Friday, November 2, 2007

Senators Situation

After two great periods last night, the Senators had a lacklustre third period and almost blew what should have been an incredibly safe lead. The defensive coverage broke down a little bit and Ray Emery wasn't able to come up with the big save. Hopefully a lesson can be learned from it and they will remember the next time that they need to play all sixty minutes no matter what the score is.

On a more positive note, this afternoon brought the news that Jason Spezza has signed a seven-year, $49 million dollar contract extension. This is good news despite the almost perpetual concern of repeating the mistake made by the Tampa Bay Lightning. The Heatley/Spezza duo is probably the best combo in the league. The Sens seem to be on track to not fall victim to the Tampa Bay syndrome for a couple of reasons.

One is that we already have some of our depth players locked up at more reasonable sums, namely Fisher, Phillips and Volchenkov. Not to mention the incredible value that we are getting from Daniel Alfredsson. They have a solid goaltender under contract for the next two years and a good goaltending prospect coming. They have valuable veterans like Dean McAmmond and Shean Donovan willing to play here for a reasonable amount of money.

The other advantage that the Senators have is the great job that they have done in the draft. Tampa has struggle because since signing the contracts with their big three they have not had young players come in and play prominent roles for them. The Senators have managed to slide a first round pick into the lineup almost every year. Nick Foligno, Patrick Eaves, Andrej Meszaros and Anton Volchenkov were all picked in the 20s in the first round since 2000. Tim Gleason was as well and he is playing regularly for Carolina. Brian Lee looks like he'll be ready to play in the NHL next year. We have managed to find solid prospects like Brian Elliott and Ilya Zubov and current contributors like Chris Neil and Chris Kelly in the later rounds. This means that even if players like Kelly or Vermette leave, which would be unfortunate, there will likely be someone who can step into their place.

1 comment:

Mr. Mills said...

Lawrence:

Given your earlier comments on Robitaille, and taking into account his performance during the last game (not his breaking his face on the ice, but rather his two goals) are you considering revising your position on Robitaille's skill level? Or would you ascribe it to luck? OR perhaps (and this is just a perhaps) you might want to reevaluate your crush on Spezza. Perhaps (that word again) some portion of Mr. Big Ears' goals/points/stats over the seasons are more properly attributed to his position and linemates rather than him alone. But of course this argument of mine might also be weakened by the fact that Robitaille now has more goals than Spezza-- so perhaps it's not the talent surrounding the jewelry salesman but is his skill afterall.
cheers,
a.

hope this riles,

a.