I remember when I predicted that DeBrincat would have a hard time getting to 25 goals I was ridiculed for it. You think he would fetch a top 4D. We'll have to remember that. Unless a team is willing to qualify him at 9 million he would basically be a short term rental and I have a hard time imagining any GM willing to part with a top 4D in exchange. Plus any legitimate top 4D is going to cost you 5 million+.

All those guys coming off the books need to be either resigned or replaced and I don't see a whole lot percolating in the prospect list. I don't see Sokolov as a player. Maybe Greig in the bottom six. Don't think Boucher is ready. Maybe one of JBD or Thomson can make the jump but this coach is making it difficult to find out especially now that he's got Zaitsev back and he's not going anywhere.

You're not signing Sanderson for 5 million in a million years. 4-4.5 for Pinto, a really good 3C that can play up the lineup, might also be a little low.
- Whatisavailable

I guess we will all see 🤷‍♂️
They Definitely not gonna give Sanderson 8million 😂 and look at Batherson deal Pinto will get less

Watching the Oilers game and what an absolute pleasure it is to watch that kind of skill and talent. McDavid is poetry in motion.

His cap hit is 6.4, in cash he makes 9m
- Mithos

facts. 9m will be his qualifying offer too, correct? (still have to go through comments but pretty sure someone will mention this)

facts. 9m will be his qualifying offer too, correct? (still have to go through comments but pretty sure someone will mention this)
- AlfieisKing

A $9,000,000 qualifying offer is required to retain the RFA rights of Alex DeBrincat. A two-way qualifying offer is permitted since DeBrincat has not met both the games played and waivers requirements. The qualifying offer is equal to 100% of the previous contracts final season base salary because the salary was $1,000,000 or greater.

A $9,000,000 qualifying offer is required to retain the RFA rights of Alex DeBrincat. A two-way qualifying offer is permitted since DeBrincat has not met both the games played and waivers requirements. The qualifying offer is equal to 100% of the previous contracts final season base salary because the salary was $1,000,000 or greater.
- Whatisavailable

Debrincat could easily play to $9M value this season, he's not exactly wildly off track. Any player making 10%+ cap hit of a team that dwells at the bottom of the standings is going to be subject to scrutiny (Skinner, Ryan, Holik, Gomez, Lecavalier, Richards, Karlsson, Vlasic etc). Chicago paid Toews 62.5M for five 60 pt seasons, but hey, he won a few cups at the beginning and now they suck has found his game again - hooray trade value with retention. Debrincat has the contract control to determine if he takes short run bait and bolts after another year, and losing a bunch won't help yield a rosy outcome to that scenario. He's a first line player on an ill-fit second line. Batherson has a rep as a distributor but he's not clicking with Debrincat for some reason. You don't halve your five season shooting % in a year - it's really up to the player to prove the narrative wrong. And if it doesn't work out, he'll still be close to a PPG player and one of the top goalscorers of the past 5 years. You qualify him and flip him at the next deadline, retain half - a 26yo PPG player at $4.625M will net you a pretty juicy package in return.

Debrincat could easily play to $9M value this season, he's not exactly wildly off track. Any player making 10%+ cap hit of a team that dwells at the bottom of the standings is going to be subject to scrutiny (Skinner, Ryan, Holik, Gomez, Lecavalier, Richards, Karlsson, Vlasic etc). Chicago paid Toews 62.5M for five 60 pt seasons, but hey, he won a few cups at the beginning and now they suck has found his game again - hooray trade value with retention. Debrincat has the contract control to determine if he takes short run bait and bolts after another year, and losing a bunch won't help yield a rosy outcome to that scenario. He's a first line player on an ill-fit second line. Batherson has a rep as a distributor but he's not clicking with Debrincat for some reason. You don't halve your five season shooting % in a year - it's really up to the player to prove the narrative wrong. And if it doesn't work out, he'll still be close to a PPG player and one of the top goalscorers of the past 5 years. You qualify him and flip him at the next deadline, retain half - a 26yo PPG player at $4.625M will net you a pretty juicy package in return.
- Bartacus

I'm sure his agent would appreciate your assessment and it wouldn't surprise me to find that some Sens fans also concur. Maybe even Dorion would agree and that's what worries me.

Last year at this time I was pretty sure the Sens would make a bit of a splash this year and that they would be serious contenders in 2 or 3 years.

Since then Dorion has improved the team with the Giroux signing which was not as a result of any shrewdness on his part but more as a result of Giroux wanting to play in Ottawa.

The needless trading away of Paul and Brown along with the bad luck of losing Formenton has completely gutted the bottom six and I have zero faith in Dorion's ability to correct that and without a bottom six you're not winning anything.

Dorion has failed to address the D issue miserably. He actually thought Hamonic was a top 4D and rather than have Vancouver surrender a pick to anyone taking on that salary dump Dorion actually gave up a third because he didn't have a fourth.

