Senators Off-Season Discussion 2024 Mega Thread

[Yak]

Senators Off-Season Therapy Session: Let's Vent and Build a Winner

Hey fellow Sens faithful, There are too many fragmented conversations going on. More fragmented than our hockey team. I want to create a super post here where we can all contribute to under one topic.

Let's be real, last season was…rough. But hey, at least we're consistent about being at the bottom, right? Time to channel those last-place frustrations into some constructive off-season strategy. This is our open thread to brainstorm how we get the Sens back on track.

Let's get the ball rolling with some burning questions:

• Coaching Conundrum: Dumpster Dive or Diamond District? We all know the Sens have a history of bargain-basement coaching hires. But hey, new ownership, new era, right? Do we go full bling and snag a big name (think Berube with his shiny Stanley Cup ring!), or are we destined for another round of interviewing recycled coaches and AHL buddies (looking at you, John Gruden!)?
  
  This off-season, let's hope we don't end up sifting through coaching scraps while the good stuff gets snatched up by other teams. Time to decide - diamond district or dumpster dive for our next leader?
• The Roster Purge: Who stays, who goes, and who do we dream-sign this summer?
• The D Dilemma: Our defense was leakier than the Titanic. How do we fix this mess?find a netminder who actually likes stopping pucks?
• Scouting Report: What kind of players should our scouts be hunting down? Are we going for skill, grit, or a goalie who doesn't faint at the sight of a breakaway?
• Trading Up (or Down?): Do we shake up the core or bet big on the draft?
• Chychrun Chronicles: Did his comments on media day earn him a ticket out of town? Or should we see what happens next season with him?
• Branny's Last Stand? Time to trade him or hope the little leprechaun can carve a role for himself in the top 6? or are we being too harsh on him?
• Dream Lineup: Let's get creative! Build your ideal Sens forward and defense pairings.
• Passion Project: How do we reignite that spark from the past few seasons?
• Veteran Vibes: Do we need some experienced voices in the room, or do we double down on the youth movement?

Okay, I admit it - the roster has some potential. The rest? Pure chaos.

Let's get those debate juices flowing and make this off-season count!

Click to read more...

 

[GCK]

On the coaching decision, whether we get a fresh face or a retread, at least it won’t be a financial decision.

Chychrun is gone. Zero talks about extending over the past season tells you everything you need to know.

 

[GCK]

Branny is worth keeping but not unless he takes less in terms of cash in exchange for term.

 

[FunkySeeFunkyDoo]

Key is how they do in the Chychrun trade. Hoping that the points he got on the PP down the home stretch will pump his value a bit.

 

[Tuna99]

Vancouver changed 4 of their 6 D from last year. Would be good for Ottawa to do the same.

Sanderson - RD #1
LD #2 - Zub
Kleven - RD #3

 

[GCK]

Realistically I could see a D like

Sanderson Tanev/Roy
Chabot Zub
Klevin Chatfield/Stetcher
JBD

 

[Tuna99]

knoblach on Edmton was such a great hire - obviously their players are playing great.

When Edmonton was about to melt down and the town was in full panic he came on like he’s Bob Marleys blunt guy he’s so calm and chill it was like he came from another planet - this dude was the perfect choice at the right time.

 

[Yak]

Soft Sens and Goalie Graveyard - Ready for the Draft Again?

These Senators couldn't find a backbone if they had a chiropractor on payroll. The only one with any grit is Brady, bless his heart. Rest of 'em are scared of their own shadows.

And the goaltenders? Is this team cursed or something?

Defense? Ha! We got a Sanderson the sophomore as the only guy who understands systems, and the rest...

• Chychrun: Dude cares more about his highlights and his chopped liver than rebounds.
• Brannstrom: Invisible amongst the giants out there.
• Hamonic: Memory worse than mine, he forgot how to play defense this year.
• Zub: Language barrier worse than the team's communication overall he fell off a cliff this season also.
• JBD: AHL call-up who never got the memo it's the NHL.

Then there's the goalies...

Forsberg: Journeyman for a reason. Savior? More like a sieve.
Korpi: Got lucky once in the playoffs and we gave him a mansion.
Our goalies have some serious skills...at letting every other team set career scoring highs against us.

Dorian's Masterplan was make one good move, screw up five. Guy was a disaster class in bad trades and worse signings. The only reason he got a few draft picks right is we were SO bad every damn year.

Our goalies have the puck-stopping skills of a traffic cone. Maybe they should consider a future in road construction instead?

Best thing the owner can do? Hire some more vets for the front office to babysit our rookie GM. This mess is too big for a greenhorn to handle alone. Steve Staois is gonna get steamrolled.

Rant over. At least the draft's coming up, right? We can always dream of being less terrible next year!

