Spezza, L. Karlsson traded to DAL for Chiasson, Guptill, Paul, 2nd (see post 289,314)

[sgupca]

I will give a scouting report on alex guptill tomorrow for you folks.

You'll love the kid. But is still prob a year or 2 away.

 

[Master Kush]

Not a great return but not unexpected considering the circumstances.

To be brutally honest, Spezza at this time is pretty much a PP specialist. Since that MVP like season a few years back, he's been absolutely terrible in the playoffs. He really hasn't had a good post season since the sens made the finals. Obviously, with Sequin and Benn he wont have the pressure to carry the Stars and he can certainly turn it around with a fresh start. He'll still put up the points, but a lot of that will depend on how many PP minutes he'll be able to get. He is great on face offs though, but defensively quite weak so more of a faceoff guy in the O-zone. Injuries are in issue as well.

All this adds up to a mediocre return. The guy has top end talent no doubt so it will interesting to see how he adjusts to a new team and conference.

Regardless of the return, the sens needed to move on. I think that the most sens fans can hope for is a Boston/Thornton situation, where despite getting an underwhelming return for their #1C, they became a force a few years later.

 

[HSF]

Not a great return but not unexpected considering the circumstances.

To be brutally honest, Spezza at this time is pretty much a PP specialist. Since that MVP like season a few years back, he's been absolutely terrible in the playoffs. He really hasn't had a good post season since the sens made the finals. Obviously, with Sequin and Benn he wont have the pressure to carry the Stars and he can certainly turn it around with a fresh start. He'll still put up the points, but a lot of that will depend on how many PP minutes he'll be able to get. He is great on face offs though, but defensively quite weak so more of a faceoff guy in the O-zone. Injuries are in issue as well.

All this adds up to a mediocre return. The guy has top end talent no doubt so it will interesting to see how he adjusts to a new team and conference.

Regardless of the return, the sens needed to move on. I think that the most sens fans can hope for is a Boston/Thornton situation, where despite getting an underwhelming return for their #1C, they became a force a few years later.

spezza will get 80+ pts if he stays healthy

he is much more then a pp specialist

 

[HoweHullOrr]

bye Jason

Chiasson okay...but what i have to thik off Guptill and Paul?

Guptill could be OK. Plays college hockey now.

 

[trentmccleary]

Chiasson > Berglund. Had more points this season in his rookie year that was partially derailed from illness.

Chiasson was 27th in the entire league (forwards) in PP time and produced a meagre 35 points.
He had more PP mins than Kessel, Spezza, E.Staal, the Sedins, etc.
Well over twice as much PP time as Berglund, who was 182nd amongst forwards.

Berglund was an underwhelming centerpiece for Spezza and is a heck of lot better than Chiasson is right now.

Last thing they said is how the "too early success" of making the playoffs 2 years in a row and the round win against the Habs as a rebuilding team creates a perception that the step back last season was a lot bigger than it was in reality.

Agree with this... but now it's a year later and our 1st line just walked away in return for organizational depth prospects. Our GM can barely keep a bubble team together on our owner's shoestring budget and the stars are demanding to leave in disgust. We're going to be a bottom feeder next season and I don't see any reason for that to change in the near future.

 

[L'Aveuglette]

We really should have shipped out Spezza in 2011. That was a mistake.

Or at any time before 2014. People who argue that the return diminished because of Spezza only having one year left on his contract are basically making the counter-argument themselves. It just means we should either have traded him before he was made captain, or re-sign him at hopefully a decent cap number. I have a feeling that this trade will look worse than better a few years from now. Murray probably won't be here to answer for it though. Today was terrible, just terrible.

 

[Stylizer1]

We really should have shipped out Spezza in 2011. That was a mistake.

Exactly but we were retooling right?

 

[L'Aveuglette]

Seriously, a #1 center returned a potential 2nd liner and two average prospects. Think about that.

I've been behind Murray this whole time and want to give him the benefit of the doubt, but with the return we got, I can admit to being wrong and that he mishandled this whole situation badly. I figured we'd be getting one really good top-6 centerpiece but Chiasson is not it and I haven't heard anything about the prospects that sound like something we should be happy about. Add to this the fact that we don't seem to be aiming to improve our mediocre defense squad and things are looking pretty bleak for next season.

