Q: Thoughts on placing Brian Lee on waivers?

A: Well, it was more of an opportunity to expose Brian. Give him a chance to maybe get picked and have a chance to play. That's part of it. The other part of course is financial. I won't know until noon hour. At this point, he's not being assigned. If he clears, we will continue to talk to other teams to see if there's some interest but I'll wait until after the waiver period is up.

Q: Will Robin Lehner play in the World Juniors?

A: We're definitely talking about that (as an organization). We've asked the Swedish Federation that if he goes, will he play as the number one guy and play most of the time. The other consideration is Mike Brodeur. Mike is still not playing. We want to make sure he's healthy and that we're supported properly in Binghamton if we let that happen.

Q: What are your thoughts on Dany Heatley's return?

A: He belongs to San Jose. He's a good player. We've said that all along. He's a point getter. They have a good team and hopefully we play better than we did against Edmonton against him.

Q: Eugene Melnyk said that he wouldn't even give Dany Heatley the time of day if he happened to crossed paths with him. Would you give Dany the time of day?

A: I had a good talk with Dany after we made the deal. He gave me some thoughts on what happened, what was going on at the time. I don't know that he'll extend his hand or I will but certainly, I would talk to him if he wants to.

Q: Looking back on how the whole thing was happened, do you wish you could have changed the deal or how it was handled?

A: As you know, at the time, they were in the driver's seat. That didn't change the entire way through. I had talked to several teams but it came down to the one team basically. The thought was either keep an unhappy player here at that time and maybe effect everything else around us or make the deal that we did. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. At the moment, that was the option we had and we took it.

Q: Was that one of the toughest deal that you've had to make?

A: I've been in a position where you had to make deals in the past because of finances where the team didn't want to pay a certain amount of dollars and so we made a trade that you didn't get full value for. That's the way our business is too. Everything's not ideal that you do sometimes what you have to for the group rather than what you have to do for the individual.

Q: Is your team starting to worry you?

A: Yeah. Of Course. I think when you're inconsistent, which we've been and certainly I know that a week ago, we looked like we were not a very good hockey team, the guys were really affected by what happened to Luke and Stephanie's child. This last game against Edmonton, I didn't like at all. I thought we should have played better. I think we had a chance in that game. I think Edmonton came out in the first period like they knew they were in for a tough night and we let them play themselves into the game and then win the game. I was very disappointed in that. You can't give points away in this league. We know that every night it's a real strain to win games. That it's a real tough time to score goals in this league and you have to take advantage of situations when you have it. In particular, at home. We're not happy. We're obviously very disappointed that we're not a few points higher in the standings. We do have to get going and make up some ground here and play consistently better than we have.

Q: Are you trying to do things to shake things up on your end?

A: Yeah, obviously. We're on the phone yesterday and we talked to three or four managers again and we continue to do that. And everyone's talking the same way: it's so hard to make a trade unless it's dollar for dollar. And how do you get that done right now? At some point in time, you may have to bite the bullet and do something that you don't want to do but for the moment, I'm trying to make the right trade for the team going forward.

I still can remember where I was when the Brian Lee selection was announced. In what was an annual ritual I was down in Wasaga Beach with some friends celebrating the August long weekend with a steady state of inebriation. Between drinks and visits to the beach, a number of us found the time to cram around a 15" hotel television and watch the 2005 NHL Entry Draft unfold. And why wouldn't we? After a lockout cancelled the 2004-05 season, the Entry Draft was the first NHL event that we had access to in over a year.

Under normal circumstances, I wouldn't have been that excited to see the Senators make their first round selection. After years of shrewd drafting and player development, Ottawa had become somewhat of a perennial Stanley Cup Contender. Had the lockout never have happened, the Senators would have selected late in the first round. Fortunately for us, the NHL wanted to help boost its image and marketability following lockout by using a weighted lottery to give every organization an opportunity to draft Sidney Crosby with the first overall pick.

So when the ping pong balls dropped Ottawa had somehow lucked itself into the 9th overall selection in the draft. It was a coup! (Or at least, it should have been.)

"And with the 9th overall selection, the Ottawa Senators select from the University of North Dakota, Brian Lee."

It could have been the booze, but my immediate reaction to Lee's selection was one of indifference. All I had to go on was Pierre McGuire lauding the pick as a smart one because Lee would eventually succeed Wade Redden as a coveted puck moving defenceman.

Five years later, Lee's only a successor to Redden in the sense that he's the latest blueliner to leave town while Sens fans applaud slowly.

