Looking at next season with a sole focus on the Tampa Bay Lightning isn’t such a smart idea. NHL wins and losses add up not only because of a team’s composition, but also because of its competition. It’s easier to do well in a lightweight division than it is to do in a heavyweight division, for example. For that reason, Bolts fans should take note of what the other teams around the Atlantic Division have done this summer.
Like any great feat of engineering, this blog series started from the bottom up. I’ve already covered the Buffalo Sabres, Toronto Maple Leafs, Florida Panthers, and Boston Bruins, so today’s blog will be on the Ottawa Senators. This will be another short blog, as the Senators have been fairly quiet so far this summer:
Trading Robin Lehner --- A
Bryan Murray was probably hestitant to move a 23-year-old goaltender who some still view as one of the best young netminders in the league, but he had to trade a goalie. The Ottawa crease was just too crowded. With other teams knowing that he had to get rid of somebody (anybody!), it’s almost a miracle that he was able to recoup so much value. Heck, dealing Robin Lehner and David Legwand (salary dump) to the Buffalo Sabres for a first round pick would have been a good bit of business even without the surrounding circumstances.
Lehner, as mentioned, is full of potential. But it’s worth noting that he has been given numerous opportunities to seize controls of Ottawa’s crease and failed each and every time. That’s not to say that he can’t be a success for the Sabres in the future, but it does highlight the fact that he’s a very unknown commodity. Simply put, Murray got tremendous value for a young goaltender who may or may not work out in Buffalo. With Craig Anderson already manning the Senators’ crease, it’s not like Ottawa downgraded either. And the Legwand dump was just an added bonus for the cash-conscious Senators.
The Draft --- B-
The good people over at
CanucksArmy.com did a piece on draft winners and losers (using PCS for analysis), and the Senators didn’t exactly receive a glowing review:
There is reason to believe Colin White's 2014-15 production is understated, as he fought a bought of mononucleosis this year. That said, the Senators left significant value on the table when they selected Chabot and White, and their overall rankings never really recovered, despite solid later round picks in Chlapik and Ahl.
It would appear as though the Senators reached in the early rounds, leaving high-quality/safer talent on the board in favor of their selections, and then made smarter picks as the draft went along. Analyzing 18-year-old prospects is far from an exact science, but if historical trends show us anything it’s that the Senators had better options available when they made some of their earlier picks. The later selections seemed to make up for that.
The Zibanejad/Stone Deals --- A+
Keeping young talent on cost-controlled contracts is of vital importance in today’s NHL for teams that are looking to win. By signing Stone, who compiled 64 points in his rookie season, to a three-year contract worth an average of $3.5MM per season and Zibanejad, who took a big step forward and tallied 46 points this year, to a two-year deal worth $2.625MM per season, Bryan Murray has done exactly that.
These short-term pacts don’t put the Senators on the hook for any massive financial obligation, so they’re still “prove it” deals in a sense. But, they’re also multi-year contracts that will give the Senators a chance to push for the playoffs and beyond with very little cost involved for the next few years. It’s almost the same treatment that Tampa Bay gave Tyler Johnson and Ondrej Palat when they signed their identical three-year extensions. It’s a model that can work.
The Verdict:
Ottawa is a budget team. The moves they’ve made so far this summer reflect that. Murray didn’t spend big money in free agency, he didn’t make any flashy trades, and he retained his own talent as good rates. With a good crop of young forwards to push the offense, Erik Karlsson to do a bit of everything, and solid goaltending from Craig Anderson, the Senators should be poised to make a run at a playoff spot in 2015-16. They’ve got a better roster than I think a lot of people give them credit for, and their key cogs are still fairly young. There’s plenty of room to grow.
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Thanks to Artyukhin76 for the blog idea. This series will continue until every team has been covered.
As always, thanks for reading.
Michael Stuart has been the Tampa Bay Lightning writer for HockeyBuzz since 2012. Visit his archive to read more or follow him on Twitter. 
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