 

[Yak]

We really need to fix our goalie situation bad. The Oilers remind me of our team and even when we made the playoffs back in the day.

Goaltending is holding us back. This Achilles hill is going to haunt us till it solved. This year you could literally see the team get so deflated with the goals. It was like what do I have to do to get a save out of you. We should go our goals and you give them up faster than we can score them.


We don't want to be in a position like the Oilers are. Skinner is horrible. You have to put five plus goals in the net in order to win a game with him. Even then, sometimes it's not enough. He was so bad yesterday that they were picking him apart. They were some grade a shots but I mean it's the same as last year. The dude can't stop nothing. Thank God they have two of the best players in the world that can score a lot, but you can't rely on that either. Without goaltending you're not going anywhere. Imagine having those two on your team and you can't win a cup because your goaltending sucks so bad. I would not doubt if McDavid wanted to leave because the goaltending is so horrible.


I kind of feel like some of our players are going to be like that in the future that if we don't get some better goaltending here, people might want out. We are so handcuffed to Korpi That I can't see a way out unless they buy their way out of this mess. Moving forward with him is going to almost be like a guarantee of not making the playoffs. Can we afford another season of this going on is what. Staios needs to really ask himself!

It's going to be a major undertaking but besides a head coach, the goaltending is a biggest change we need here. We have not been able to rely on a goaltender to win us games ever. Just having that will elevate the team's play. So crucial to get this situation churned around. Seriously, at this point I would give up our first round pick for a good goaltender. Heck, I might even throw someone in from the core.

 

[Gil Gunderson]

Branny is worth keeping simply because Chychrun is gone and Chabot can't stay healthy.

 

[Micklebot]

Jamie McLennan talking about what to change on coming in hot,

Thinks they need to upgrade a goalie (not committing to one or the other) but suggested something like Forsberg for Jake Allen

Thinks the 4th line should be veterans, guys like Trevor Lewis, Acciari types to help settle things down.

Wallace mentioned Josh Bailey as a guy they had on PTO that might have fit that mold.

 

[Cosmix]

On the coaching decision, whether we get a fresh face or a retread, at least it won’t be a financial decision.

Chychrun is gone. Zero talks about extending over the past season tells you everything you need to know.

Zero talks with Chychrun are the result of not being able to discuss a new contract until the date the team can do that which I think is July 1. However, an $7-8M offer might solve that issue.

 

[Cosmix]

Branny is worth keeping simply because Chychrun is gone and Chabot can't stay healthy.

Brannstrom needs a new contract and is currently making $2M. He is 24 and RFA. It would be nice to upgrade from him and Bernard-Docker to a big tough physical RD in the top 4.

 

[Cosmix]

Jamie McLennan talking about what to change on coming in hot,

Thinks they need to upgrade a goalie (not committing to one or the other) but suggested something like Forsberg for Jake Allen

Thinks the 4th line should be veterans, guys like Trevor Lewis, Acciari types to help settle things down.

Wallace mentioned Josh Bailey as a guy they had on PTO that might have fit that mold.

Has anybody done an assessment of our team to determine which players are/are not holding their own (i.e., competitive versus similar players at their salary levels)?

When I see assessments I see a lot of higher grades (As, Bs and Cs) and fewer lower grades which is inconsistent with the team's performance.

 

[GCK]

Soft Sens and Goalie Graveyard - Ready for the Draft Again?

These Senators couldn't find a backbone if they had a chiropractor on payroll. The only one with any grit is Brady, bless his heart. Rest of 'em are scared of their own shadows.

And the goaltenders? Is this team cursed or something?

Defense? Ha! We got a Sanderson the sophomore as the only guy who understands systems, and the rest...

• Chychrun: Dude cares more about his highlights and his chopped liver than rebounds.
• Brannstrom: Invisible amongst the giants out there.
• Hamonic: Memory worse than mine, he forgot how to play defense this year.
• Zub: Language barrier worse than the team's communication overall he fell off a cliff this season also.
• JBD: AHL call-up who never got the memo it's the NHL.

Then there's the goalies...

Forsberg: Journeyman for a reason. Savior? More like a sieve.
Korpi: Got lucky once in the playoffs and we gave him a mansion.
Our goalies have some serious skills...at letting every other team set career scoring highs against us.

Dorian's Masterplan was make one good move, screw up five. Guy was a disaster class in bad trades and worse signings. The only reason he got a few draft picks right is we were SO bad every damn year.

Our goalies have the puck-stopping skills of a traffic cone. Maybe they should consider a future in road construction instead?

Best thing the owner can do? Hire some more vets for the front office to babysit our rookie GM. This mess is too big for a greenhorn to handle alone. Steve Staois is gonna get steamrolled.

Rant over. At least the draft's coming up, right? We can always dream of being less terrible next year!

