Are the Ottawa Senators not as bad as people expected them to be?

[joe dirte]

Great since that post was weeks ago.

How many injuries do they have BTW? Still talking about the Senators I see despite you saying just weeks ago you could care less about them because you wanted to watch winning hockey.

How did that work out for you losing to Calgary Monday?

So brand of winning hockey?

The loss worked out fine. Because we still technically have a winning record. technically. Non technically. Well any way you want to look at it. We are just a winning team!

 

[paragon]

They are starting to look like the team everyone expected them to be.

 

[robsenz]

Old habits die hard. They're bad right now. Injuries have taken their toll, but I feel like when they are healthy again, their mentality has already been set for the reason of the season.

 

[NyQuil]

They are starting to look like the team everyone expected them to be.

Well, I think most people expected them to lose big at times this season.

I think people also thought they wouldn't win any hockey games. Which, with the parity in the league, is not realistic.

 

[Tuggy]

They are a bottom 5 team this season.

Not sure what the future holds for them, but it doesn't look good.

 

[danielpalfredsson]

 

[General Zodd]

That the teams sucks ass all the way down from the GM to the stickboy. Grab yourself a bag....

 

[returnofthemack29]

No...they’re actually starting to look worse than I expected them to be. They’re a bottom 2 lock at this point.

 

[Bileur]

They are a bottom 5 team this season.

Not sure what the future holds for them, but it doesn't look good.

I agree they’re a bottom five team this season.

Care to elaborate on future not looking good?

Off ice it looks terrible, they clearly need a new owner and then to get rid of Dorion. I hope I’m wrong but unfortunately I don’t see Stone and Duchene sticking around under Melnyk.

On ice I’ve been very pleasantly surprised by the development of Chabot, Lajoie, White, Tkachuk and Batherson. They’ve got better pieces for the future than I thought they had, I’d be interested to see how they would do with a different coach, management and owner.

 

[Eltuna]

This is probably the most hockey I’ve ever watched as an Avs fan. It’s like having your team play 164 games this year. Fortunately Colorado and Ottawa seem to play on opposite nights a lot so it’s almost every night I can watch a game with vetted interest. I think one thing that gets overlooked in the decision to give up the 4th overall or this years pick is the value of hope. Part of the value of being a lottery team is watching all the top prospects and envisioning them on your team. It takes the sting out of every loss and gives you that silver lining. Ottawa fans already had that with the 2018 draft class by envisioning Dahlin all year so if it was given up at the draft after they knew they lost the lottery spots it wouldn’t hurt as bad as this is hurting now. Even if mathematically it made sense to keep the fourth as it’s unkikely the pick is higher this year due to the lottery, I still would’ve given the pick away and just been done with the trade. The fear of that pick becoming Hughes/Kakko is just added stress on a team that definitely doesn’t need any more IMO.

 

[Silencio]

This is probably the most hockey I’ve ever watched as an Avs fan. It’s like having your team play 164 games this year. Fortunately Colorado and Ottawa seem to play on opposite nights a lot so it’s almost every night I can watch a game with vetted interest. I think one thing that gets overlooked in the decision to give up the 4th overall or this years pick is the value of hope. Part of the value of being a lottery team is watching all the top prospects and envisioning them on your team. It takes the sting out of every loss and gives you that silver lining. Ottawa fans already had that with the 2018 draft class by envisioning Dahlin all year so if it was given up at the draft after they knew they lost the lottery spots it wouldn’t hurt as bad as this is hurting now. Even if mathematically it made sense to keep the fourth as it’s unkikely the pick is higher this year due to the lottery, I still would’ve given the pick away and just been done with the trade. The fear of that pick becoming Hughes/Kakko is just added stress on a team that definitely doesn’t need any more IMO.

Time will tell of course, and I'll admit to disliking the pick when it happened, but drafting Brady Tkachuk is looking like one of the few things Ottawa has done right in the past year. Kid's legit.

 

[tucker3434]

Their shots against and shot differential in general are pretty rough. Anderson doesn’t appear to be handling the workload all that well, and I don’t expect him to get stronger as the season goes on. Their shooting percentage is 2nd in the league right now. They need to play significantly better to avoid a tailspin.

 

[jvcjdudu jcycyxjene]

They are who we thought they were. They are a team.

 

[Eltuna]

Time will tell of course, and I'll admit to disliking the pick when it happened, but drafting Brady Tkachuk is looking like one of the few things Ottawa has done right in the past year. Kid's legit.

Tkachuk is great, but not a franchise forward. It will be forever unfair to him if he has to be compared to a Hughes/Kakko. Even Dach looks to be a guy you can build around and this draft has plenty of others. Tkachuk is more the complimentary player, maybe that’s selling him too short but IMO he’s not a guy that moves the needle enough to give up a potential superstar, even if the chance of Ottawa’s pick becoming that is <25%.

As an Avs fan I liken it to being given this option. Would I rather have a 100% guaranteed Landeskog or a 25% chance at Mackinnon/Rantanen and a 75% chance at a lesser player than Mackinnon/Rantanen but one that could still be as good as Landeskog if I draft correctly. To me you need to take the risk. The NHL is becoming more and more of a star driven league and the only way to get that superstar is to draft them and now Ottawa has to wait till 2020.

