A couple of days ago, we talked about a few of Ottawa's "surprise" players this year. Today, we'll talk about the disappointments.
Unfortunately, when you're coming off of a pair of seasons where the team's reached the playoffs, expectations raise quite a bit. This is an Ottawa team that's just one point out of a potential playoff berth, and yet, I think a lot of people expected more from Paul MacLean's club.
We have exhausted what's plagued this team for most of the year. The general consensus is a combination of things: wildly regressing goaltending, a defensive blue-line that sags woefully behind the forward corps, and a couple of players expected to log key minutes for the team failing to out-perform the competition.
Early in the season, I think a lot of people pegged Jason Spezza as the biggest disappointment. While still a point-recorder on the power-play, his point production at even-strength has really dialed back, and there are rather illuminating signs that he's no longer driving possession as he had done in years past. He spends huge chunks of his shifts in the defensive zone, and perhaps not surprisingly, has given up 46-goals at five-on-five; second most amongst all forwards in the league, trailing only Milan Michalek.
In some ways, I think Jason Spezza's been disappointing. But as I highlighted with regards to Kyle Turris and Clarke MacArthur in the surprise section, his lagging play (which has improved by a little bit, I think, over the last month or two), in other ways, was sort of to be expected. We are talking about a player with extensive back injuries, and a situation where I think a lot of guys forecasted Kyle Turris usurping the first-line center position at some point in the future. Looking at ice-time, it's extremely difficult to delineate who the team's first-line center is. And, if you had to reach some sort of conclusion, you'd guess it was Turris.
Spezza can still be a very useful player, and I think the next couple of years in Ottawa will be about finding him in a role where he can still succeed while logging a fair number of minutes per night. Again, I don't know if people expected all of this to come at the age of thirty, but it certainly does feel like the beginning stage of transition.
Jared Cowen's going to be a popular pick for readers here, too, but he's another player I wasn't exactly forecasting to have a big year. I thought he'd be much more serviceable than what we have in 2013-2014, and make no mistake about it, what we have in 2013-2014 is probably the team's single-biggest liability. Paul MacLean's tried to mask all of his deficiencies by playing him with an elite defenseman in Erik Karlsson. It hasn't worked. I have no idea why the team bet long-term on a player who really hadn't shown a ton in his career. The only hope is that something clicks, and at the very least, I'll say that a lot of his problems seem to be not knowing or understanding the basics of hockey. He seems to be out of position more than any player on the team by a fair margin. So, maybe some of this is teachable. Every minute he logs in the top-four right now, though, is a total disaster in the making.
The disappointment I arrive at after careful consideration? That would be Colin Greening. Because, even though I knew his 17G/20A year playing alongside the brilliant 2011-2012 Jason Spezza version of Colin Greening would never likely return, I figured he'd be a reliable bottom-six player that could be plugged into top-six situations. He's been neither.
He's always been sold as a big, physical, and fast player that could develop into a twenty goal scorer. It's never clicked for him. You don't see the physicality much, you don't see the speed at all. He seems to never want to carry the puck, and shots-per-game continue to experience decline. Paul MacLean's used him a lot on the team's "checking line" with Chris Neil and Zack Smith, and so he's more or less been cultivated into a player who tries not to give up a goal in the defensive zone, gets the puck to center ice, and throws the puck deep.
I've talked about this before, but this is a player that the Ottawa organization gave a three-year, $2.65MM annual deal to in the off-season. This same off-season saw Erik Condra pick up a two-year deal, $1.25MM per. Is there any question who has been a better player? I don't think so.
I expected quite a bit more from Greening, and so far he's really looked nothing more than a replacement level player toiling on the team's third-line. Perhaps I was wrong to be impressed by what he showed late in the year, especially in the playoffs. But, to me, he's been the single-biggest disappointment this year.
Who's yours?
thanks for reading!