Chychrun was a terrible fit but he’s still a very good offensive D when he plays the left side.

Branny has the heart of a lion but he’s overmatched physically, worth keeping at 1.5M or less.

Hamonic needs to be bought out

Zub was hurt all year he’s good

JBD is improving a ton with game time. He’s a great option for 5-7 @800K.

 

[Yak]

Branny needs a offer of 2.4 QA as a RFA? You're getting to the point where You have to move him because he is not financially a smart decision to be holding down a spot. When he does show his offensive flarw, his size really keeps him from doing anything serious.

How many goals did he have last year? How many assists? Look at his past numbers. If this kid is going to explode is not going to happen as a Senator because he has been given every chance to do so and not even came close. Branny is at his peak value. Time to sell well. You can still get something for him.


Jbd is not exactly going to set the world on fire but he is cheap. However, I am not sure he's an answer to anything. He might be a great throw-in on a trade. Along with Branny.

In regards to Chych, I knew before he came that he was overrated. However, I figured playing with Zub, Chabot and Sandy would maybe cover up for some of his flaws in his game. There is no doubt that that boy can shoot the puck hard and he probably will be a decent player come playoff time. I just get the feeling though that his offense is super streaky and we can tell his defense is subpar at best. He should play a lot more physical than he does and if that is something he shy's away from, we don't need him. The other elephant in the room is how much money is it going to cost to resign him $6 million maybe 7 million, he may be looking for a long-term deal. Also. I am not sold that we should make that commitment to him. I don't think he's worth it. Next year he's going to have a career year because he's in final year of a contract and this is going to be his biggest contract he's ever going to sign so he's going to play lights out. However, I don't think he's going to play like that. The rest of his career. He's nursed injuries for a long time, he's streaky. I think Anna defensive team he could potentially run a power play because he would have someone else taking care of the defense. I would rather have EK65 for the money we're going to have to give Chych.

We need to use the money we save on him for a free agent. Veteran stay-at-home defense that is going to play the way we need him to play. We need to pay for what we need exactly now. No longer. Can we fill the holes with the farm team. The farm team is bear and well. There's maybe a couple of guys who could fill in, nobody is going to be ready anytime soon for the type of player that we need.

With the defensive liabilities we have already and then we have a pair of goaltenders who are both backups at best. We can't afford to have any leaky defenseman on this team.

Chych, Branny, Hammer, JBD are not helping the defense. They make our defense worse. Our defense has been bad for so long. We can't keep going with these se duct tape. Defensemen barely holding it together. Our goaltending is so bad that I don't even think if we had a All-Star three-pairing defense squad they could help that goaltending. The only way we're going to help that goaltending is to have better defenders in place and a better defensive system.

The goaltending is not so easy to fix. Cupboards are bare right now. No one Is going to take on that contract. Is dangerous to have him bought out because of the cap hit Staois Is in a bad situation with the goaltending. There is no quick or easy fix to this. I mean you could trade Chych or Ullmark And both are going to be free agents at the end of the year. Will have 13 million tied up in goal. That does not even include the fact that at the end of the season we're still going to be left Korpi and Ullmark would probably jet.

This is why earlier my comments about Staois being over his head. The best of the best GM's would have a hard time getting out of this situation. He's going to need some veteran help in the front office in order to make the Right moves that need to be made to correct the mess from the Dorian era. Is not going to be easy to clean up all the messes he's made and come out smelling like roses. Dorian has left a bigger mess than we really know. We lack draft Capital and prospects to help us make some moves. Daria made sure to clean out the cupboards in the last few years knowing his butt was on the line. He made gambles and lost for the most part and now Staois is got to clean that up. He has a tough job ahead of him and is not going to be easy for him to look good in front of the fans.

 

[JD1]

Has anybody done an assessment of our team to determine which players are/are not holding their own (i.e., competitive versus similar players at their salary levels)?

When I see assessments I see a lot of higher grades (As, Bs and Cs) and fewer lower grades which is inconsistent with the team's performance.

The Athletic does that with their player cards

 

[Micklebot]

The Athletic does that with their player cards

It's paywalled, so might need to summarize here;

Tkachuk Market value 10.2, salary 8.2 diff +2
Sanderson 9,.9,+8.1
Stutzle 7, 8.4, -1.4
Pinto 6.3, 0?, +6.3 (not sure what they are doing here... should be +5.5
Zub 6.4, 4.6, +1.8
Batherson 5.8, 5, +.8
Giroux 5.6, 6.5, -.9
Brannstrom 5, 2, +3
Chabot 4.2, 8, -3.8
Greig 3.5, 9, +2.6
Joseph 3.2, 3, +.2
Norris 2.5, 8, -5.5
Chychrun 2.4, 4.6, -2.2
Katchouk 1.2, .8, +.4
Kelly .9, .8, +.1
Kastelic .8, .8, 0
JBD .8, .8, 0
MacEwen .8, .8, 0
Kubalik .8, 2.5, -1.7
Hamonic .8, 1.1, -.3

So, totaled up we're +8.7 which seems like we should have been better than we were, but that's assuming average is 0 which I can't (won't do the work to) confirm.