We still don't know what the team has in JBD or Thomson and it doesn't look like we're going to find out any time soon. Without a stronger D this team is not winning anything and the D issue is another Dorion disaster just waiting to happen.

Then there's the issue of securing a number one goaltender without which you're not winning anything. Forsberg is adequate as a number 2 but Talbot insists on seeing himself as a number 1 which he most definitely is not. He'll make those great saves in any given game but then just go and let in those clunkers. He hasn't changed a bit since his Edmonton days. It's hard believe that in all these years he still hasn't learned how to hug the near side post to save those shots from the corner on the goal line and everybody knows that if you make him move laterally he's done.

On top of everything else we now have DeBrincat and I can not for the life of me understand where this fascination with this player comes from. I understand that he's had two 40 goal seasons with Chicago and that at some point he might regain that scoring touch but I don't think this team can afford another high priced top six winger when there are so many other pressing issues to address.

When I read a post like yours with respect to DeBrincat I am reminded that there are all kinds of ways for Dorion to further dismantle this team's future and it's a little depressing.

On the plus side as a fan of Canadian based teams not named Toronto or Vancouver I see that Edmonton is finally beginning to recover from Peter "Bold Moves" Chiarelli and in another year or two could be a force to be reckoned with. Nice things happening in Winnipeg as well.

I can understand you not liking Debrincat overall. I think we are all a little disappointed in the lack of goals he has buried, but let’s not act like he hasn’t done anything useful. He has 21 points in 26 games. Not too bad for a guy that is playing underwhelming hockey. I didn’t know he had play making ability in him. He has very good vision. He has more trade value than a 3rd round pick. I personally, would like to keep him around if the price was right.
- Gord_Wilson_2.0

9M dollar players shouldnt need other players to get them going as they say, it should come from within. Lets see if he can get it going this month.

I'm sure his agent would appreciate your assessment and it wouldn't surprise me to find that some Sens fans also concur. Maybe even Dorion would agree and that's what worries me.

Last year at this time I was pretty sure the Sens would make a bit of a splash this year and that they would be serious contenders in 2 or 3 years.

Since then Dorion has improved the team with the Giroux signing which was not as a result of any shrewdness on his part but more as a result of Giroux wanting to play in Ottawa.

The needless trading away of Paul and Brown along with the bad luck of losing Formenton has completely gutted the bottom six and I have zero faith in Dorion's ability to correct that and without a bottom six you're not winning anything.

Dorion has failed to address the D issue miserably. He actually thought Hamonic was a top 4D and rather than have Vancouver surrender a pick to anyone taking on that salary dump Dorion actually gave up a third because he didn't have a fourth.

We still don't know what the team has in JBD or Thomson and it doesn't look like we're going to find out any time soon. Without a stronger D this team is not winning anything and the D issue is another Dorion disaster just waiting to happen.

Then there's the issue of securing a number one goaltender without which you're not winning anything. Forsberg is adequate as a number 2 but Talbot insists on seeing himself as a number 1 which he most definitely is not. He'll make those great saves in any given game but then just go and let in those clunkers. He hasn't changed a bit since his Edmonton days. It's hard believe that in all these years he still hasn't learned how to hug the near side post to save those shots from the corner on the goal line and everybody knows that if you make him move laterally he's done.

On top of everything else we now have DeBrincat and I can not for the life of me understand where this fascination with this player comes from. I understand that he's had two 40 goal seasons with Chicago and that at some point he might regain that scoring touch but I don't think this team can afford another high priced top six winger when there are so many other pressing issues to address.

When I read a post like yours with respect to DeBrincat I am reminded that there are all kinds of ways for Dorion to further dismantle this team's future and it's a little depressing.

On the plus side as a fan of Canadian based teams not named Toronto or Vancouver I see that Edmonton is finally beginning to recover from Peter "Bold Moves" Chiarelli and in another year or two could be a force to be reckoned with. Nice things happening in Winnipeg as well.
- Whatisavailable

If Dorion would force DJ to play JBD more and actually give Thomson more than a one or two game look with more than twelve min of TOI, then we would know at some point if these two players will fit it in long term. Brannstrom continues to get little ice time these days too. As for Debrincat, I'm definitely not sold on him, but lets see how he does for an entire season before seeing if they should trade him or not. Dont get me started on the third line. Nick Paul projects out to 60 points this year if he keeps up his pace, whereas Joseph wont even get half that output! Crazy. I said it at the time, in the summer, no idea why PD had to trade Brown right away like he did.

Watching the Oilers game and what an absolute pleasure it is to watch that kind of skill and talent. McDavid is poetry in motion.
- Whatisavailable

They are getting solid goaltending too from Skinner, who would've thought he would be the guy in EDM, he stopped 44 shots last night. Unreal!

