Leclaire gets the hook.

"We made the right decision."

Elliott's the man?

Matt Cullen's New Team (36-24-4) Vs Alexandre Picard's New Team (25-30-7) @ RBC Center, 7pm ET; Television: RDS, Rogers Sportsnet

Due to last night's events, I wasn't able to make a prediction for James Gordon's prediction panel. To read what others in the Ottawa blogosphere had to say, click here.

Here are the lines for tonight's game: Michalek-Spezza-Alfredsson; Regin-Fisher-Kovalev; Shannon-Cullen-Neil; Ruutu-Kelly-Donovan. Jesse Winchester is a healthy scratch for tonight's game and Pascal Leclaire will be making his first start since suffering an injury when Mike Fisher rang a shot off of his head in practice. It's also important to note that Erik Karlsson will be paired with Andy Sutton tonight.

Stay Classy Ottawa

Ryan Callahan was looking at the American flag, not at the scoreboard video screen, during the singing of the "Star Spangled Banner'' before last night's game.

Which is why the Team USA and Rangers winger had no idea that an individual in the Senators' game night operations decided to show video of every Canadian gold-medal winner, plus Sidney Crosby's golden goal against the Americans, as the U.S. national anthem was played.

The Canadian national anthem that followed was not accompanied by images from the Vancouver Games.

"I didn't have any idea,'' said Callahan, who scored twice in the Blueshirts' 4-1 victory over the Senators, including one off a brilliant dash down the left side at 0:22 of the second . "I don't look at the scoreboard during the anthem. I look at the flag." ~ Larry Brooks, NY Post

Wow. What a lead in non-story for a post game Rangers article. It's much ado about nothing. Here's to hanging the Canadian flag upside down at the 1992 World Series in Atlanta, or having a recorded Canadian anthem at the MLB All-Star Game. To quote John Tortorella, fuck off Larry. It's not like the Senators organization ran a video featuring Spartacat, the Montreal Canadiens logo and a ship sinking one week after Bob Gainey's daughter drowned at sea. Oh....

Kudos to Cowen

On the 25th anniversary of the Spokane Chiefs, I'd like to congratulate Jared Cowen on being named to the team's Top 25 Players in 25 Years (1985-2010) list. Jared joins an illustrious list of elite company like Brandin Cote, Valeri Bure and The Trevor Kidd.

Deadline Winners

According to the Vancouver Sun's Jim Matheson, the Ottawa Senators were deadline winners...

Before the Olympic break, they got centre Matt Cullen, who won a Cup in Carolina. He's strong on faceoffs and has some offensive pop, and they needed help on the back-end and got six-foot-six Andy Sutton from the New York Islanders. Sutton plays a Hal Gilltype of game, but is tougher.

Trade Deadline Podcast

Last night's recorded podcast will be available for download following the game. Come back and check it out then.

Watching the 2010 NHL Trade Deadline unfold was a lot like watching the Ottawa Senators' power play these days -- predictably orchestrated and without result. I didn't expect much activity today and for good reason. Between Matt Cullen's acquisition before the Olympic roster freeze and yesterday's trade involving Andy Sutton, there simply wasn't much left for Bryan Murray to do. With a top six forward and a depth defenceman (Ed. note: the new fad that has seemingly replaced the infamous and elusive puck moving defenceman) in tow, Murray got the jump on his competition and came away from the deadline with some warm bodies. By moving deftly and with purpose, Murray avoided the John Muckler mistake of striking out on the big names and drinking enough Wild Turkey to convince himself that overpaying for second rate players was a good idea. Like many other Senators fans on deadline day, I've been conditioned to expect the worst.

Whether it's the acquisition of a Peter Bondra, a stud like Yuha Ylonen or a plan-D like Tyler Arnason, it's rare that Ottawa ever acquires a commodity at the deadline who kills it during their time with the organization. But something weird happened this season. Unlike in previous years, yesterday didn't leave me with that prevailing sense of dread that I've grown accustomed to.

It may have something to do with the fact that none of Ottawa's Eastern Conference rivals really improved themselves that much. Does anyone actually believe for a second that Joe Corvo's fragile psyche and endless giveaways will resolve Washington's defence and goaltending situations?

Look at him. Is there something about this guy that evokes confidence?

The day that Ottawa dealt for Sutton, I said that I would reserve judgment until the conclusion of the deadline so that I could see what moves Ottawa had made. Now that the deadline has passed, I feel like I'm copping out when I say that I can't really pinpoint my feelings until the conclusion of the NHL playoffs.

Naturally, there will be some sect of the fan base that will be displeased with the fact that Murray gave up two second round picks to get what likely will be two rental players. And not without reason. A few days ago during an interview with the Team 1200,  Bryan Murray spent a good portion of time lauding how well off the team will be in a few years when Erik Karlsson, Jared Cowen and Patrick Wiercioch have developed. Why not follow the Los Angeles Kings' model of hording draft picks and perpetually building for the future by augmenting this trio with as many young players and prospects as possible?

Maybe because the value of a second round pick isn't exactly as high as some are lead to believe. According to a recent article on ESPN,

Based off of NHL drafts from 1996 to 2006, his chances of playing at least 82 games in his career are about one-in-four. In comparison, first-round picks make it to that plateau about two-thirds of the time.

The drop in "success" rate from the first to the second round is staggering -- about 40 percent. After that, the rate at which players make it to the NHL drops less sharply.