 

[GCK]

It's paywalled, so might need to summarize here;

Tkachuk Market value 10.2, salary 8.2 diff +2
Sanderson 9,.9,+8.1
Stutzle 7, 8.4, -1.4
Pinto 6.3, 0?, +6.3 (not sure what they are doing here... should be +5.5
Zub 6.4, 4.6, +1.8
Batherson 5.8, 5, +.8
Giroux 5.6, 6.5, -.9
Brannstrom 5, 2, +3
Chabot 4.2, 8, -3.8
Greig 3.5, 9, +2.6
Joseph 3.2, 3, +.2
Norris 2.5, 8, -5.5
Chychrun 2.4, 4.6, -2.2
Katchouk 1.2, .8, +.4
Kelly .9, .8, +.1
Kastelic .8, .8, 0
JBD .8, .8, 0
MacEwen .8, .8, 0
Kubalik .8, 2.5, -1.7
Hamonic .8, 1.1, -.3

So, totaled up we're +8.7 which seems like we should have been better than we were, but that's assuming average is 0 which I can't (won't do the work to) confirm.

You forgot Korpisalo who is -4

 

[Micklebot]

You forgot Korpisalo who is -4

They don't have goalies, but that's a good point, though I suspect they'd value him at league min contract, so it would be -3.2 at worst and -2 for forsberg wiping out half of the +.

 

[HoweHullOrr]

It's paywalled, so might need to summarize here;

Tkachuk Market value 10.2, salary 8.2 diff +2
Sanderson 9,.9,+8.1
Stutzle 7, 8.4, -1.4
Pinto 6.3, 0?, +6.3 (not sure what they are doing here... should be +5.5
Zub 6.4, 4.6, +1.8
Batherson 5.8, 5, +.8
Giroux 5.6, 6.5, -.9
Brannstrom 5, 2, +3
Chabot 4.2, 8, -3.8
Greig 3.5, 9, +2.6
Joseph 3.2, 3, +.2
Norris 2.5, 8, -5.5
Chychrun 2.4, 4.6, -2.2
Katchouk 1.2, .8, +.4
Kelly .9, .8, +.1
Kastelic .8, .8, 0
JBD .8, .8, 0
MacEwen .8, .8, 0
Kubalik .8, 2.5, -1.7
Hamonic .8, 1.1, -.3

So, totaled up we're +8.7 which seems like we should have been better than we were, but that's assuming average is 0 which I can't (won't do the work to) confirm.

Getting Stutzle back to playing the level he is capable of will be very important. Like they say, your best players have to play the best.

Better goaltending will help. It could get us from 7th worst overall to 9th/10th worst like it did in 2021-22 when Forsberg had a .917 save percentage. We’ll probably need additional improvements in order to be more serious about being successful.

 

[Micklebot]

Getting Stutzle back to playing the level he is capable of will be very important. Like they say, your best players have to play the best.

Better goaltending will help. It could get us from 7th worst overall to 9th/10th worst like it did in 2021-22 when Forsberg had a .917 save percentage. We’ll probably need additional improvements in order to be more serious about being successful.

Norris getting back closer to form even if it's not what he used to be would help a lot too.

There's a lot of unrealized potential on the team imo. We still need to make some changes, but I expect to see Greig improve his consistency, Norris to take a step towards his old self even if not all the way, Stutzle to get back to trending towards an elite center in this league, ect

 

[Masked]

Branny needs a offer of 2.4 QA as a RFA? You're getting to the point where You have to move him because he is not financially a smart decision to be holding down a spot.

Move him? How? He has no value with the $2.4M QO if he's priced too high for the Sens.

According to CapFriendly, his QO is only $2M.

The bigger issue might be that he's arbitration eligible although I have no idea what sort of comparables there would be for him.

 

[bicboi64]

Move him? How? He has no value with the $2.4M QO if he's priced too high for the Sens.

According to CapFriendly, his QO is only $2M.

The bigger issue might be that he's arbitration eligible although I have no idea what sort of comparables there would be for him.

Friggin Dorion, could've just signed Brannstrom to the same deal the Leafs gave Liljegren. $1.4 million would've been fine for what he brings

 

[GCK]

Friggin Dorion, could've just signed Brannstrom to the same deal the Leafs gave Liljegren. $1.4 million would've been fine for what he brings

Yup, one of Dorion’s most underrated shitty moves.