In lieu of all the Zdeno Chara/Max Pacioretty drama and the smarmy Gary Bettman responses provoked by letters from Air Canada representatives or Geoff Molson, here's an actual bit of news that Senators fans can take pride in -- Derek Grant, a fourth round pick from 2008, has signed a 3-year entry level contract with the Senators. (Note: Try to avoid looking at the Michigan State jerseys. It might make you long for a 2-D spartan logo that isn't ugly or embarrassing to look at.)

Unlike overage junior Wacey Hamilton who inked a deal of his own earlier in the week and will have to wait for his season with the Medicine Hat Tigers to end, Grant will report immediately to Binghamton now that his sophomore season at Michigan State ended -- his Spartans were defeated in the Central Collegiate Hockey Association’s playoffs by Alaska-Fairbanks.

According to the Senators official press release, Grant played in each of the team’s 38 games this season, leading the Spartans in scoring with 33 points on eight goals and 25 assists. In two years at Michigan State, he scored 20 goals, 43 assists and recorded 54 penalty minutes in 76 games.

Before attending Michigan State, the 6-3, 196-pound Grant played two seasons for the Langley Chiefs of the British Columbia Hockey League. In his second season with Langley, he recorded 60 points (25 goals, 35 assists) in only 35 games. He was named the Chiefs’ rookie of the year in 2007-08 after scoring 63 points (24 goals, 39 assists) in 57 games.

In light of how many forwards on Ottawa's current roster have spent the bulk of the 2010-11 campaign in Binghamton and management's concession that they will forego the pursuit of free agents during the summer, Grant's signing will give a depleted Binghamton squad some depth as they contend for an AHL playoff spot. Hopefully this experience and atmosphere will help his development and help get him acclimatized to the demands of playing professional hockey.

Welcome to the pros Derek.

Below are some comments made by Assistant GM Tim Murray talking about Grant:


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For anyone who has watched the DIY Network, you've probably seen advertisements for a new show hosted by Robert Van Winkle (aka Vanilla Ice) called the Vanilla Ice Project. It's the latest career reinvention for Van Winkle, a laughingstock best known for being a white hip hop artist who parlayed his 15 minutes of fame into a cameo in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II - Secret of the Ooze movie. According to DIY, Vanilla brings more than 15 years of home improvement experience to this 7,000-square-foot Palm Beach mansion. In each episode, Vanilla Ice and his crew of contractors get down to business and renovate a different room of the home. He'll pound nails and call the shots in this room-by-room renovation.

Who knows, maybe this will work out a little better or have some more longevity than his rap/nu-metal musical career did?

Speaking of reinventions, it has become difficult not to notice the transformation in Brian Lee's game. Drafted as a smooth skating puck-moving defenceman, Lee was the ninth overall selection in the 2005 NHL Entry Draft by then GM John Muckler. Based off some preliminary third party scouting rankings, it looked like the Senators had reached on Lee -- who was ranked 15th by Central Scouting -- taking him ahead of some more highly regarded prospects.

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It's not too often that you can say something positive about (a) Hamilton but in Wacey Hamilton's case, I'll make an exception. Today the Senators organization announced the signing of the overage center to a 3-year entry level contract. Although he's not the biggest of bodies -- 6'0", 177 lbs -- the Medicine Hat Tigers captain has enjoyed some productive junior seasons and judging by his PIM totals, he's not afraid to get his nose a litty dirty.

Season	Team	GP	G	A	PTS	+/-	PIM
2010-11 Regular Season	Medicine Hat Tigers	65	20	52	72	15	113
2009-10 Regular Season	Medicine Hat Tigers	67	24	47	71	28	100
2008-09 Regular Season	Medicine Hat Tigers	37	4	13	17	9	64
2007-08 Regular Season	Medicine Hat Tigers	63	13	19	32	12	95
Total:		232	61	131	192	64	372

Or get his nose a little brown...

“There were other teams that offered sort of the same thing but we felt Ottawa was a really good fit. They are kind of rebuilding right now, so maybe there's a bit more of an opportunity to get called up and make an impact at a younger age.  In the end my family and agent and I all felt it was the best fit."

Okay, so maybe I exaggerated how complimentary he was towards Senators organization. However, Hamilton's comment is important nonetheless. One of the benefits of being a bottom feeding club is that you can offer CHL or collegiate overagers a better opportunity to contribute in the professional ranks. It's a low risk gamble that Bryan Murray has used to his to his advantage in the past. Dating back to his days in Anaheim, he has been able to bring in players like Craig Schira, Bobby Butler, Dustin Penner, Chris Kunitz, Andy MacDonald and Ryan Shannon by pursuing this route. And considering the amount of pillaging that the big club has done to the Binghamton roster, it's only fitting that the team adds another young forward who will play next year on the farm or possibly join the Baby Sens for the playoffs this season. 

