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I’m sure you have seen the news by now, but the Senators re-signed RFA Nick Paul today on a one-year two-way contract:
The 23-year-old was given an unfair set of expectations after being involved in the Jason Spezza trade and also playing on Team Canada in the World Junior Championships, but even with realistic expectations, he has yet to reach them. Since this new contract he signed is only for one year, I’m viewing this as a last chance for him to prove to the organization that he can be an NHL regular.
24 seems like a good enough amount of time to evaluate if they should move on from a player or not, as this upcoming season will be Paul’s 4th in the AHL. If he can’t become a more consistent point producer at that level, then he probably isn’t good enough to become an NHLer. He needs to force the Senators to call him up, because he’s already been passed on the prospect depth chart by players like Logan Brown, Colin White, Filip Chlapik, Drake Batherson, Alex Formenton, and Brady Tkachuk.
Paul just hasn’t taken the necessary steps forward in order to show that he is too good for the AHL. In 45 games in his rookie season, he had just 17 points, but then the following season he scored 37 points in 72 games, which was a nice improvement. In fact, he ended the year on a tear with 18 points in his final 26 games, so there was some hope that he’d be able to carry that over into 2017-18. That was not the case though, as this past year he had just 27 points in 54 games.
Belleville was so bad that 27 points was good enough for tied for third in points, but I was hoping to see Paul reach the 40 point mark, or maybe even higher. He won’t have to be a big point producer in the NHL since he projects as a fourth liner, but even NHL fourth liners are usually decent AHL scorers. Paul Carey had 55 points in 55 games in 2016-17, so it’s not crazy to expect more production from Paul (of the Nick variety).
In the NHL, he’s posted just six points in 36 career games, and has been a pretty nondescript player to watch. If he wasn’t part of the Spezza trade, people probably wouldn’t even care that much, but the fact that Ottawa’s gotten essentially nothing out of the deal makes it easy to root for him. His time is running out though.
If the Senators let him go at the end of the year and then he ends up becoming a regular on some other NHL team, then it probably won’t be the end of the world, since his offensive ceiling is quite small. Nevertheless, it would be frustrating to see him succeed elsewhere while waiting four years (five by next summer) for him to develop, so it’s obviously worth giving him one more shot in Belleville.
Now, the Binghamton/Belleville Senators have been awful for a few years now, so perhaps his point totals are naturally deflated due to his quality of linemates. Having said that, having better linemates wouldn’t make him a 50-60 point AHL player, so that’s not an excuse for everything. I say this every year, but hopefully the BSens will be better this year and Paul can benefit from that improvement.
Paul at least knows that the Senators will have lots of internal competition amongst the forwards, so if he impresses enough, he’ll get a chance to be the fourth line centre instead of the veteran Carey. The ball is in his court, but there’s also a real possibility that he won’t be qualified next summer if he doesn’t improve.
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