walshyleafsfan

I respect your opinions. COL is a good team to add to the mix for sure (Buff, Fla, Edm being the others)

Duchene, Mackinnon, Landeskog, O'Reilly are very impressive. But beyond those 4 (which are certainly better than Ottawa's top 4 forwards) it doesn't compare as well

p.s. The greening, weircioch, 1st for phaneuf ($0.5M retained) just about value. This deal never happens for many reasons.

It would be interesting to see the defense though for a season:

Phaneuf - Karlsson
Methot - Cowen
Phillips - Ceci

walshyleafsfan

I respect your opinions. COL is a good team to add to the mix for sure (Buff, Fla, Edm being the others)

Duchene, Mackinnon, Landeskog, O'Reilly are very impressive. But beyond those 4 (which are certainly better than Ottawa's top 4 forwards) it doesn't compare as well
- AlfieisKing

Yeah, but those top-4 are far better than our top-4 (no disrespect to Karlsson)

Karlsson might be the best of the bunch (arguably), but then each of these others is better than any of our other young guns imho. Zibanejad may possibly turn out around as good as Duchene or O'Reilly, but he's not there yet. As for the "second tier" of prospects, I don't know much about theirs, but I assume they probably project to be solid complimentary players, just as ours do (minus Cowen - I have no faith in him)

Yes. I named those teams in the last post.

But pleeeease.... so you're saying.

RNH, Hall, Eberle, Yakupov, Draisaitl, Schultz, Marincin+

OVER

Turris, Zibanejad, Lazar, Karlsson, Lehner, Cowen, Puempel, Weircioch+

I'd say Ottawa has better depth and diversity of potential; IF you take EDM, that's probably one of the only teams.

Barkov, Huberdeau, Bjugstad, Ekblad, Kulikov, Gudbranson, Matheson+

Great group but no thanks. Same goes for Buffalo
- AlfieisKing

St Louis, Minny, Dallas has nice young players.. I'm not looking into every teams systems but just cause you think highly of guys like stone, Hoffman Cowan weircioch doesn't mean others do. They're in your teams system so obviously you think highly of them. Even your top prospect might not turn into a top 6.

St Louis, Minny, Dallas has nice young players.. I'm not looking into every teams systems but just cause you think highly of guys like stone, Hoffman Cowan weircioch doesn't mean others do. They're in your teams system so obviously you think highly of them. Even your top prospect might not turn into a top 6.
- ClarksonDavid

I agree with the assessment that players like Hoffman, Weircioch, Chaisson will play secondary roles rather than being the core you build around. Players like Zibanjad and Cowen though are guys that have the ability to be great in their position and excel in the other aspects of the game. Neither are top line guys as of now and it's likely they will support Turris and Karlsson but the fact remains that the diversity and potential of the group as a whole is not exceeded overall. In other words, which group of players would 30GMs take out of the following:

Ottawa: Turris, Karlsson, Zibanejad, Lehner*, Ceci, Lazar, Cowen, Puempel, Stone, Hoffman, Englund, Weircioch
St. Louis: Pietrangelo, Tarasenko, Schwartz, Jaškin, Rattie, Fabbri, Vannelli
Edmonton: Hall, Eberle, RNH, Yakupov, Draisaitl, Schultz, Klefbolm, Nurse, Marincin
Flordia: Barkov, Huberdeau, Kulikov, Ekblad, Gudbranson, Bjugstad, Olsen, Grimaldi

Ok so maybe I give it to EDM. I forgot about Nurse. I'd still take Ottawa over Flordia.... and still St. Louis. EK65 beats out everyone outside maybe Hall and Piets.

For me if I can add all the players from the franchise (under 25):

1. Edmonton
2. Ottawa
3. Flordia
4. St. Louis
5. Buffalo

honorable mention to Dallas (nice to bring up^) Benn just turned 25. Add in Seguin, Nu-kush, Eakon, Dhillion, Honka not bad building blocks

Duchene, Mackinnon, Landeskog, O'Reilly are very impressive. But beyond those 4 (which are certainly better than Ottawa's top 4 forwards) it doesn't compare as well
- AlfieisKing

You can't just ignore a team's best 4 players... if you did, Ottawa might as well be the Binghamton Senators. What differentiates truly great programs are the quality of its best players in terms of actual NHL impact... not the difference in speculated potential of prospects 5 through 20, assessed before most of them have played more than a fraction of a season in the NHL. Karlsson is world-class, Turris looks very good, and I think Ceci, Zibanejad, and Lehner will be pretty good players as well - but the collection of MacKinnon, Duchene, Landeskog, O'Reilly, and Barrie is at least as impressive, if not more so... certainly in terms of their actual game impact as under-25-year-old players.