Assuming that Murray can get Louie Caporusso to ink his name on a contract once his NCAA season is over, maybe Bingo's depth is something that can be restocked quite easily.

It's also a bit of a sub-note but it's interesting to see that Cory Clouston's brother is Hamilton's head coach. This would be the second transaction in less than a month -- the first being Marek Svatos -- that the Senators have made regarding players with ties to Clouston. I wonder if it's a sign that the coach is being given some more rope to work with. Or as Damian Cox would say, you at least have to ask the question, right?

To read up more on Hamilton, you can read this story that is featured on the Medicine Hat Tigers website or you can listen to Assistant GM Tim Murray comment on the signing below.

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Now that the Senators are toiling away with the NHL’s worst record, it’s difficult not to scoreboard watch or indulge in some serious prospect porn.

Nashville keeps losing games and dropping in the standings? Nails! We could use a higher mid-round pick. Now if only Columbus could you pull up its socks and pass the Predators already. The Gabriel Landeskog Appreciation Tour arrived in the nation’s capital yesterday? Fantastic! Ottawa has a good track record of drafting players who share first names with girls - Marian, Robin and Gabriel(le). Let's just give this kid a jersey already and start the Gabriel’s Pizza marketing campaigns and anoint this kid as a future cornerstone of the franchise. (H/t to Twitter follower @isavji.)

Forgive me for being facetious but I just think it's surreal to see how many people are gravitating towards the young Swede. Take one our Twitter followers named @Senturion for example:

gotta get the Skog, it's fate. Fav player Alfie, fav team #Sens, draft year 11, #92 in 20th anniversary 1992. Swede w/ NA attitude

[…]

you cant ignore fate like that, the guy is an Iginla/Alfie hybrid. Future 'C', heir apparent.

More following the jump...

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As I type this, the Flyers are down 3-0 to mid-way through the second period to the NY Rangers and Philly's Mike Richards has just nuked Brandon Dubinsky with an open ice hit.  Dubes naturally takes exception to this and drops the gloves, an invitation Richards gladly accepts.  As the expectant buzz ripsaws through the crowd, a Dubinsky left clocks our intrepid hero and drops him with a bloody gash over his left eye.  Meanwhile, Pierre MacGuire is splooging all over his little cube between the benches as he waxes orgasmic about Captain Richards.  "THAT'S LEADERSHIP!", he screams at a breathless nation.  The Ranger faithful are roaring their approval of Dubinsky's knock down, and I am thoroughly entertained.

Of course that's only because I, and apparently the 18,000+ at MSG plus the NBC/TSN audience are immoral monsters prone to bouts of mindless blood lust between puppy kicking sessions.  Or so I am made to understand.

Oh my heavens, but has the last week presented the teeth gnashers with a perfect storm, hasn't it?  Trevor Gillies' 10 game suspension.  Golden Boy Taylor Hall having his season ended in a fight with Derek Dorsett.  And the ugliest of ugly elephants in the room, the release of a Boston University report detailing how Bob Probert suffered from Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy caused, we are informed by countless sports writers cum neuroscientists, by too many Tie Domi or Jeff Beukeboom punches to the face.

And so the soapboxes (no relation) were duly hauled out and the inevitable hue and cry went out across the land: "Fighting has no place in hockey and now must surely be banned!!"  Nothing new there.  It's as sure a sign of spring as the first robin or another futile Leaf "charge" to the playoffs.  But this time, there's a new undercurrent to the debate and it goes something like this: "Fighting has no place in hockey and now must surely be banned.  JUST LOOK AT OUR EVIDENCE!!  If you don't agree you're obviously a stupid, barbarous sub-human, no different than a Roman plebe cheering on the lion."

To which I, an avowed supporter of fighting's absolute place in the game of hockey (and who will be until they pry my old Sherwood from my cold dead hand), would respond "Oh really?  Let's look at your evidence".   Gillies' hit on Clutterbuck, as much as anyone hates to admit it, was a clean shot to the shoulder.  He was given 10 games because a) Clutterbuck's head bounced off the glass, which in turn caused him to drop like a sack of potatoes and b) he's Trevor Gillies and perfectly disposable.  Scott Stevens made a career out of hits like that, and he's in the Hall of Fame.  Young Master Hall's injury wasn't caused by the fight but by his inability to fall down properly. 

