Sens Writer: Senators Final Opening Night Roster Senators Opening Night Roster

heard rumors Patrick Roy is looking to buy a house in Ottawa, i think OTT will either 4-6 or 2-8 in their first 10 games and Smith will get the ax and sens will hire Roy as HC.

the fact kelley and MacEwen, Zack are on the roster over Jarventie and Jiri just proves Smith has not changed at all and is just as incompetent as ever.

Tarasenko was a panic move by dorion after his Debrincat experiment blew up in his face and that screwed over Pinto and might cost OTT a playoff spot in the end.

"the fact kelley and MacEwen, Zack are on the roster over Jarventie and Jiri just proves Smith has not changed at all and is just as incompetent as ever."


Yup.
Parker Kelly, nice guy---AHL player....maybe. He's always late, on every play hence the penalties. Reaching in with a stick or an arm. He's never --there-- but two steps behind.


and...*GASP* the horror....Chicago, in a clear rebuild year started 3 rookie defensemen last night. Those poor boys, they'll be traumatized into inaction. They'll learn and experience nothing. The losses will mount up and destroy the confidence of.....who? A team of overpaid vets who have been dumped there. Yes. That's how it's done and how it should have been done here. Additionally because the radio and tv gushed all over him.....I watched the game. I found Bedard pretty ordinary in his first game. Floated around, kinda touched the puck a little and got off the ice before something bad happened.

For a team that’s going to be in a dog fight to get into the playoffs, and the injury to Norris, what the heck are they doing with Pinto?

For a team that’s going to be in a dog fight to get into the playoffs, and the injury to Norris, what the heck are they doing with Pinto?
- ClaudeFather

There are multiple simple options to get the Pinto impasse resolved. The fact it is taking longer and seemingly more awkward suggests to me they are trying to do more than just move out a body and enough salary.

The part I can't figure out is the money they are paying Tarasenko and Kubalik (2 roster spots) is the equivalent of what they would have paid DeBrincat (1 roster spot). I wonder if there is something either completely missing or not yet concluded in the finalizing their roster plans.

Reports are they loved Joseph's play in camp. Maybe they are now having to try and figure out a a new way of satisfying the cap.

heard rumors Patrick Roy is looking to buy a house in Ottawa, i think OTT will either 4-6 or 2-8 in their first 10 games and Smith will get the ax and sens will hire Roy as HC.

the fact kelley and MacEwen, Zack are on the roster over Jarventie and Jiri just proves Smith has not changed at all and is just as incompetent as ever.

Tarasenko was a panic move by dorion after his Debrincat experiment blew up in his face and that screwed over Pinto and might cost OTT a playoff spot in the end.

Jiri might fit well on the 4th line. I think Jarventie could be better served in Belleville getting top minutes.

They are different players, and Smejkal is 5 years older so not going to develop like Jarventie.

That centre lineup is concerning. Rourke Chartier shouldn't even be on the roster, and he's at 2C. We shall see how long this experiment lasts - even bringing in Pinto... without the benefit of a full training camp it could be a slow go without some puck luck and/or pleasant surprises.

I think we're gonna come out and kick butt tonight. Get a solid effort in and get all the stupid monkeys off our back re: our away record in CAR.

The point remains that our roster and playoff prospects this year are heavily reliant on the health and performance of two players currently not available to roster. We will know we are a legitimate contender when we can ride the waves of missing one or two players and still feel confident in our ability to beat other teams. I feel we're there now, regardless of whether Norris misses another few weeks.

It is a little frustrating that the reason we are riding with Rourke as our 2LC over some players who also imo legitimately earned a role in camp (Smejkal, Jarventie) just because we literally dont have the extra $0.1M in cap space needed to add them to the roster right now.

Cap Space

https://www.tsn.ca/nhl/ca...rfa-shane-pinto-1.2019406

That centre lineup is concerning. Rourke Chartier shouldn't even be on the roster, and he's at 2C. We shall see how long this experiment lasts - even bringing in Pinto... without the benefit of a full training camp it could be a slow go without some puck luck and/or pleasant surprises.
- Bartacus

I don't mind fringe players being rewarded for having a strong training camp, but you don't typically hand out top-6 roles on that basis if you're a legitimate playoff contender. In the case of Chartier, it's 100% about faceoff ability, as it's the only real contribution he made in the preseason (vs. 0 points). Of course, they have one of the best faceoff players in the NHL in Giroux, who they could have temporarily shifted to the 2nd line in order to help address this issue... but no, far better to give the job to a player with 19GP of NHL experience.

Meanwhile, Josh Bailey put up 6Pts/6GP in the preseason, has the versatility to play C in a pinch, has taken nearly 4,000 faceoffs in the NHL, and probably could have been signed for $750K-$800K... but it was evidently more important to keep Chartier and Kelly at even money, instead of letting an NHL veteran with over 1,000GP of experience help support the roster with the pressure of trying to actually win NHL games early in the season.

How does a team that hasnt made the playoffs have cap issues?
I feel like the sens will make a good run to get into the playoffs this year for sure.
But how do you not have cap for pinto?

