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It’s another Thursday, and you know what that means...Alright, maybe you don’t since this is only the second rendition of it, but it’s Thursday Think Tank! Hopefully most Thursday’s I can get one of these blogs out, and I’m two for two so far. Here are some various thoughts for your reading pleasure:
Wideman’s role:
One of the main reasons why the Vegas Golden Knights have been successful is due to the fact that they took previously underappreciated and underutilized players such as Nate Schmidt, Brayden McNabb, William Karlsson, etc. and pushed them to see how good they could really be. This tweet from last night got me thinking about pending UFA Chris Wideman:
Wideman has been quite sheltered in his 3-year NHL career, and the consensus has always been that he’s a 3rd pairing defenseman but that he wouldn’t be able to handle anything more. We’ve never even seen him in tougher minutes, so why would we assume that he wouldn’t be able to handle it? The aforementioned Schmidt and McNabb were in the same boat, and they’ve been fantastic for the Golden Knights this year.
Over the past two seasons,
Wideman sits seventh amongst all defensemen in relative corsi at +5.57%. Granted, he missed a lot of time due to injury, but 92 games still isn’t exactly a small sample. Over that same time period, he’s been on for 40 goals for and 27 against at 5v5, so it’s not as if he’s
only winning the possession battle.
He has faced easier opponents than the average defenseman, that much we know, since his quality of competition CF% is 49.69%. However, he’s also had poor teammates, as his quality of teammates CF% is 47.55%. So in the end, Wideman has always been the driver on the third pairing and making his teammates better. Every single year Cody Ceci gets tough minutes and fails miserably in those minutes, so I’d love to see Wideman get a shot on the second pairing instead. I know it won’t happen, but Wideman at least deserves the opportunity.
Possible Belleville head coach?
After Belleville Senators coach Kurt Kleinendorst was fired for the second time, many names have been floated around for who could replace him. I’m not sure anybody really knows, because there are tons of options in the AHL, CHL, and NCAA. Two names that I find interesting though are Drew Bannister and Troy Mann.
According to Murray Pam, the Soo Greyhounds coach Bannister has been connected to the Senators, and Joel Vanderlaan points out his other connections:
Bannister lead the Greyhounds to an incredible 55-7-6 record this year, but they lost in the OHL finals to the Hamilton Bulldogs. In his three seasons as head coach, they made it to at least the second round each time.
Mann is another name that has a strong connection, as his brother Trent is the Senators chief amateur scout. Troy had been the Hershey Bears coach for the past four seasons, and just like Bannister, in his first three seasons, they went to the second round twice and the finals once. I can’t speak to either of these candidates true ability to coach, but I’d keep an eye on them because the Senators organization loves to hire either someone local or someone who has a previous relationship with the team. Still though, there are many more options out there.
What do you want to see?
I asked this at Silver Seven Sens a few weeks ago, but I feel like I should ask this again for this slightly different audience: over the course of the summer, what sort of articles would you like to see? Obviously I will be covering big news such as trades, signings, and hirings, but during the dog days of summer, sometimes it’s hard to come up with things to write about.
I’m usually able to come up with something, but as the only Senators writer at Hockeybuzz, I want to write more than I did at Silver Seven Sens. Would you like to see player profiles, satirical pieces, rankings of various things, revisionist history, or other outside of the box ideas? I’d love to hear what the readers want, although I do have a fair amount of ideas myself.
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