We analyzed the skaters in the 1996 to 2006 drafts. (This gives young players three years to get to the NHL and compile stats.) We looked at players who played at least one NHL game, and those who played a season's worth of games (82).

As the above numbers indicate, second rounders just aren't a sure thing. So even if Cullen and Sutton turn out to be the second coming of Ylonen or Greg DeVries, a good sample size indicates that there's a 75-percent chance that the picks would have bombed anyways. Besides, Ottawa will still have the luxury of maintaining team control over expendable assets like Brian Lee and Chris Campoli. While they may not fetch second rounders on their own, they may be able to be packaged to recoup some of the lost draft picks before the 2010 Entry Draft.

Attention valued readers:

For tonight's podcast recording, Tim and I will be taking some calls from readers who want to throw in their 2 cents on today's deadline, playoff repercussions, the Matt Cullen/Andy Sutton moves and anything else that you want to hit on. If you're interested in talking some Senators hockey with us, email us at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and give us a name/phone number/time availability that you'd want to be reached at.

Thanks,

Nichols

According to Darren Dreger's Twitter, Andy Sutton has just been dealt to the Ottawa Senators.

UPDATE (1:43 PM): Bruce Garrioch has confirmed that Sutton has been dealt for a second round pick.Ottawa no longer has a second round pick in this year's draft.

Here are Sutton's numbers and details:

• He is an impending unrestricted free agent who carries a cap hit of $2.938M
  
• He's 6'6", 245lbs and as a big bodied blueliner, he wasn't brought in to fix the power play.
  
• 54 GP, 4 goals, 8 assists, 12 points, -3, 123 blocked shots,
  
• Advanced statistics from Behindthenet.ca: 1.7 GVT, his quality of competition (0.101) led the Islanders. In other words, he was their shutdown guy. His +/- relative to the rest of the team was actually quite reasonable for a shutdown guy on an average team (0.18)

It's tough to judge this at the moment based on the fact that the rest of the trade deadline has to play itself out. Right now, his acquisition looks like a John Muckler'esque trade. Giving up a second round asset for an unrestricted free agent who doesn't immediately solve all of the problems on the back end or the power play.

Until tomorrow's events play out, I'm not going to be able to properly gauge how prudent it was to trade a second rounder to upgrade Carkner or put Chris Campoli in the pressbox.

If you've been wondering where the Senators organization stands in contract negotiations with Anton Volchenkov, Bryan Murray was on this afternoon's Healthy Scratches program on Team 1200 and here is a transcript of his conversation with co-host Steve Lloyd (Ed. note: Murray's dialogue is in bold. Here is the Facebook link to listen to the full conversation.):

"Where are you with Anton Volchenkov?"

"Nowhere."

"Okay..."

(Murray interjects...) "No, not really. I've tried really hard. We've talked to him. I did talk to the agent again today. But...uh...the response that I'm getting is not what I like, really. So I don't know what we can do there at this point in time."

"Is there any way that you would consider moving him if you can't make a deal?"

"You have to consider everything. I don't think that there's any question that...uh...I'm bringing in a couple of unrestricted guys...so I'm paying a price to do that to give our team our best chance at a playoff run. It's not what I want to do but we'll see what the market comes to bear in the next couple of days."

I don't want to read too much into it, but I can't help but notice the tone and candor of Bryan Murray. Listen to it. He sounds defeated. Like Volchenkov's camp is asking for too much. It's quite the unenviable predicament for Bryan Murray: How does he balance potential playoff fortune against losing Volchenkov to unrestricted free agency?

I'm not entirely convinced that they can. And I don't think that he's convinced himself that he can either. From the tone of his voice, he sounded frustrated and disappointed. Like the Volchenkov camp was asking for too much. As a General Manager who inherited the problems left by his predecessor's ability to let defencemen  leave the organization without netting any assets in return, Bryan Murray has first hand experience of how debilitating it can be for an organization to hold onto assets and lose them for nothing. Are the Ottawa Senators a good enough team to take such a calculated risk?

I'm not convinced. This isn't like the Toronto Raptors decision not to trade Chris Bosh and assuredly lose him to free agency. Unlike the NBA's Eastern Conference, the NHL's version is filled with inherently flawed teams. Picking a winner out of this group is like picking your favorite member of the Osmond family. Regardless of who you select, you know you're getting damaged goods.

Although, Murray could adopt the approach that Randy Sexton and the Florida Panthers used when they decided against moving Jay Bouwmeester at last year's deadline and instead trade Anton's rights before the July 1st unrestricted free agent deadline. However, the underlying problem with this situation is not unlike what the Toronto Blue Jays encountered with Roy Halladay last year. If you deal the asset at the conclusion of the playoffs, the net return will inevitably be smaller.

Personally, if it's up to me and he IS asking for too much, I would trade him if the right package was offered in return.

What would you do?

As everyone knows, Wednesday is the big day -- The NHL's Trade Deadline. After last season's overwhelming success live blogging the event, Tim and I have decided to do it again. We'll be using the Cover It Live application to bring you readers the latest discussion, rumo(u)rs, and Tweets.

Like last year, our coverage will feature some special guests.

*** Also, since it's the start of the work week, I wanted to remind readers that I erred with the last podcast's download link. To download Episode 13 of The 6th Sens Podcast featuring the former Senators GM and current GM of the Florida, Randy Sexton , right-click and save this link.