 

[Captain_Cunney]

"I never heard of him, he must suck."

The fact that chaisson is 7th on the list and rocketed past all prospects on the stars shows how reliable "lists" are when it comes to prospects.

If you don't know the prospect, you can't fairly judge the deal, it's a very simple concept. Sens eye for young talent can't be denied, everyone take a breath.

 

[Vesa Awesaka]

I really wish we had gotten ritchie over chiasson. WHY MURRAY WHY?

 

[L'Aveuglette]

"I never heard of him, he must suck."

The fact that chaisson is 7th on the list and rocketed past all prospects on the stars shows how reliable "lists" are when it comes to prospects.

If you don't know the prospect, you can't fairly judge the deal, it's a very simple concept. Sens eye for young talent can't be denied, everyone take a breath.

I'm not saying any of these players suck, but thanks for the generalization. Obviously when someone isn't positive about something it means they absolutely hate everything about it right? Ugh.

Chiasson is fine, but not good enough to be the main piece and only current roster player coming back for Spezza. The other two prospects seem decent enough, but again not anything to get excited about. From everything I've gathered they both have potential but there's no guarantee their ceiling is high, and could potentially bust.

The 2015 2nd round pick will be low as Dallas is poised to make the playoffs and it's a good possibility they get into the top-5 in the west.

So no, I am not happy about this trade at all, but it also doesn't mean that I think anyone of the new Ottawa guys suck.

 

[blahblah3]

Seriously, a #1 center returned a potential 2nd liner and two average prospects. Think about that.

I've been behind Murray this whole time and want to give him the benefit of the doubt, but with the return we got, I can admit to being wrong and that he mishandled this whole situation badly. I figured we'd be getting one really good top-6 centerpiece but Chiasson is not it and I haven't heard anything about the prospects that sound like something we should be happy about. Add to this the fact that we don't seem to be aiming to improve our mediocre defense squad and things are looking pretty bleak for next season.

I am not a fan of Murray, but he was in a tough spot
spezza wanted a highly competitive team with a fan base who don't care, plus he

Can't be traded to a Canadian market, and hemsky has to sign. His balls were in the vice at that point.

 

[L'Aveuglette]

I am not a fan of Murray, but he was in a tough spot
spezza wanted a highly competitive team with a fan base who don't care, plus he

Can't be traded to a Canadian market, and hemsky has to sign. His balls were in the vice at that point.

Yeah, probably should have thrown Melnyk in that post with BM. Eugene is just as responsible for this, if not more.

 

[Stylizer1]

“Once Bryan went public, I knew it was probably done for me there,” he said. (Spezza also went out of his way to point out that he still has a terrific relationship with Murray and holds the Senators general manager in the highest regard).

Spezza isn't sure how the crowd at Canadian Tire Centre would react to his appearance when he makes his return to Ottawa on January 29, 2015 in a Dallas Stars jersey, but he does want Senators fans to know that he does not hold a grudge against them – even though he was often seen as a lightning rod for criticism by the fan base.

“My time in Ottawa was fond and I know a lot of people are upset," Spezza said. "I would have loved to have the storybook career, where you spend your whole life in one city and play for one team, but that's part of the hard decision we had to make. This didn't just happen overnight and I woke up one morning and said ‘I want to leave'. There was a lot of thought put into this.”

This team is lost.

 

[StefanW]

The Mendes piece that just went up on TSN says it all.

May got it right. Spezza asked for a trade because the team was not committed to winning, and he was not going to re-sign. I actually respect the fact that he gave BM the chance to get a return for him rather than just playing out his contract and bolting.

 

[pm88]

I wish this franchise could have a true power forward.. someone that can can punish people and score like a Brendan Shanahan or Todd Bertuzzi in his prime before Steve Moore.

