Written by Graeme Nichols | 14 April 2009

They were holding a public skate at Scotiabank Place today.
Why not? Nobody else is using it.
In any case, it was wrap-up day. That was six hours of standing around waiting for the players to put their stuff in garbage bags and hit the road.
Here's what Don Brennan and I learned and will expand on in tomorrow's bugle:
l Chris Neil is as good as gone. The two sides are nowhere close on a contract. They spoke Saturday and didn't get any closer. Survey says: He'll be with the Leafs next season.
l GM Bryan Murray wasn't happy with the play of Mike Comrie. He said he never quite recovered from hip surgery. If he's willing to accept $1.5 million next season he'll be back. "He felt the whole year was effected by it," said Murray. "He knows has to spend the whole summer (getting ready) if he wants to be a productive NHL player. He really has to get himself in shape and his body ready to play." Murray said he's not prepared to talk to Comrie at this point.
l All three goalies are going to be invited to camp next year and Murray said he'll let Pascal Leclaire, Alex Auld and Brian Elliott fight it out for the No. 1 job. I'm going to predict Auld is dealt before then. The Senators have seen everything else everybody has seen in this guy: He's terribly inconsistent and streaky. Reliable isn't a word used to describe Auld's play.
l Unless Dany Heatley, Jason Spezza, Mike Fisher and Chris Kelly perform next year this team is going nowhere. "Those are key guys I've talked too and they all feel the same way," said Murray. He sad those players will be better because coach Cory Clouston will define their roles from the start of the season.
Don and I also did a video chat that should be up on the website soon.
Will put my predictions for the first round up tomorrow. ~ Bruce Garrioch, OTP

The funny thing about Bruce is that while he's regularly lauding his Sunday columns, his blog pieces have actually more worthwhile to read. While I may disagree with his take on Auld's reliability -- he's a career backup for a reason -- there's some information that should be music to most Sens fans ears. For starters, don't expect Mike Comrie back unless he's willing to accept a contract worth $1.5M. What could be an interesting subplot to the Comrie situation is the condition of his hip. Listening to Team 1200 this morning, Gord Wilson made a point of saying that Comrie wasn't physically able to contribute or play his style to be effective. Not that I feel compelled to heave excrement on the Murray regime, considering Comrie already had hip surgery last summer, but was where was the due diligence? Or was this another case of rekindling warm fuzzy feelings from 2007. (Had they claimed Tom Preissing off of waivers, we could have had a full blown conspiracy on our hands.)

While it'll be interesting to watch the Comrie drama unfold over the summer, at least we can rest easily knowing that Bryan Murray's unwilling to commit salary cap suicide by extending Neil. That shouldn't really come as a surprise though. Murray's consistently been unwilling to pull the trigger on anything involving Neil. (Even a late draft pick would look good right now. Wait, didn't Murray criticize the previous regime for losing players for nothing?)

Remember how I championed the quality of Bruce's blogs in comparison to his pieces? Ok, so that might have been a bit of a reach. It might have something to do with the blog work of his colleague:

Carrie Underwood will be a guest on Oprah today.Obviously, she'll be asked about the man in her life. ~ Don Brennan, OTP

Nice. Bryan Murray's busy trying to recapture the magic / feelings from the 2007 run and Don's sitting on his couch watching Oprah & Underwood getting warm fuzzy feelings of his own.

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