 

[Kamina]

Honestly with Duchene and Tkachuk playing spectacularly idc about the 2019 pick anymore. Hope the Avs get a good player out of it.

Sens fans are more occupied with the possibility of Melnyk selling the team.

 

[Silencio]

Tkachuk is great, but not a franchise forward. It will be forever unfair to him if he has to be compared to a Hughes/Kakko. Even Dach looks to be a guy you can build around and this draft has plenty of others. Tkachuk is more the complimentary player, maybe that’s selling him too short but IMO he’s not a guy that moves the needle enough to give up a potential superstar, even if the chance of Ottawa’s pick becoming that is <25%.

As an Avs fan I liken it to being given this option. Would I rather have a 100% guaranteed Landeskog or a 25% chance at Mackinnon/Rantanen and a 75% chance at a lesser player than Mackinnon/Rantanen but one that could still be as good as Landeskog if I draft correctly. To me you need to take the risk. The NHL is becoming more and more of a star driven league and the only way to get that superstar is to draft them and now Ottawa has to wait till 2020.

Hey now, we only have to wait until 2019 if San Jose misses the playoffs

Your guaranteed Landeskog vs a shot at McKinnon/Rantanen comparison is a fair one. I still think Brady Tkachuk has the potential to be a franchise player....even with the injuries he's been PPG this season and arguably the best player in the 2018 draft so far. But again, time will tell.

 

[devbouz12]

Alright boys and girls. That's enough for today. Let's put it to bed for 2 weeks then bump it again to remind everyone how shitty they are. Good?

 

[Eltuna]

Hey now, we only have to wait until 2019 if San Jose misses the playoffs

Your guaranteed Landeskog vs a shot at McKinnon/Rantanen comparison is a fair one. I still think Brady Tkachuk has the potential to be a franchise player....even with the injuries he's been PPG this season and arguably the best player in the 2018 draft so far. But again, time will tell.

To be a franchise winger is really difficult and I don’t think Brady can hit it. We’re talking ppg or 40+ goal seasons at a minimum for multiple years. Panarin, Kane, Tarresenko, and Hall types of players and I don’t think that’s a fair bar for a guy like Tkachuk to hit. Tkachuk is more a Landeskog kind of guy, great player but if he’s your first or second best forward your team is likely bad.

 

[Kamina]

To be a franchise winger is really difficult and I don’t think Brady can hit it. We’re talking ppg or 40+ goal seasons at a minimum for multiple years. Panarin, Kane, Tarresenko, and Hall types of players and I don’t think that’s a fair bar for a guy like Tkachuk to hit. Tkachuk is more a Landeskog kind of guy, great player but if he’s your first or second best forward your team is likely bad.

good thing Duchene and Stone are here still.

-Duchene and Stone leave-

welp

 

[Eltuna]

good thing Duchene and Stone are here still.

-Duchene and Stone leave-

welp

Even Duchene and Stone don’t have enough star power for me (Stone is way more arguable though as he ranks highly in terms of wingers). I look at things kind of in a tunnel vision mater however where the only thing that matters is building a championship team. It’s because of this that my definition of a 1C, 1W, or 1D is higher than most peoples. If you very likely can’t win a cup with this guy as your 1C, then what’s the point? Look at recent cup winners (or go back way further even), how many had a guy like Duchene as the 1C? McDonald is the closest and he had an insane defence behind him, a great goalie, and good forward depth. Stone is legit though like I said, you can probably win with him as your best winger.

It’s this opinion that really makes me question the decision to keep the 4th overall pick. By keeping the 2019 1st you had a legit chance at getting a guy that could be that cup winning 1C, that’s a risk I think you need to take.

 

[SpezDispenser]

They are a bottom 5 team this season.

Not sure what the future holds for them, but it doesn't look good.

The future? Do you mean this season or beyond? Because if it's beyond this season, they look very, very well positioned.

 

[TheBeastCoast]

The future? Do you mean this season or beyond? Because if it's beyond this season, they look very, very well positioned.

I don't know about that. If they had that 1st round pick to add onto what is a decent prospect pipeline maybe. But the Atlantic looks like it will be a bloodbath to get out of for a few years to come....and I do not see anything to suggest things are going to change in Ottawa to push them above the top 4 teams.

 

[Sensung]

The future? Do you mean this season or beyond? Because if it's beyond this season, they look very, very well positioned.

Until Melnyk sells, the Sens are in a terrible position.

 

[stempniaksen]

The future? Do you mean this season or beyond? Because if it's beyond this season, they look very, very well positioned.

There's still too much up in the air to say this with any kind of certainty.

 

[SpezDispenser]

Until Melnyk sells, the Sens are in a terrible position.

Yeah, this I can get on board with.

I don't know about that. If they had that 1st round pick to add onto what is a decent prospect pipeline maybe. But the Atlantic looks like it will be a bloodbath to get out of for a few years to come....and I do not see anything to suggest things are going to change in Ottawa to push them above the top 4 teams.

It's cyclical. When teams have success, their players get massive raises and they're forced to carve down their roster to accommodate, while the other teams usually have cheaper player on the rise. It's nothing new, it happens every 5 years or so.