We clearly have a pretty different understanding of what a "great game" looks like. From my perspective there was a good effort for 42min, followed by an ill-conceived attempt to play a completely different type of game for the last 18min or regulation where they barely registered a single SOG. The result? After outshooting them 27-15 for the first 40min, then were outshot 17-4 for the last ~25min of the game, blew the lead, and then blew the OT. When you're outplaying a team, you don't just stop in order to implement a half-assed defensive lock-down strategy that you simply don't have the personnel to execute properly. Blame Forsberg if you want, but if you let a team basically control an entire period of hockey with home ice advantage, there's a good chance that one of those shots will eventually find the mark.
- khawk

Great points. This team sat back and completely stopped skating the way they did in the first two periods, it was so frustrating to watch. I talked to a few former NHLers last night at an event, they all said they couldnt believe how DJ completely stopped what was working for the team through 2 periods. Go figure with this coach.

Great points. This team sat back and completely stopped skating the way they did in the first two periods, it was so frustrating to watch. I talked to a few former NHLers last night at an event, they all said they couldnt believe how DJ completely stopped what was working for the team through 2 periods. Go figure with this coach.
- Kevin Francis

The Sens were gassed in the 3rd period. There's no way that an NHL team can maintain that level of intensity for 3 periods. DJ hokey.

When a real NHL coach comes in and imposes his systems, structure, good puck management we might be disappointed with certain player's performance. That's why DJ gets a huge vote of confidence from some core Fs because they can cheat all they want and pad their stats. I can watch a Sens game and see them dominate but I know they'll lose because sooner or later the breakdowns are coming.

When I read a post like yours with respect to DeBrincat I am reminded that there are all kinds of ways for Dorion to further dismantle this team's future and it's a little depressing.

- Whatisavailable

Pot --> kettle dude. Trying to find optimism here, didn't say I think they should sign the player long term. Just saying he has the pedigree and the numbers to turn it around, and would prefer to focus on how to do that than doomsday prophesizing. His agent probably isn't too psyched about the current scenario TBH. If the player underperforms on his qualifier, irrespective where he is playing, he'll lose real money in the long run, as will the agent. Serves to note a coaching change 'fixed' Jeff Skinner, but as much as I doubt DJ is the correct fit, I think this is on the player himself to prove.

Do they have Sanderson playing on opposite side that’s what they had up on chart 🤔 probably a mix up
That would be interesting to see tho 🫣

Do they have Sanderson playing on opposite side that’s what they had up on chart 🤔 probably a mix up
That would be interesting to see tho 🫣
- sens4life1971

The convention is that your number 1 D is your offensive guy while the number 2 D is your defensive guy. Same with 3 and 4.

Both Chabot and Sanderson are your offensive types so they're better paired with your Zub types but if Sanderson continues to improve he and Chabot playing on different pairings will be really difficult to defend.

Playing them together in clutch situations when you need a goal might work. Only way to find out is to try it and we saw it a bit there in the first but they'll need some time to adjust to each other.

The convention is that your number 1 D is your offensive guy while the number 2 D is your defensive guy. Same with 3 and 4.

Both Chabot and Sanderson are your offensive types so they're better paired with your Zub types but if Sanderson continues to improve he and Chabot playing on different pairings will be really difficult to defend.

Playing them together in clutch situations when you need a goal might work. Only way to find out is to try it and we saw it a bit there in the first but they'll need some time to adjust to each other.
- Whatisavailable

Like you said I prefer the 1-2 punch

Did anyone else see Chabot take Hamonics head off, on the bench? To think you guys almost lost another defensemen due to your own player doing it.

Did anyone else see Chabot take Hamonics head off, on the bench? To think you guys almost lost another defensemen due to your own player doing it.
- PuckPix

frustration stating to set in

Interesting PP unit but Kastelec made it happen. He is going to be a really really good bottom six player.

what a goal by Batherson

and a weak goal by Talbot...

Mostly a good game. Brannstrom was struggling. Funny how easily the helmets come off the Nashville players. I wonder how many penalties they draw that way. 2 in this game.

Really solid game. Rangers holding last playoff spot. They are on pace for 93 point season. Sens still have shot at being relevant after Christmas. I don’t care if they make playoffs. I do want them to be a part of the conversation.

Really solid game. Rangers holding last playoff spot. They are on pace for 93 point season. Sens still have shot at being relevant after Christmas. I don’t care if they make playoffs. I do want them to be a part of the conversation.
- spatso

Sens are tied for 2nd last in the East though. Even after some recent success.

and a weak goal by Talbot...
- Mithos

I don’t know how y’all feel about Gus. He had a really rough start for us. But he’s been solid his last 8 starts and better than MAF. He stole one for us tonight and happy to see him get his 1st career shutout.