This franchise has never had that in its history. Sure we've had big guys on this team that we would like to fill that role, but they never truly had that mix of being able to hammer other guys and score 30 goals as well

Evander Kane would be awesome but our owner is too cheap and its quite obvious this city/media can't handle an outgoing personality after the whole Ray Emery deal

 

[Kellogs]

Except for having a player made of glass as a gigantic distraction, eating up minutes that can be given to young players with as much potential. Ask Edmonton how much they want Hemsky back. Not to mention we have no idea how his contract is loaded. He might be signed for 6m this year for all we know.
GG.

That's the very definition of Michalek, except with less talent . And right now, there are no players in our system that have Hemsky's potential that he would be stealing minutes away from. The only one who comes close at this stage is Zibanejad, but he's better off as a center, and having him play on the third line with 2nd unit PP time had Spezza stayed here would still not hamper his development.

 

[DrEasy]

I hope people are at least consistent here:

- if you didn't like Spezza to begin with (i.e., if you thought the team was playing better without him), you should be reasonably happy with the return;

- if you thought Spezza was a top 10 C in the NHL, you must be pretty upset right now.

 

[HoweHullOrr]

Usually if you never heard of them it's a sign they are not as good as the player they were traded for.

LOL. Few had heard of Alfredsson either until he showed up in camp and played in some exhibition games.

 

[StefanW]

I hope people are at least consistent here:

- if you didn't like Spezza to begin with (i.e., if you thought the team was playing better without him), you should be reasonably happy with the return;

- if you thought Spezza was a top 10 C in the NHL, you must be pretty upset right now.

I fail. I loved Spezza while he was here, but I don't think the return was as terrible as people are making it out to be. Chiasson is a great piece moving forward, and the 2nd round pick in next year's draft is equal to a 21-30 first round pick in this years draft. I don't know anything about the other 2 prospects. We also saved some budget room that can be used somewhere else, unless Melnyk decides he needs a new pony or something.

 

[BonkTastic]

Guptill could be OK. Plays college hockey now.

He left NCAA to sign with Dallas in March.

He's a pro now.

 

[OttawaSenators11]

The Mendes piece that just went up on TSN says it all.

May got it right. Spezza asked for a trade because the team was not committed to winning, and he was not going to re-sign. I actually respect the fact that he gave BM the chance to get a return for him rather than just playing out his contract and bolting.

Maybe HSF will realize that our owner could be the worst in all of sports right now.

We have lost Alfie and Spezza obviously 2 years in a row because of $$ and i am guessing Ryan is next.

Those types of players don't wanna lock themselves into long-term deals if Melnyk isn't committed and how can anyone blame them.

We really do have a serious problem going on right now.

 

[HoweHullOrr]

He left NCAA to sign with Dallas in March.

He's a pro now.

OK. I had old info. Thanks for the update.

 

[blahblah3]

Seriously, a #1 center returned a potential 2nd liner and two average prospects. Think about that.

I've been behind Murray this whole time and want to give him the benefit of the doubt, but with the return we got, I can admit to being wrong and that he mishandled this whole situation badly. I figured we'd be getting one really good top-6 centerpiece but Chiasson is not it and I haven't heard anything about the prospects that sound like something we should be happy about. Add to this the fact that we don't seem to be aiming to improve our mediocre defense squad and things are looking pretty bleak for next season.

I am not a fan of Murray, but he was in a tough spot
spezza wanted a highly competitive team with a fan base who don't care, plus he

Can't be traded to a Canadian market, and hemsky has to sign. His balls were in the vice at that point.

 

[HSF]

Maybe HSF will realize that our owner could be the worst in all of sports right now.

We have lost Alfie and Spezza obviously 2 years in a row because of $$ and i am guessing Ryan is next.

Those types of players don't wanna lock themselves into long-term deals if Melnyk isn't committed and how can anyone blame them.

We really do have a serious problem going on right now.

no i just dont tend to overreact like many here

Spezza wanted to be here for the rebuild and be wanted to be captain only to now say the team isn't going to win soon?

Looks to me like the pressure got to him and he wasnt ready for the long haul which is fine.

Remember Murray said he has asked to be traded 3-4 times and i remember one being after he was booed by fans in that one playoff series a couple years ago.

The pressure and fans imo played a large part