The Ottawa Senators used Day 2 of the NHL Entry Draft to start to clear up another logjam, the one on the blue line.
The Senators dealt defenseman Eric Gryba to the Edmonton Oilers for the 107th pick, and prospect Travis Ewanyk, who was a teammate of Curtis Lazar with the Edmonton Oil Kings. Ewanyk is not a top end prospect by any means, and will likely bring some toughness to the Binghamton Senators. He won't score much, with just 20 points in 137 AHL games, but had over 100 PIM in each of his two pro seasons.
The dealing of Gryba moves one of the 10 defensemen who were expected to vie for a job at camp. That leaves 9 - the 7 remaining holdovers from last season as well as Frederik Claesson (who seems to have been a forgotten man) and the soon to be free agent Chris Wideman (who the Senators are interested in re-signing).
--
In addition to adding Ewanyk, the Senators used a majority of their day 2 picks on guys named Filip and Christian. Here is a quick look at the 6 guys that had their names called by the Senators on Day 2.
36 - Gabriel Gagne - The big winger scored 35 goals in his second Quebec league season, more than doubling his rookie output with the Victoriaville Tigres.
48 - Filip Chlapik - The Czech born winger completed his first season in the Q after being brought in during the import draft by the Charlottetown Islanders. He scored 33 goals and 75 points in his rookie year.
107 - Christian Wolanin - The Senators went back to the USHL for the defenseman who will be playing at the University of North Dakota. the son of former NHLer Craig Wolanin is a project the Senators will be patient with and let him develop.
109 - Filip Ahl - Another big winger with some skill, played 15 games with the men in the SEL
139 - Christian Jaros - The Sens went back to Sweden to draft the big bodied Slovak defenseman who represented his country at the World Juniors. He has spent two seasons with the Lulea club.
199 - Joel Daccord - The Senators final pick of the day was on a goalie out of high school in the Boston area. It will certainly be a long time before he makes any appearance on a Pro radar screen, if ever.
So the draft concluded without really netting anything that will help in the short term, and this draft might be best remembered for the ability to dump a couple of contracts. Chabot, who they picked up with their first pick is obviously the one with the best (and probably quickest) chance to contribute while there are a lot of projects among the others. There will be some names the Sens passed on early that could certainly come back to haunt them. The two names that spring to mind immediately for me are Travis Konechny and Nick Merkely.