Good luck this season. I think you make the playoffs

I don't mind fringe players being rewarded for having a strong training camp, but you don't typically hand out top-6 roles on that basis if you're a legitimate playoff contender. In the case of Chartier, it's 100% about faceoff ability, as it's the only real contribution he made in the preseason (vs. 0 points). Of course, they have one of the best faceoff players in the NHL in Giroux, who they could have temporarily shifted to the 2nd line in order to help address this issue... but no, far better to give the job to a player with 19GP of NHL experience.

Meanwhile, Josh Bailey put up 6Pts/6GP in the preseason, has the versatility to play C in a pinch, has taken nearly 4,000 faceoffs in the NHL, and probably could have been signed for $750K-$800K... but it was evidently more important to keep Chartier and Kelly at even money, instead of letting an NHL veteran with over 1,000GP of experience help support the roster with the pressure of trying to actually win NHL games early in the season.
- khawk

Being able to write clear sarcasm is an art khawk - love it. Have zero clue why they wouldn't shift Giroux to 2C in the interim, but this coach is simply intractable on line mixups - see: the fourth line we all knew (and dreaded/lambasted) would be there day one. Per Bailey, Smejkal, Jarventie - so much for 'earning a spot' during preseason. Still excited to get this season going, if only to accelerate to a point where somebody with a smidge of line creativity takes the reins.

Last but certainly not least, thanks much for all your contributions to this blog, you're keeping it all rolling.

How does a team that hasnt made the playoffs have cap issues?
I feel like the sens will make a good run to get into the playoffs this year for sure.
But how do you not have cap for pinto?

Good luck this season. I think you make the playoffs
- Fakepartofme

Mathieu Joseph and dead cap space I think around 5mill in buyouts and retained.

What cap issue?

As per article by Garioch (?) on Shane Pinto .......

The restricted free agent centre, who had been skating with a team at his home in Franklin, N.Y., for the past month, landed in Ottawa on Sunday and has been training at the Bell Sensplex since arriving in town.

Article content
Pinto wasn’t signed in time for the club’s season opener against the Carolina Hurricanes on Wednesday night at PNC Arena, but it’s a promising sign that he’s in town and skating with Pat Malloy, the director of hockey programming at the Peak Centre in Kanata, while waiting to get a deal in place.

A video posted on X (formerly known as Twitter) late Tuesday night showed Pinto skating with Malloy at the Sensplex Sunday after his arrival. Along with his duties at the Peak Centre, Malloy is the general manager and associate coach of the Central Canada Hockey League’s Smiths Falls Bears.

The more and more I think of it, if the team really is enamored with Joseph (and I like the idea of Joseph) then the simplest solution to free up cap space is to trade Branny. 5/6 defensemen are a dime a dozen in this league. He can also easily be replaced inernally, with Kleven, JBD, Guenette, etc.

And with a one year deal, with a low AAV, he might be the easier to deal.

So what could we get for Branny? A 3rd?

Would rather get capital then spend capital to alleviate the cap issues.

Not having Norris in the lineup magnifies the Pinto situation. It is unfortunate that a solution has not been worked out. That is certainly on Dorion. If Norris was playing, while the Pinto issue would still be an issue, it would not be as obvious when looking at the game 1 depth chart.

The 5 million of ‘dead cap’ due to the Murray, Ryan, White, and Del Zotto moves is certainly a tough pill to swallow. The good news is that White is the only one left after this season. Interesting to note that all of these decisions, one way or another, came under different ownership (signing Murray was under a different regime).

Tarashenko better have a really good year. That was really the move that caused the cap crunch. It could be argued that acquiring Kubalik rather than a pick or prospect also contributed to the cap crunch. I am not sure what the end game was for Dorion. Other teams were in more sticky cap situations and were able to massage things into an ok place. Granted, a few teams had well-time injuries to move on long term IR.

If the team gets off to a slow start, I don’t think Dorion or DJ Smith will survive very long. While I don’t think all of Dorion’s moves of late have been “bad” (ie. Waiver decisions, signing Sanderson, etc), if you can’t ice a proper team on game 1, then repercussions should likely occur.

With all this said, I do think there is room for optimism amongst the cap issues. The defense is strong, the top end forwards are strong, and the goaltending looks ok. I don’t think the playoffs are an unreasonable expectation. Should Dorion figure out a way to make the cap work, things will look much better.

Two of the most pathetic calls I’ve seen, these refs need to settle down

Ha... season opens with a goal by Mathieu Joseph, assisted by Parker Kelly. I'm looking forward to the inevitable Gordie Howe hat trick from Rourke Chartier later on.

Sabres signed defenseman Owen Power to a seven-year contract with an AAV of $8.35 million.

Wow

Just a hair above Sanderson too. That's going to be a great contract very soon.

absolutely not one sens in front of the net...

Loss #1 for the sens, lets see how many before smith is gone

Loss #1 for the sens, lets see how many before smith is gone
- Mithos

Man, it's not over yet.
That said I'm proud of the way they have played!

I blame Dorion more for not having Pinto ready to go; wtf it is the home opener and we don't have Norris or Pinto behind Stutzle

I loved HIM since he was drafted but THOMAS CHABOT HAS TO BE BETTER!!! WTF!!!

Korps is crrap on the high blocker