And as for Probert's brain, well...with apologies to the Probert family, how about we broaden the sample a tad and study the brains of dead hockey fighters who didn't spend twenty years in a cocaine and alcohol fuelled haze before we decide what did or did not cause that player's brain damage?  Just a thought.

In the meantime, spare me the lecturing nanny-isms and the breathtaking hypocrisy (really, Mike Milbury?).  Spare me the righteous indignation born of an inability to compare apples to apples.  As Marc Savard or Sidney Crosby could attest, a fight is not the same as a gratuitous head shot on an unsuspecting opponent. 

But most of all, as long as the Great And Learned Hockey Pundits refuse to call for the banishment of the Matt Cookes, Dan Carcillos or Bryan Marchments of the world, spare me the aspersions cast upon the characters of those who maintain that fighting belongs in the game precisely because of dangerous, career threatening, cowardly pieces of shit like Matt Cooke, Dan Carcillo and Bryan Marchment.

(Coming up:  Thoughts on yet another 3rd jersey, a new man crush, let's not be too hasty my dear and the return of The Angry Chihuahua)
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One night removed from their 3-1 win over the Thrashers in Atlanta, the Senators have returned home to face the New York Rangers tonight at Scotiabank Place. Considering the travel and the fact that the Sens are playing on back-to-back nights, I was somewhat surprised to learn that Craig Anderson will be making his seventh consecutive start. At this rate, you have to start wondering what will end first, Anderson's consecutive starts streak or #tigerblood trending on Twitter.

Despite impressive numbers since joining Ottawa -- 4-2-0, 1.16 GAA, and a .966 save percentage -- many, including myself, had assumed that the newly acquired Curtis McElhinney would get an opportunity to play either last night or tonight. (Or maybe it was the inner tank feeling in me that longed for a McElhinney start. Ah well.)

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Earlier this afternoon during the conference call for season ticket holders, Senators President Cyril Leeder announced that the team would introduce a new heritage sweater to commemorate the franchise's 20th season in modern history. As great as it is to hear that the current black 'SENS' third jersey would be abandoned, Leeder did not elaborate on the design of the new alternate jersey until he joined Team 1200's Healthy Scratches program with hosts Jason York and Steve Lloyd.

On Twitter, Lloyd (@Steve_Lloyd) tweeted:

From Cyril Leeder: 1. "barberpole" will be part of the Sens heritage sweater next yr. 2. Club is exploring a behind the scenes show.

For actual details from the interview follow the jump...
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Now that the ink on Chris Phillips' contract extension has dried, I've spent a little more time contemplating why the organization felt so compelled to retain an expendable asset who was approaching unrestricted free agency. Especially when taken into contrast with the Chris Kelly and Mike Fisher trades, I found myself asking the question, if you're going to rebuild, why not go all in?

With or without Phillips in 2011-12, the team would likely be a non-factor so why not move him for an asset or two at the NHL Trade Deadline? Even after the Campoli trade, Ottawa's blueline situation still appears to be relatively congested with blueliners who have NHL experience and come at a fraction of the cost. Of course, over the past few days, we've had the idea infused into our minds that Phillips was needed to help mentor some of the youth -- Jared Cowen and David Rundblad -- that will get injected into the blueline next season.

But is there more to consider here?

When Daniel Alfredsson talked to the media today and announced that his injury is not progressing the way he’d like, is it possible that there was some inherent pressure on the organization to retain The Big Rig in the event that Alfie is physically unable to play next season?
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The Senators organization concluded an exclusive conference call for Senators season ticket holders that was streamed live on Sens TV this afternoon. Fortunately, I was able to catch most of it and I've jotted down a summary of the event. Due to the nature of the event, this isn't a word-for-word transcription. It's more to give you the gist of what was discussed.

To find out what happened, follow the jump...
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With only 16 trades and many of the boring variety, yesterday's NHL Trade Deadline featured its lowest total amount of activity since 2000. It didn't help matters that the Canadian sports networks borrowed a page from Fox's NFL coverage and contrived some of the most obscenely large and unnecessary "expert" panels that sports fans have ever seen. Denis Potvin's Hall of Fame career notwithstanding, I'm convinced that the panel stocks up each year on well-travelled role players for filler so that we can hear trade deadline stories when trades are few and far between.

And as an aside, when the hell did the Toronto Star's Damien Cox become annointed as the voice of the Ottawa Senators? Considering Sportsnet already employs Mendes, who is around the team, watches every game and has his thumb on the pulse of this team, why are deadline viewers subjected to Cox's drivel concerning the state of the Senators and his asinine discussion with the Bobcat and Brunt as to whether Alfie should be considered as a trade chip?

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