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Wednesday Thoughts

August 27, 2014, 12:17 PM ET [53 Comments]
Travis Yost
Ottawa Senators Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
A few thoughts for this Wednesday.

-- Marc Methot apparently did a radio spot on Tuesday, and he had one interesting comment about a certain comfort level on playing the right side. Methot further noted that he had spent some time on the right side with Columbus in years past. I can't help but wonder if moving Methot, at least temporarily, to the right side would help establishing the defensive lineup -- this is something Tyler Ray has suggested for a couple of months, and I can't help but agree.

What it does is allow Marc Methot to sort of anchor the second-pairing, and allows puck-moving defender Patrick Wiercioch to play alongside Erik Karlsson. Would this work? I'm not sure Wiercioch is ready for those tough minutes, but that same rule applies to basically every other defender on the team. We know a lot of what Ottawa tried last year didn't work -- perhaps putting a puck-mover on Karlsson's wing eases the burden off of Ottawa's playmaker a bit? It's worth a shot, anyhow.

Lineup would look something like this:

Wiercioch - Karlsson
Cowen - Methot
Phillips - Ceci

You wonder if Paul MacLean and the coaching staff have thought about this previously. Wiercioch's really going to need to have an impressive training camp regardless of where he plays, but in the event that he does, it might give the coaching staff the bullet they need to justify this arrangement. Cowen-Methot would be primarily used in a defensive role, Phillips-Ceci (inevitable partners, I think) get the soft minutes, and Karlsson goes to work with a guy who, at the very least, deserves more ice.

We have only seen Wiercioch and Karlsson play 73-minutes of even-strength hockey together, but the two have generated 63% of the shots and 88% of the goals. Now, obvious, massive small sample alert -- but it does make you wonder a bit.

-- One of the arguments I don't really understand against league expansion is concerns about talent dilution across the league. Now, I'm of the belief that expansion is coming relatively soon, but only to the extent that it creates an even 16-team/16-team split (I'm suspicious of four-team expansion, as reported yesterday).

Whether it's Seattle/Las Vegas or Seattle/Quebec City (I suspect it'll be one of these two), I just can't wrap my hands around the theory that such expansion would dilute the product. The league has not expanded in fifteen years (and counting), and this has allowed teams to really bolster their roster and affiliate rosters.

If the league were to expand to two more teams, you're talking about losing 1-2 players per team. Think about each roster across the league, and see if you can name 1-2 players per roster who are either (a) underutilized; or (b) toiling due to a roster logjam of sorts. It's extremely easy to do. And that's without entering any of the European leagues, where there's additional NHL-ready talent.

So, yes, 46 or so roster spots across the league will have to be filled through the farm system. A good percentage of those roster spots were vacated by replacement-level players, meaning the trade-off between Lost Player X and New Player Y is negligible.

And, as an aside, it's worth noting that Canada and the United States are pumping out NHL-talent like never before. So, again, I'm extremely suspicious that the creation of at least two more NHL franchises is going to ding the talent pool to a point where it's even marginally noticeable.

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