You can't just ignore a team's best 4 players... if you did, Ottawa might as well be the Binghamton Senators. What differentiates truly great programs are the quality of its best players in terms of actual NHL impact... not the difference in speculated potential of prospects 5 through 20, assessed before most of them have played more than a fraction of a season in the NHL. Karlsson is world-class, Turris looks very good, and I think Ceci, Zibanejad, and Lehner will be pretty good players as well - but the collection of MacKinnon, Duchene, Landeskog, O'Reilly, and Barrie is at least as impressive, if not more so... certainly in terms of their actual game impact as under-25-year-old players.
- khawk

Oh for sure. The impact of those 4 players, I agree with you certainly, have had a greater impact than Karlsson, Turris, (and let's say) Zibanejad, and Ceci. Ottawa's prospects/young players have certainly not reached their potential (not guaranteeing that they will)

There are a lot of "IF's" and "CAN's":
Can Jared Cowen be that beast he was for Spokane in Junior when some scouts had him in the top 5 at the 2009 draft?
IF Robin Lehner's technical game gets as sharp has his raw talents will he be just as good as Hendrick Lundqvuist?
Can Kyle Turris play Joe Sakic type hockey (no one saying he's the next JS); what some scouts say they saw in him when he played in B.C.?

and on and one. One thing is for sure, the Sens have tons of credit to give to their scouts. Maybe less than some in Ottawa suggest.... maybe more than those outside Ottawa..... this year will showcase that

One thing is for sure, the Sens have tons of credit to give to their scouts. Maybe less than some in Ottawa suggest.... maybe more than those outside Ottawa..... this year will showcase that
- AlfieisKing

Well, no doubt this is true - even if you're not big on guys like Greening or Condra, pulling NHL players out of the late rounds of the draft is no easy feat, and the Senators just keep doing it year after year with the likes of Stone, Dzingel, Wikstrand... even the likes of Sdao, McCormick, and Shore could have some role player potential. When I mentioned Colorado, it's a significant qualifier to note that all of MacKinnon, Landeskog, and Duchene were top-3 picks... which is a bit easier that identifying NHL talent after 150 other players have already been selected.

That said, you can always buy average players and bolster your team depth easily enough the NHL - which is why the conventional wisdom has always been that whoever gets the best player in the trade wins, regardless of how many assets you gave up in return. People are fond of citing the Lindros trade as a counter-example, but I would disagree - the Flyers didn't lose the Lindros trade because they gave up so many assets, they lost the trade because Forsberg was actually the best player in the trade.

Anyways, long story short...
4 outstanding young players >>> 1 outstanding young player + a couple good young players + a half-dozen prospects with strong potential

Evander Kane is still out there - he's right in Ottawa's wheel house, perfect age, LW, long term contract at a decent cap hit, Eastern Conference and we have a ton of young players to trade. Also, it was rumoured Andrew Ladd was on the block

Ott: Ladd
Winn: Greening, Puempel

Mac - Turris - Ryan
Ladd - Zibby - Chiasson
9MM - Legwand - Stone
Condra - Smith - Neil
- tuna99

Thats brutal. a guy who played 3/4 of the season on the 4th line and hasnt looked good for 2 straight games since 2012 and that prospect for one of the better leaders in the game that kills penalties and can score 25 goals on a team that finished mid-pack offensively? What else you got?

I agree with the assessment that players like Hoffman, Weircioch, Chaisson will play secondary roles rather than being the core you build around. Players like Zibanjad and Cowen though are guys that have the ability to be great in their position and excel in the other aspects of the game. Neither are top line guys as of now and it's likely they will support Turris and Karlsson but the fact remains that the diversity and potential of the group as a whole is not exceeded overall. In other words, which group of players would 30GMs take out of the following:

Ottawa: Turris, Karlsson, Zibanejad, Lehner*, Ceci, Lazar, Cowen, Puempel, Stone, Hoffman, Englund, Weircioch
St. Louis: Pietrangelo, Tarasenko, Schwartz, Jaškin, Rattie, Fabbri, Vannelli
Edmonton: Hall, Eberle, RNH, Yakupov, Draisaitl, Schultz, Klefbolm, Nurse, Marincin
Flordia: Barkov, Huberdeau, Kulikov, Ekblad, Gudbranson, Bjugstad, Olsen, Grimaldi

Ok so maybe I give it to EDM. I forgot about Nurse. I'd still take Ottawa over Flordia.... and still St. Louis. EK65 beats out everyone outside maybe Hall and Piets.
- AlfieisKing

Cowen has a long way to go to be a 1st pairing player, especially with a guy like Karlsson.. every sens fan was all over this guy last year and rightfully so.. The only time he didnt turn the puck over was when he blindly rattled glass. I definitely dont have Ottawa above 25 teams' prospect pools.. Why is everyone still so high on Hoffman. He had 6 pts in 25 games last year.. its not like hes 20 years old. Hes turning 25. Wiercioch will also be 24 by the time the season starts and he will never be better than an ok 2nd pairing guy at best.