex Chiasson	23	0.34
Erik Condra	28	0.34
Marc Methot	29	0.24
Mark Borowiecki	25	0.17

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

 

[Micklebot]

Much better, for sure.

Which begs the question:

• Are our goalies that bad?
• Are they bad because our defense and system is terrible?

I’m not sure which one would be worse.

We’re locked into Murray for 3 more seasons, and Dorion believes more in DJ than in any other thing in his entire life.

Neither is an easy fix.

Well, Murray had a .899 sv% on a very good Penguins team last year, and a .880 with us,

Goalies aren't getting much help but they also aren't very good.

 

[Sens of Anarchy]

Goaltending is definitely night and day,

There's also the difference in the supporting cast;

2021	Age	Pts/GP
Evgeny Dadonov	31	0.38
Mike Reilly	27	0.37
Chris Tierney	26	0.34
Nikita Zaitsev	28	0.34
Austin Watson	28	0.28
Derek Stepan	30	0.3
Artem Anisimov	32	0.29
Erik Gudbranson	28	0.1
2015	Age	Pts/GP
Bobby Ryan	27	0.69
Clarke MacArthur	29	0.58
Milan Michalek	29	0.52
David Legwand	34	0.34
Alex Chiasson	23	0.34
Erik Condra	28	0.34
Marc Methot	29	0.24
Mark Borowiecki	25	0.17

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Having Prime Karlsson tips the scales as well. He was pretty amazing for quite a stretch... could definitely change the outcome of a game

 

[Micklebot]

Having Prime Karlsson tips the scales as well. He was pretty amazing for quite a stretch... could definitely change the outcome of a game

No doubt, he's by far the best player on either group, Stone was great too though that's before he really became elite.

 

[Korpse]

Stone was great too though that's before he really became elite.

When his shooting percentage was "unsustainable".

 

[Micklebot]

When his shooting percentage was "unsustainable".

In fairness, he consistently shoots at a remarkably high %, not surprising people would have thought it would drop early in his career.

 

[GCK]

Much better, for sure.

Which begs the question:

• Are our goalies that bad?
• Are they bad because our defense and system is terrible?

I’m not sure which one would be worse.

We’re locked into Murray for 3 more seasons, and Dorion believes more in DJ than in any other thing in his entire life.

Neither is an easy fix.

I was simply pointing out we were thinking tank for a high pick that season and the Hammond went on the run. We gave up tons of great chances against that season and the goaltending bailed us out. Those goaltending numbers were unsustainable long term. Both teams were similar outside of that position.

That goaltending cost us a shot at McDavid.

 

[Sensinitis]

The difference is that the 14/15 team had most of the young players on the team already (Lazar/Stone/Hoffman/Cowen/Ceci/Pageau/etc) with not many in the pipeline waiting to burst on the scene.

This year’s roster has a bunch of young talent as you mentioned but also many that haven’t even made the team yet (Sanderson/JBD/Formenton/Pinto/Greig/etc) and probably another top 5 pick to boot. This potential core is 100 times better because of all those up and comers imo

 

[Sensinitis]

How so? Chabot is just as experienced as Karlsson was. Stone and Hoffman were rookies coming off great AHL seasons, just like Batherson and Norris. Stutzle is younger than Zibanejad was, but they’re both top 5 picks breaking into top 6 roles.

Why would the 14/15 core be at a further stage?

Nitpicking but Zbad wasn’t a top 5 pick he was #6 and Hoffman was 24 yrs old in 14-15 even though he was technically a rookie. He’s more comparable to Zub development wise than he is to Batherson/Norris.