Will we be average for years to come? How about mediocre?

[Stylizer1]

This happens to many teams where they have just enough talent to either just make the playoffs or just miss them. In the pipeline it is hard to say if we have the next generation of elite talent to get us to that next level.

As it stands we have one of the best dmen in the league, a pretty solid #1 goalie, and a little toughness on the back end. Our #2,#3 centers are pretty good but then after that what do we have that we can count on?

Ceci could be a top pairing D. Stone, Puempel, Lazar, Hoffman, Pageau could be top 6 to top 9 talent.

With the players we have now in Spezza, Ryan, MacArthur, if they bolt where do we stand talent wise? With these three resigned our top lines are solid, without them we don't have any depth to be good. These 3 players allow the others to play their roles well.

Seems like we are very close to being a bottom feeder team after all this time. We lost all of our veteran toughness and brought in mostly inexperienced youth.

Without Ryan and a healthy Spezza we have no dynamic threat.

Click to read more...

 

[The Fuhr*]

Summer 2016 is big... If it looks like Spezza and Ryan are walking this teams ****ed... Yes we could trade them next summer but it will take years before those assets begin to make an impact.

You lose Ryan/ Spezza we begin another rebuild around Karlsson, Lehner and Turris

Take another 5 years at least to be a threat.

 

[Stylizer1]

Summer 2016 is big... If it looks like Spezza and Ryan are walking this teams ****ed... Yes we could trade them next summer but it will take years before those assets begin to make an impact.

You lose Ryan/ Spezza we begin another rebuild around Karlsson, Lehner and Turris

Take another 5 years at least to be a threat.

Exactly what i was thinking.

 

[Nac Mac Feegle]

It's hard to say either way if we're just looking at the Senators.

You really have to factor in how the rest of the teams in our division and conference are trending as well. We can improve this team by leaps and bounds, but if the rest of the division/conference also up their game, the net result is zero.

 

[The Fuhr*]

If we are so close to being a lottery team... Trade Spezza and Ryan this summer... Go young and cheap next year... Tank for Mcdavid

 

[Benjamin]

Yup^

Trade Spezza.

Hope we suck enough for McDavid.

 

[YNWA14]

I think we're fine. Karlsson is a game breaking talent and signed long term. Lehner is an elite goalie in the making and we've got him under control for years to come. Turris is an emerging young centre who's signed to a very nice deal. Lazar, Ceci, Pageau, Zibanejad, Claesson, Wiercioch and co. are all very promising prospects that look like they are going to be good players and possibly impact players at the NHL level.

A very strong core like the one Ottawa has is easy to build around. Winning the cup is extremely hard and it might not be in the cards in the near future, but the potential is there.

As mentioned above, depending on the state of development and the state of the team it can either be something Ottawa pushes for soon, or if they can't keep the gamebreaking talent like Spezza and Ryan now they'll have to move them and acquire them from the draft.

 

[Nac Mac Feegle]

The thing that really makes me laugh...we were primed to get an elite talent in the draft last year with those devastating injuries we had. Hell, 99 times out of 100 a team would keel over and die after losing 1C, 1D and 1G at the same time....and just in time for what was supposedly the best draft in a decade. That could've been the defining addition in the current rebuild.

Oh well. No guarantees any of the drafted kids will be stars long term. MacKinnon, McDavid, Drouin, etc....look what happened to Bryan Berard. One bad play on the ice and the career is gone.

We really have too much talent on the team to end up with a top 5 pick.

 

[Benjamin]

It'll be funny next season when we're mediocre enough to make the playoffs, not bad enough to sell off but not good enough for Spezza and/or Ryan to stay.

 

[YNWA14]

It'll be funny next season when we're mediocre enough to make the plays, not bad enough to sell off but not good enough for Spezza and/or Ryan to stay.

Well if we're not good enough for them to re-sign then we should be able to get a decent return for them. With that said next year's draft is supposed to be pretty good, but I know next to nothing about the 2016 draft.

McDavid, Konecny, Marner, Barzal, Strome, etc. etc. the 2015 draft could be absolutely stacked. Not a bad year to stock up 1st rounders in.

 

[Rumcajs]

Plug in one more quality d-man

add a rookie with flare

give Lehner more experience

trade deadline acquisition.


We are not that far off.

 

[DylanSensFan]

We already have a first line... Turris, McArthur, Ryan.

Purge Spezza and Michalek and see what we get if we are still tanking by January. If we get a D man and a young prospect forward or a first round pick, sure why not.

This is all speculation by me, I am really not in the mood to trade anyone... accept maybe Michalek, perhaps Greening.

