Addressing the Forward Depth

There are a lot of moving pieces in Ottawa these days.

Waiting for the Alex DeBrincat trade to drop is consuming and until he is moved, it is easy to wonder how comfortable the Senators are earmarking his salary and kicking tires on alternatives to fill the void.

After it was reported that the Senators had not permitted any teams to talk to DeBrincat’s camp, Dorion acknowledged in a media availability three days later that this had changed. Who knows whether that is a reflection that a deal is close to fruition, but the Senators have reportedly been kicking tires on players to fill DeBrincat’s role.

Elliotte Friedman linked the Senators to Vladimir Tarasenko.

The 31-year-old Tarasenko played in 69 games between the Blues and Rangers last season tallying 18 goals and adding 32 assists. From a production standpoint, it was one of the worst seasons of his career and that holds true from an analytics perspective as well.

Evolving-Hockey’s ‘goals above replacement’ value (1.7 GAR) and ‘wins above replacement’ (0.3 WAR) value metrics rate 2022-23 as Tarasenko’s worst. He has created less value in other seasons, but those were injury-shortened campaigns in which he did not play enough to create enough positive value.

HockeyViz identifies his isolated offensive and defensive impacts on shots and expected goals and the results in 2022-23 were ugly.

Tarasenko has never historically been a quality defender, but now that he is on the wrong side of 30, the offensive characteristics that he possesses no longer overshadow his shortcomings.

He is a name though and from what we know about Pierre Dorion, he loves chasing names. He can’t help himself. A well-regarded name player becomes available? Dorion innately has to have him. He throws draft picks around faster than Matt Damon threw poker chips around in Rounders.

What Dorion has struggled with is identifying and acquiring good players on relatively efficient contracts. Now, maybe Ottawa’s general manager is simply doing his due diligence and checking in with every available free agent who he could possibly pencil into a top-six role, but there are two other names that he should seriously be pursuing who have not signed yet.

Tomas Tatar and Pius Suter.

If the Senators are serious about addressing their depth on the left side without taking a huge hit financially or in the term being offered, they should be ponying up to acquire Tatar and Suter.

Here are the JFresh Hockey player cards for these two players:

Not only do both players offer some offensive upside that can be added to the second and third lines, but they are also pretty good two-way players. One of the weaknesses of the Ottawa roster is that they have a bunch of players who are either really good at offence or defence, but in few instances do they have players who are good at both. By signing one or both players, the Senators could address their left wing (and centre) depth by signing two natural left-shots. And perhaps most importantly, their signings would allow Dorion to focus exclusively on finding the best futures-laden return in a DeBrincat trade. By signing these two players and acquiring valuable prospects and draft picks, Dorion would effectively remedy two of the team’s biggest organizational weaknesses without having to attempt to address both and marginalize the return in a DeBrincat trade.

Now obviously it’s easy to sit here and say, “Sign these fucking guys right now!” than to actually go out and get them. We don’t know what terms they are looking for or whether either player would be interested in coming to Ottawa. On the other hand, Dorion should be doing everything within his power to get these two forwards.

In an interesting twist, after being linked to the Senators in some prospective DeBrincat trade proposals, the Detroit Red Wings have waived Filip Zadina.

Zadina has a pedigree and is only 22 years old, but the longer we are removed from his 2018 draft year, the less likely it is that he will fulfill the lofty projections that were once placed on him. Adding him could make sense, under the right circumstances, but there are more talented alternatives that the organization should focus on.