BREAKING NEWS :
The Ottawa Senators have inked #2 defenseman Marc Methot to a 4 year, 19.6M contract with a cap hit of $4.9M. It also has a limited (10 team) no-trade clause, so that diesn't really tie the Senators' hands completely.
This is actually a case of being a pretty fair deal for once. Methot wanted to stay and left dollars on the table to do so. The Senators wanted to avoid going to the $5M barrier, and that mission was accomplished as well, by a hair.
I have said before that Methot probably isn't worth that much, but on the open market the cost of replacing him with equal or better talent would be prohibitive, so the Sens pretty much had to bite that bullet to keep him in the fold.
I like the deal.
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The Carolina Hurricanes come to town to face the explosive Ottawa Senators, who have had 4 goals in a period twice in their last 2 games. Albeit one was against the Oilers, in a game that I didn't see because I was out of the country, but one was also against the Penguins.
Carolina has dropped their last 2 games, allowing 8 goals in the process, so it is another opportunity for the Senators to perhaps flex their offensive chops. The Senators will be without Chris Neil, who fractured his thumb in a scrap against Edmonton, and will be out 3-4 weeks. The good news is that surgery apparently isn't required, so a team that might have been interested in acquiring the veteran for some playoff depth might still do so if they can wait a couple of weeks. Nashville, however, was the most talked about destination and they made their big depth move up front by adding Mike Santorelli in the Cody Franson deal yesterday so they might not be in the market for Neil any longer.
The injury to Neil has opened the door for Shane Prince, who should make his NHL debut tonight, something I thought would happen before now. Prince is a former Ottawa 67's winger and was Binghamton's representative in the All-Star game. Will be looking forward to this night! Once again Ottawa will try to win back to back games for the first time in over a month, and Robin Lehner will try to do so for the first time since his first two starts of the season.