 

[HockeySens]

We should just go for it all before 2016, sadly that wont be possible due to money issues. I see 3 endings for the sens, they either keep an internal budget and just miss the playoffs for the next 1.5 years and Spezza, Ryan walks. Or they spend and go big or go home mentality before 2016. Or they can just trade Spezza, Ryan and go younger and really rebuild. The thing with this team is they will never become what the oilers are now, consistently # 30 or 29 in the league because guys like Lehner, Karlsson, Turris will win them games even if Spezza and Ryan walks. Spezza is 30 and I dont think he is the type who will play till 40, that means he has less than 10 years(I predict around 6) to win a cup, he would want to a team that seriously wants to win. The sens should really show Ryan/Spezza that they are willing to spend to win. Personally, Id go all in before 2016 just to show these players that I want to win, and Ryan/Spezza might sign.

 

[Gil Gunderson]

Plug in one more quality d-man

add a rookie with flare

give Lehner more experience

trade deadline acquisition.


We are not that far off.

This requires money. We can't even afford to make a call-up at the moment.

 

[Caeldan]

We already have a first line... Turris, McArthur, Ryan.

Purge Spezza and Michalek and see what we get if we are still tanking by January. If we get a D man and a young prospect forward or a first round pick, sure why not.

This is all speculation by me, I am really not in the mood to trade anyone... accept maybe Michalek, perhaps Greening.

Turris still can't carry a first line really. They've slowed down a lot once teams realized that Spezza isn't quite as dangerous with his linemates.

Turris seems to need a legitimate threat to play in the shadow of to b truly eeffective offensively.

 

[Sun God Nika]

in 4 years from now if it looks dark here, i would be fine with letting spezza go, and pursue a cup, assuming he plays till 37-39 he would have 3-5 years to take the gambles with teams to get the best chance percentage wise to get it done. and i am a huge spezza fan and my blood boils when people put him in trade proposals, i wouldnt like to see such an elite player like spezza retire with no cup.

 

[HockeySens]

This requires money. We can't even afford to make a call-up at the moment.

Ya, I think hoffman should be given a shot especially he is on a 1 yr contract but his 600k is too heavy for the team

 

[Rysto]

I'm less concerned about the possibility of Spezza walking and more concerned that his play this year is an indication that he's in decline. With his injury issues over his career it's a legitimate possibility.

 

[YNWA14]

Turris still can't carry a first line really. They've slowed down a lot once teams realized that Spezza isn't quite as dangerous with his linemates.

Turris seems to need a legitimate threat to play in the shadow of to b truly eeffective offensively.

Turris was never carrying the 2nd line either. That line just meshes very well together and the players on it complement eachother. Turris is the defensive anchor on the team while Bobby and Mac really carry it offensively.

Meanwhile Spezza has pretty much had to carry the load for his lines offensively by himself. If we were running MacArthur - Spezza - Ryan then Turris would have maybe half the points he does now and Spezza would be above a p/g. However that's hard to prove and is just speculation. You can still see that Spezza is our best forward watching the games though.

 

[DylanSensFan]

Turris still can't carry a first line really. They've slowed down a lot once teams realized that Spezza isn't quite as dangerous with his linemates.

Turris seems to need a legitimate threat to play in the shadow of to b truly eeffective offensively.

Turris' last two goals came recently and so has MacArthur's output. I wonder if Turris or Spezza has more time on ice?

 

[ChocolateLeclaire]

When didn't his board become so emo? There are like 5 different threads all detailing the worst case scenarios TWO summers away...

 

[pearcey]

We are fine. Right when PM realizes we aren't the team we where last year but we are a better version of the team we where in 2011-2012. We need to stop focusing on our defensive end(as stupid as it sounds) and just go all out offensively. Worked well in 2011-2012 and we have a much better team now. Last year we changed because we had too. We couldn't continue to play the offensive way without Spezza, Karlsson, Michalek. Now we can. Now we aren't a defensive team. Spezza and Karlsson are offensive players. You can try to make them better defensively but it will only hurt there offense and our teams offense. Bring back the exciting style of hockey we played 2 years ago and not the garbage we play now.

 

[Hale The Villain]

Now that this team is a budget team, the best we can hope for is to become a team like Phoenix, but in order to do that we need a coach that practices accountablity and a hardworking roster that wins games because of how hard we work, not how skilled some of our players are.

Kind of like how we were last season, except better on paper. If Melnyk wants to keep this team as one of the lowest salary teams in the league, we won't be able to win games with the limited amount of skill we can afford to put on the ice, we''ll have to put the nose to the grindstone and outwork those teams that can put out 3-4 more of those skilled guys because they can spend much more money than we can. To summarize: we need to get back to being an underdog team again.

We''ll never be a cup contender with the budget being set so pathetically low, but we could be a solid team that makes the playoffs most years with luck on our side. So to answer your question: yes we'll be average, expecting anything more is unreasonable.

 

[Stylizer1]

Melnyk will not spend to get us to the playoffs. He will spend if we are comfortably in the playoffs.

Where it stands we will be lucky to finish 8-11th place.

Melnyk wants to build from within with cheap contracts. He can't wait until Michalek's & Phillips contracts are over to save 9 million and replacing them with 1million dollar contracts. Production wise we could probably get the same results.

 

[Flamingo]

There is one player who would make a world of difference if he were to live up to his potential. That player is Jared Cowen.