You can follow me on Twitter @ShackTS So remember what I said yesterday about Zack Smith not playing in Ottawa to begin the year? Scratch that, he’s back (for now). Predictably, he cleared waivers at noon eastern today. However, it was less predictable that he’d be staying in the NHL with Ottawa (on the top line no less) instead of Belleville:
Guy Boucher says Zack Smith will return to the lineup tomorrow and will likely centre a line with Brady Tkachuk and Mark Stone.
— Ian Mendes (@ian_mendes) September 26, 2018
Interpret this as you wish.
This whole situation is just wildly confusing, and the ends don’t seem to justify the means. My initial reaction yesterday to the news was that they weren’t happy with Smith’s play and that they wanted to see both Filip Chlapik and Colin White in the lineup. But that doesn’t seem to be the motivation here at all. Instead, it all comes back to money because when does it not?
My guess is that Eugene Melnyk wanted to get rid of some salary on the payroll, and Dorion was hoping that someone would take Smith’s full contract for free. Since that didn’t happen, he can now be sent to the AHL without having to clear waivers again, so there might be a team out there that is now willing to trade for him instead of claim him. But why would a team trade an asset when they could have had him for free? The difference is salary retained. In a trade, the Senators can eat some of Smith’s contract, and then trading a 7th round pick for a $1.5M Smith is a lot more palatable for other teams, plus he can be sent to the AHL.
Ottawa won’t be able to fully get rid of his contract unless they are willing to package another asset or two, but that would be incredibly foolish at this stage of their “rebuild.… Either way, although Smith is back with the team, I wouldn’t be surprised if his stay is short-lived. It’s obvious that Melnyk is trying to cut the payroll, and his efforts aren’t going to stop just because Smith was not claimed.
This entire exercise looks like another massive failure of execution, as Travis Yost points out:
So now you have another disgruntled guy in the locker room, with no cap relief, and a coach who wants to play him inside of the top-six. I can't see how this ends well? https://t.co/2EU5iyPIlP
— Travis Yost (@travisyost) September 26, 2018
If Smith was never placed on waivers then they would still have no cap relief, and Chlapik/White also wouldn’t be getting as good of an opportunity as they could, but the dressing room wouldn’t have been “kicked in the balls… as Matt Duchene would say. I’m sure Smith was embarrassed by the ordeal, and it looks like the other veterans on the team didn’t take too kindly to it. The two biggest goals for this season should be to make Duchene and Stone happy, and they’re off to an awful start.
So to recap, Smith will be playing on the top line tomorrow night, and unless he is moved to another team, he’ll be getting a decent amount of ice time that a rookie could be getting. Furthermore, there have been no monetary savings as of now, which is seemingly always the biggest goal. And lastly, the team’s leadership group is now disgruntled because a favourite in the room was almost taken away from them.
The Senators are a fantastically well-oiled machine right now.