I believe it was Ace Frehley who once sang the words, "I'm back!" (You can forget about that 'back in a New York Groove' part.) After a lengthy absence -- we haven't recorded a podcast since the first week of October -- we jumped back into the studio on Sunday afternoon to record this episode.
Joining me in the studio this week was @creecher1200 and our featured interview was with Yahoo! Sports' Buzzing the Net - a blog on junior hockey - Editor Neate Sager (aka @neatebuzzthenet). If you're not already, I highly recommend following both guys on Twitter and be sure to bookmark and check out Buzzing the Net for all the latest junior hockey news.
As always, you can subscribe/download/stream the episode or entire catalogue of episodes from Itunes. Or you can download the file by right-clicking and saving this file. Or you can simply stream the episode below.
If you have any questions or comments about the podcast, please leave us some feedback in the comment thread below. Thanks for listening, we hope you enjoy the show.
Here is the tracklist for the show: Deer Tick Main Street; Generationals Greenleaf; Datarock Catcher In the Rye; and Dead to Me Little Brother.no comments
I held off on commenting on this but in his Sunday column that was published yesterday, Bruce Garrioch put forth the idea that former Senator Chris Kelly could be brought back into the fold as an unrestricted free agent.
The Bruins will have a decision to make on C Chris Kelly sometime this season. An alternate captain, he’s a UFA July 1 and there’s been speculation in Boston he’ll be signed to a contract extension. There haven’t been any talks with the Bruins yet. The Senators will be keeping a close eye on the situation. Kelly makes his off-season home in Ottawa and it would only make sense for the Senators to try to bring him back if he’s available.
I would never dismiss the notion that Kelly would want to come back. After all, this is a player who still lives in the city and who spent his day with the Cup in Ottawa - taking it to various locations like CHEO. Similarly, Ottawa's an attractive team to play for right now: they're starting to bear the fruit of some good draft strategies and they appear to be a team on the upswing. Nevertheless, the Senators are in a position in which they don't really need him. In case you may have noticed, this is a team that has an inordinate number of effective third and fourth line guys on their roster. The emergence and effectiveness (and cost-effeciency) of players like Zack Smith, Nick Foligno, Peter Regin, Kaspars Daugavins and potentially Mika Zibanejad next season, make a prospective Kelly free agent signing seem unnecessary. That's not to slight Kelly or the season that he's having; it's more of an indictment of how I would prefer to see the Senators allocate their payroll. Rather than overpay a third line center who's having a career offensive season, I'd prefer to see the team use that money to bring in a top six forward or a top four defenceman via free agency or trade. no comments
This afternoon, Bryan Murray held a media scrum to update everyone on today’s Nikita Filatov happenings. As always, my comments are in bold. Enjoy. no comments
Eighty-eight minutes and twenty-two seconds. That's the amount of playing time that it took for the Ottawa Senators organization to determine that Nikita Filatov did not have a future with the team this season. In other words, like his doppelganger's character from HBO's Game of Thrones, Nikita Filatov is headed east across the narrow sea.
First reported by Slava Malamud, Nikita Filatov will be loaned by the Ottawa Senators to CSKA of the Kontinental Hockey League. In doing so, the final year of his current contract will come off but the Senators are off the hook for paying the remainder of his salary. In case you're wondering, I can’t imagine any scenario in which management doesn’t qualify Filatov with an offer this summer so that they can retain his NHL rights and leave the door open for a prospective return.
The timing of the announcement itself makes sense. In light of the fact that Filatov was suspiciously up until the wee hours of the morning responding to Formspring questions on a Monday (Paul MacLean's "Monday is a day for work") when the team had a scheduled practice, you had to know that something was amiss.
A little late to the party on this one but during last night's Binghamton Senators game versus the Norfolk Admirals, Patrick Wiercioch took a puck to the throat during the first period. The Senators prospect was assisted off the ice and was immediately transported to the Lourdes Hospital.
Following the game, the Binghamton Senators released the following statement:
“The Binghamton Senators can confirm that Patrick Wiercioch is resting peacefully and his being evaluated at the hospital. There are no further updates on his condition at this time.”
According to Joy Lindsay, the Lourdes Hospital did confirm that Patrick Wiercioch is now in stable condition. Would not give any additional information.
Here's video footage of the incident itself:
Scary stuff. Hopefully Patrick returns to health quickly.
Senators Practice News:
According to the beat writers, Nikita Filatov is taking turns with Kaspars Daugavins practicing on a line with Spezza and Michalek. Not too sure if this means that Filatov's going to get a look or not. I wonder if in between these turns between practice, it makes Filatov appreciate it just a little bit more...
... nah.
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Hard to believe that when the above photograph was taken, it'd be representative of Nikita Filatov's chances of playing under Paul MacLean. Anyways, here's the last few seconds of audio from this morning's media scrum.
So there you have it: Nikita Filatov had no chance of getting into tonight's lineup. In other words, nice knowing you Niki.
Of course the topic of how to handle Filatov properly has been a contentious one for Senators fans. On one hand, there's a belief that Filatov needs to earn his top six ice-time. On the other, there's a belief that he should be given an extended opportunity on a top line before we can write him off as a prospect and ship him off to Siberia.
Naturally, there are going to be some morons out there who will use this opportunity to unfairly shit on Filatov because this decision is obviously some heavy handed indictment of his attitude or work ethic. Acting like they actually have a thumb on the pulse of what's really going on behind the closed doors of that locker room.
Maybe he does or maybe he doesn't. A much simpler assertion could be that the team is trying to showcase its other forwards for a prospective trade. Or perhaps what's more likely is that thanks to the NHL's current points system and shootout gimmick that rewards teams for not being able to win a game in regulation or overtime, Ottawa's record is inflated and the team is tied with Washington for the eighth playoff seed in the East. (Note: Yesterday on Twitter, I published what the NHL standings would look like if they awarded no points for a loss and one point for a tie. Here's the photo here.) If the coach feels like the guys who are playing tonight give his team a better chance at winning now, then who can fault him for that?
Ovechkin Spears Neil
Looks like Ovechkin has learned the art of making something dirty look inadvertent from David Steckel. According to Sportsnet's Jeff Marek, there will be no fine/suspension for Ovechkin's spear last night on Chris Neil. Let the NHL's wheel of justice continue to spin...
In the absence of Filip Kuba...
... The Senators have gone 1-2-1. His regular defensive partner, Erik Karlsson, after a brief experiment with Chris Phillips has mercifully been paired Jared Cowen of late. This young defensive tandem has accumulated over 30-percent of the team's blueline even strength time-on-ice over the past three games.
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For this article, I asked Swedish hockey fan @steffeG to cover last night's Swedish supermatch of the season. Here's what he filed:
Thursday night was the much anticipated night of the big Sens prospect showdown in the Swedish Elite League: Jakob Silfverberg's Brynäs visiting Mika Zibanejad's Djurgården. Everyone in Sweden was in their most comfortable chairs for this one, getting a glimpse into the future of the Ottawa Senators.
Okay, that's a slight exaggeration. For the typical Swedish hockey fan, it was nothing more than a Wednesday night game in the middle of the regular season that lacked a certain buzz in the stands - like earlier in the year, when the Djurgården supporter club celebrated their 30th anniversary.
But for a Sens fan, it was an interesting game. Djurgården vs. Brynäs doesn’t mark the 3rd seed vs. the 7th seed in the SEL from that perspective, but a battle between two of the team’s top prospects (Fredrik Claesson, you be quiet!). But if this was a microcosm of the future of the franchise, our future looks as bright as the Flames’, and that’s not talking about the flaming ‘C’. no comments