Yes, even though I'm probably the last Senators site to acknowledge it - the Brian Lee era in Ottawa appears to have drawn to a close. Some will rejoice and remember this day as the one in which Ottawa finally rid itself of Lee. Others will use it as an opportunity to shit all over the shortcomings or failures of the John Muckler era and sing the praises of those draft picks who followed Lee in the '05 Draft. As easy and deserved as that may be, today's also a day in which we should recognized that the organization failed in regards to its asset management. It shouldn't have taken this organization five years to rid itself of a player who never fell into favour with the current brain-trust.

Even though Bruce Garrioch has already tweeted (@SunGarrioch) that Lee will likely pass through waivers unclaimed, one can hope for his sake (and ours!) that someone will take a chance on him.

[As always, check out The Breakout Pass if you like sporadic updates and post-game depression.]



No sustained effort
Weak play against awful team
But, Foligno scored! no comments

Alright readers, here's an update regarding The 6th Sens giveaway of a Metro Family 4 Pack of tickets to giveaway to the Senators vs Devils game that is taking place on December 10th. The package includes 4 tickets to the game, 4 drinks, 4 hot dogs and has a suggested retail price of $99.

When I announced the contest, I mentioned that I would try and find an impartial judge to select the winner. Well, I've found the judge - Rogers Sportsnet's Ian Mendes.

So here's the deal:

1) Go to the contest page.
2) Write a caption or take the image and PhotoShop it. (If you're going to PhotoShop it, please email me the picture and I'll upload/post it to the comment section with credit to your name.)
3) Create as many entries as you want.
4) The winner will be announced Friday morning, so the deadline will be Thursday night at 11:59pm.

Thanks to Ian for agreeing to help out and Sens fans take note, Ian's 1-on-1 sit down interview with Dany Heatley will air tonight on Sportsnet and it will also be available in print form on the Sportsnet website later today.

Eugene Melnyk's alter ego is back!

One month after his subdued appearance on The Fan 590, that bravado spewing, eternal optimist, super-fan is back!

The Euge is back!

In a hilarious Ottawa Sun article that includes a headline that refers to last year's Canadiens squad as Stanley Cup finalists, The Euge, according to Don Brennan, is as optimistic as ever. He believes the Senators can be this season’s Montreal Canadiens.

“Look where Montreal was a year ago. I remember exactly. I was skiing in the Laurentians and reading the Gazette, and everybody was just absolutely killing them. And where did they end up? Look how far they went in the playoffs. Don’t underestimate this team, or the heart of this team. Or the experience. I think, most importantly, their will to win. These are tough, tough guys.”

Oh, where to start...

1) The Euge might remember but apparently Sun Media doesn't remember. Cup finalists? Ha.
2) How crazy is The Euge for skiing while reading the Montreal Gazette? That's more irresponsible than Donnie Brennan texting in his contributions to the Ottawa Sun's Digital Faceoffs while driving.
3) The Senators can be this season's version of the Montreal Canadiens? Sorry, when did the organization lower the bar from the ultimate goal of winning the Stanley Cup?
4) This year's Canadiens? Is that the same club that Marcia Di Michele of the National Post wrote that no one can honestly deny that the biggest reason the Habs sat one series win away from the Stanley Cup was the man between the pipes. 25 year old Jaroslav Halak, in many games, literally put the entire Canadiens team on his shoulders and lead them to victory. He shut down some of the best players in the NHL, and did so with a calm presence, looking unfazed despite playing for one of the most storied franchises in NHL history.
5) Thanks to The Euge, I now have my answer for every time I pick the Sens to lose in James Gordon's prediction panels for SenatorsExtra.com. Today, I question this team, their heart, their experience and their will to win.
6) It's hilarious to see that Melnyk's listing Ottawa's intangibles as reasons why no one should count them out. No mention of their talent level though...

Today I was reading an article written by Keith Law over at ESPN.com that examined two of baseball's early free agent signings - Victor Martinez and Aubrey Huff. If you're unfamiliar with Keith, he's the senior baseball analyst for Scouts Inc. and before joining ESPN as a columnist; he served as special assistant to the GM of the Toronto Blue Jays and was a writer for Baseball Prospectus. Anyways, as I read over Keith's latest article, he articulated one point that really resonated with me:

The San Francisco Giants, meanwhile, made the worst mistake a GM can make after winning the World Series -- they're overpaying one of the guys who got them there just because he got them there. After pulling a left-for-dead Huff off the scrap pile last offseason and getting far more than they paid for from him in 2010, the Giants reupped Huff for two years and a vesting option at more than twice the annual salary they gave him on the just-expired one-year deal.

