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Quick Updates: Alex Burrows, Belleville, Freddy Claesson

June 26, 2018, 3:10 PM ET [68 Comments]
Trevor Shackles
Ottawa Senators Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
You can follow me on Twitter @ShackTS

Initially I was going to just talk about the Alex Burrows news from this morning, but I feel like I have to touch on some news that came out yesterday as well. So instead here are some quick updates:

---Sayonara, Alex Burrows. After one and a half seasons with the Senators, his time is up:




Since Burrows is over 35, his cap hit will remain the same ($2.5M) for this season, but the Senators will save $833,333 as a result of the buyout. The team will only be paying him $833,333 for the next two seasons instead of the $2.5M for one season.

It is a predictable end to his time in Ottawa, because the second the deal for Jonathan Dahlen was made, we could tell that it was a horrific trade. Even if Dahlen never plays a game in the NHL, I find it hard to believe that Alex Burrows was the best player they could have gotten in return, so they didn’t maximize their asset.

The bad news is that Dahlen has been fantastic in Sweden, and it doesn’t really matter that he’s been in the Allsvenskan because he still compares quite well to his peers. I fear that he is going to be part of a one-two punch with Elias Pettersson in Vancouver, making this trade look even worse. I know it gets repetitive hearing about the trade, but if Dahlen reaches his potential (which is still an if), this looks as bad as Filip Forsberg for Martin Erat.

Pierre Dorion said that players were wanting to hug him after he acquired Alex Burrows, but I don’t think any players are giving him a hug today.

Burrows finishes his Senators career with 12 goals and 13 assists in 91 games, plus 5 assists in 15 playoff games. Mercy.

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---The Belleville Senators finally announced their new head coach yesterday, as Trent Mann’s brother Troy will be taking over for Kurt Kleinendorst. Troy was previously with the Hershey Bears for the past four seasons, and although his final season looks rough, the first three look quite encouraging:




I didn’t realize just how bad the Senators farm teams have been over the past 13 seasons, but they have only made the playoffs three times in that span. The Binghamton Senators were able to win the Calder Cup in 2011, but besides that run they only have one playoff win in two series. Something needs to change, and I’m hoping that Mann can be the answer.

Normally I’d be making jokes about nepotism, but anecdotally, Troy seems like a good coach. These excerpts from AHL correspondent Patrick Williams have me excited about the hire:







Bellville needs a coach that will actually be able to develop the young players and lean on them rather than cater to the veterans on the team. It’s hard to be worse than previous versions of the team, so I think Troy can succeed in Belleville.

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---Lastly, Fredrik Claesson did NOT receive a qualifying offer before the deadline, which ran contrary to initial reports from Ken Warren.




I’m honestly not sure why he’s being released to unrestricted free agency. They may want to see if they can re-sign him on a two-way contract, but I don’t know if he is willing to do that. Claesson obviously struggled last season, there’s no denying that. However, he was incredibly solid in 2016-17 and was a fantastic complement to Erik Karlsson. Furthermore, it’s not as if many other defensemen had solid years, so it’s hard to give him too much grief.

In an ideal world, I’d love to have him as a 3rd pairing player, as I think he is better than other depth options on the left side like Mark Borowiecki and Ben Harpur. The only thing is, those two already have one-way contracts for next season so Ottawa is going to prioritize them first. The crazy thing about this is that Harpur was even worse than Claesson by every measure, yet for some reason he received a two-year extension in February.

Even if we recognize that Claesson is a limited player and someone suited for the 3rd pairing, he’s still worth keeping. He was only making $650k this past season, so he was not going to cost much at all. In addition, if we include Cody Ceci who will get re-signed, Ottawa only has seven defensemen under contract, but I’m still expecting Erik Karlsson to be leaving. So if Claesson gets re-signed, he’d be the 6th or 7th defensemen, which isn’t exactly a log-jam.

If Karlsson actually is re-signed, there’d be nothing wrong with eight defenseman either, since Christian Wolanin would be able to be sent down, or Ben Harpur could be moved. So there definitely is room for Claesson, but perhaps they want to see if they can bury him in Belleville to begin next season.

If he is gone, I’ll be quite sad because I like him as a player, but he was also one of the funniest players on the team. His laugh was infectious and following him on social media was a treat. We’ll always have this:


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