So now that the feel-good, glad-handing weekend that almost resembles a hockey game is done, it is time to get back to business. The Ottawa Senators will be among the last teams to kick their schedule back off, with an extra couple of days of rest (meaning practice) before they host former captain Jason Spezza and the Dallas Stars on Thursday night.
So with a playoff spot into the "highly unlikely" section of the meter, what can the Senators accomplish over the final 38 games of the season so that it is not a complete loss.
Well, some suggestions of 'tanking" have been floating around for months, but in reality it will be tough for the Senators to reach the depths of the Sabres, Oilers and by the looks of it, possibly quite soon the Maple Leafs.
Besides, tanking hasn't really worked well in the past, has it? The Senators unarguably tanked its first season in the league (well, they were bad to begin with so the tanking wasn't really necessary anyway) in order to assure that they could draft Alex Daigle. And how did that work out for them? While Daigle famously said "Nobody remembers 2nd place", you would have to wonder what a Chris Pronger would have meant to the Senators in those early years. Karma will get you in the end, and the move that resulted in the introduction of the draft lottery has earned the Senators enough Karma to possibly win the lottery from above in the first season that anyone who fails to make the playoffs can get to pick first overall.
Tanking is a risk, and one that I would not take because you don't want the environment around the team to be negative. This team has its holes, but they aren't that far away from being a playoff team. Especially since the coaching change, the Senators have been in more games and as the young players continue to get better some of those one goal losses will easily turn into one goal wins.
The team itself has to continue to try and win, to learn what it takes regardless of how futile the task of making the postseason really is.
Basically, if I were to set goals for the stretch run, it would be to give the kids like Hoffman, Stone, Ceci, Chiasson, Zibanejad and Lazar more (and more important) minutes. Hoffman, as an example, is the highest scoring player in the league that does not have a single power play point. If he got some time with the man advantage then he could get into the Calder race as well. He leads the team in goals but has the 9th most PP time among Senators forwards at less than a minute and a half per game.
You would have to think that the difference in play with and without Marc Methot this season that they would like to get the #2 blueliner inked to an extension, and it will not come cheap, but would be a better option than testing free agency, where bidding becomes insane. In order to do that the team really needs to shed some salary, because pending RFAs such as Zibanejad, Chiasson, Stone and Hoffman are also coming up this summer. David Legwand, Chris Phillips, Milan Michalek, Zack Smith and Chris Neil are all names that have been rumoured to be available (or more accurately the names that Senators fans might like to see dealt), but it might be tough to find landing spots because all have at least another year on their contract and are not rentals. So there is some work to do down the stretch, and if Bryan Murray can make some changes on the roster by shedding some salary while not touching the future core of the team then regardless of where they finish it will be mission accomplished, and then the Senators need a little luck when the ping-pong balls fall shortly after the end of the regular season.