Sound familiar? It should. It's the same lock up the guys who got you there trap that the Ottawa Senators fell into following their 2007 Stanley Cup Finals appearance. Over the next two seasons, players like Heatley, Spezza, Kelly, Fisher, Neil and Ray Emery were rewarded with new contracts and raises. At the time, we didn't know any better. The salary cap was still a new entity. Not enough time had passed for us to determine what successful building models were. And to be brutally honest, no one in Ottawa cared. All we knew was that all of our previous playoffs defeats were a thing of the past. The Sens had finally gotten over the hump. We didn't think that Bryan Murray was mismanaging the cap, he was just locking up the "core" of the team. How were we supposed to realize that our time as a Stanley Cup contender would be cut so short?

Fast forward to today. Ottawa are losers of six of the past seven games. As the losses continue to mount, my faith in the organization and its core continues to wane. For the past three years, this team has been afforded every opportunity to right the ship and as it currently stands, the story is the same: the offence is too inconsistent and can't out-produce their contract value; each defenceman too one-dimensional; and the goaltending... will the goaltending problem ever get resolved?

Under Murray's watch, we've already endured the coaching firings of Craig Hartsburg, John Paddock and Eli Wilson. And now that the Senators are struggling to find some consistency under Cory Clouston, fans are starting to question his decisions. Like a single professional hockey player living in Ottawa, Clouston has juggled line combinations like they're phone numbers. The rate at which he has moved guys around has become comical but I don't necessarily fault him for being guilty of micro-managing this team. The question needs to be addressed: when is it appropriate to start looking at the personnel of a team that has won 2 playoff games in the past three seasons?

As I alluded to in an article this morning, the Toronto Star did the due diligence - only 54 teams have made the playoffs in the past 15 years once they're outside the playoff picture by American Thanksgiving. With 21 points in 23 games, Ottawa currently resides in 10th spot in the East. If this was a young team that was trying to find its way and learn the ropes, I wouldn't be concerned. But this is the third oldest team in the NHL. Teams of this age shouldn't be bubble playoff teams. A playoff spot, to borrow a line from Stevie Wonder, should be signed, sealed and delivered. (Note: Ironically, as of today, of the seven oldest teams in the NHL, only two are currently in a playoff position - Phoenix and Detroit.)

Bryan Murray supporters will maintain that he has done a good job replenishing the farm system and prospect cupboard. Pundits will argue that every trade that he has made that involved a NHL-calibre player, he has lost. When Erik Karlsson - the closest to a sure prospect that Ottawa has - was scratched for two games this week, it hit home. If he's not ready to be the difference maker that this team needs in his second professional season, how can one reasonably assume that the likes of Bobby Butler, Jared Cowen, Patrick Wiercioch, Eric Gryba, David Rundblad and Robin Lehner will be able to big contributions in the next year or two?

With the trade deadline moves and veteran free agent signings that Ottawa has made over the past three years, I just feel like Ottawa's veteran core has been afforded every opportunity to get back to that 2007 level and it just hasn't worked out. With the way that the salary cap system is structured, Ottawa should be trying to add as many young pieces to the aforementioned prospect pool to augment its future. With a veteran laden lineup and approximately $16-million coming off of the books this on July 1st, the next few months are going to quickly decide how this franchise .

Tough decisions have to be made and they're ones that I no longer entrust to Bryan or Tim Murray (the likely incumbent GM once Bryan steps down). Given Bryan's contract status, the bias that he developed for these players when he coached them and his perpetual ability to make reactive transactions, I no longer have the faith in the current brain trust to do the right thing. Even when this team is winning and things are going well, most fans that I know are guilty of waiting for the other shoe to drop. We've grown wary of these guys.

My philosophy has always been that to build a hockey team through the draft into a Stanley contender and then wait for the one year when you get hot at the right time and everything falls in your favor. As such, I'd prefer to see a candidate who has had experience working in the modern cap era. Someone who has been involved with the process of taking a veteran team and turning things around through their strong player development and amateur scouting. Someone who has been involved in some tough decisions and most importantly, someone who has no loyalty to this current group.

My suggestion is for The Euge to avoid a name candidate. To avoid that old boys network that has characterized the NHL hierarchy. (Note: Although with the way that Stephen Walkom called yesterday's Penguins game, maybe having Colin Campbell on our side wouldn't be such a bad idea.) I'd suggest a guy like Craig Billington, the Vice President of Hockey Operations and Assistant General Manager of the Colorado Avalanche. According to the Avalanche's website, Billington works closely with GM Sherman in running the day-to-day operations of the franchise.  The London, Ontario native has been a part of the Avalanche front office for the past six years, starting as the club’s goaltending consultant before being named Director of Player Development.  He added the title of vice president in the summer of 2008.  In his previous role, the former Avalanche goaltender oversaw each of the major junior, college and minor league prospects throughout the organization.

Since the Joe Sakic era came to a conclusion, the Avalanche have: drafted well; made some free agent signings - both of the bargain and high-profile variety; and made some tough decisions on trades. Whether it was recognizing an expensive mistake in Ryan Smyth or moving an impending free with exorbitant salary demands in Wojtek Wolski for a controllable but underachieving asset in Peter Mueller, the Avalanche organization has never been afraid to roll the dice. And really, it's just an added bonus that Billington played for the Senators and is familiar with the city.

[Check out The Breakout Pass for extra commentary, discussion and other related analysis.]

Score a fucking goal

No run support for Leclaire

Afternoon games blow

no comments

Alright, so here's the deal. I have a Metro Family 4 Pack of tickets to giveaway to the Senators vs Devils game that is taking place on December 10th. The package includes 4 tickets to the game, 4 drinks, 4 hot dogs and has a suggested retail price of $99. 

So how do you win this package?

The premise is simple: Below is an image of Erik Karlsson. Give us a caption in the comment thread below or alter the photo via PhotoShop and email it to me. There's no limit on the number of entries per person so have some fun with it. To ensure some impartiality, I'll see if I can get some mystery guest judge to pick the winner.

*** Thanks to Twitter follower @kevbste for the image.

The internet and the Senators blogosphere became a shittier place today. Senators Los Cojones (SLC) of Five For Smiting fame, has decided to pack it in. As part of the Ottawa Blog Collective (aka the Old Guard), SLC excelled with his style - blending a hilarious vernacular with expletives and pot shots at Sun Media. Simply put, it was my favorite Senators website and it's a shame to see it go.

SLC, you and your "coverage" of the Ottawa Senators will be sorely missed.

After watching Wednesday night's humbling 2-1 loss that channeled the Craig Hartsburg era, I spent a significant amount of time poring over some statistics. For my sanity's sake, I couldn't help it. I needed to quantify just how awful the Senators have been.

I knew the Senators would be rough in the early stretch of the season. The warning signs were there: secondary scorers like Michalek and Kovalev were coming off of major knee surgeries; the third line trio of Kelly, Ruutu and produced career high numbers last season; Fish is guaranteed to put up 40-45 points, you just don't know when they're going to come; and the philosophy for the blueline completely changed.

"It’s great to block shots, but I’d like (to force) the other team to block shots. And you do that by having the puck, helping your forwards get the attack going and being creative, and in particular from the back end.

"Now, with Erik (Karlsson) and him and Filip Kuba on the back end and a couple of kids coming, our mobility is considerably different ... (Gonchar) adds a lot to our team, with back-end mobility and (being able) to play the point on the power play. That's how you win games in the league now." ~ Bryan Murray

Who knew that Bryan Murray could say something that sounds so good? (Note: There's a 99.99999% chance that it came out better in print than the audio clip.) Now maybe Murray's identified the philosophy on how to win but with 22 games into this NHL season, the results haven't been there thus far.

The numbers speak for themselves:

• 2.40 goals for per game (7th worst in the League)
• 3.13 goals allowed per game (4th worst in the League)
• A 10-11-1 record is good for 21 points in 22 games (9th in the Eastern Conference)
• Only 54 teams have made the playoffs in the past 15 seasons if they were out of a playoff spot on American Thanksgiving. (via The Toronto Star)
• 28.859 years of age (3rd oldest team in the NHL) ~ via NHLnumbers.com
• 1,242,645 line combinations (Most in the NHL. If only Cory could rotate his lines like he works in his salmon shirt/tie/suit combination.)
• Nick Foligno 0 goals (Muckaltian production!)
• Ottawa's goaltenders have had to make 631 saves. (7th most in the NHL).
• Unfortunately, the amount of shots hasn't inflated their collective save percentage. At 90.1%, Ottawa has the 8th worst save percentage in the NHL.
• Sergei Gonchar, -12. (His plus/minus while playing at home? Even. On the road? -12. I think it's safe to say that Cory Clouston isn't getting the matchups that he wants on the road.)
• Peter Regin only has 34 shots on net. Four more than Jesse Winchester. I get that Peter feels like he has to defer to Kovalev a lot, but shoot the effing rock man!

With the amount of line juggling being done, one can look at it in one of two ways: the personnel just isn't meshing or Cory Clouston is an OCD control freak. (Or maybe it's a little bit of both.) At some point, something is going to have to give.