Rumours of Daniel Alfredsson’s prospective return to the Ottawa Senators have been circulating since the franchise was officially put up for sale last year.
Daniel Alfredsson was present at the unveiling of new owner Michael Andlauer to lend his endorsement, but today the team announced that he was officially back.
Alfredsson was on the ice participating at the team’s practice this morning where president of hockey operations Steve Staios told the assembled media that Alfie was “officially back with the organization.”
The announcement marks the second instance in which Alfredsson has joined the hockey operations department. The former captain worked in a senior advisor role from 2015 to 2017 before tapping out from Eugene Melnyk fatigue.
No official title or job responsibilities have been formally agreed upon, but the plan is for Alfredsson to begin by working directly with the players on the ice.
It is widely assumed that he would be perfect for a player development role, but Staios wanted to get him involved with the organization as quickly as possible.
“Never mind that he’s Daniel Alfredsson, I look at his character and his acumen, I was eager to get him in wherever he wanted. His role will grow, as we discussed, but he’s got a great deal of passion for the game. We wanted to get him on the ice and get him started." ~ Steve Staios to reporters this morning
With all apologies to Wade Redden, one of the coolest parts about having Alfie back is that he successfully bridges that gap between the franchise’s glory days and this new generation of talent. Having a leader and mentor with his level of talent should provide some incredible learning opportunities for this team’s young core.
Senators Trying to Clear Salary
TSN insider Darren Dreger appeared on his network’s ‘Insider Trading’ segment last night and shed some light on what is going with the Ottawa Senators in their pursuit to clear cap space.
“The temperature is certainly rising in the city of Ottawa among the fan base, certainly after their season-opening loss to a top team, the Carolina Hurricanes. The Senators played that game without two of their top three centres, but ownership of the Ottawa Senators also appreciates that Pierre Dorion is trying to create cap space.”
Andlauer would probably appreciate having Norris and Pinto in the lineup, but the longer the Senators’ cap squeeze and the Pinto negotiations play out, the worse this looks for Pierre Dorion.
“He’s trying to move Mathieu Joseph, he’s had contacts about moving Erik Brannstrom, but until he can create that cap space he can’t engage and create the contract required to bring Shane Pinto back into the fold. So, for the moment, Shane Pinto remains on the outside looking in. But, there might be some good news for the Ottawa Senators as Josh Norris is expected to return to the lineup as early as this weekend.”
No one should blame teams for kicking tires on Erik Brannstrom.
He is coming off an excellent 2022-23 season in which he provided the best offensive and defensive value of his career. Evolving-Hockey’s ‘total defence’ metric (DEF) which combines a player’s five-on-five and shorthanded defensive contributions into one value, had Brannstrom creating the most defensive value amongst the Senators’ blue liners last season. The site’s ‘wins above replacement’ and ‘goals above replacement’ metrics also rated Brannstrom as being the second-most valuable defenceman on the team last season behind Thomas Chabot.
Given his age, pedigree, puck-moving ability and last year’s breakout season, it’s not a surprise to have teams express an interest in acquiring the player — especially when he is making $2.0 million and offers a few more years of team control.
The wrinkle is that trading Brannstrom alone is not going to create the cap space needed to sign Shane Pinto. With the team currently carrying six defencemen, if the Senators move Brannstrom, they will need to replace him on the roster with another defender. Tyler Kleven is a popular choice to succeed Brannstrom, but Kleven earns $916,667. If the Senators trade Brannstrom for futures and replace him with Kleven, the team will only create $1,083,333 of cap space. Nowhere near enough room to fit the salary demands of Pinto.
If the Senators have a chance to realistically create room, it will necessitate moving one of the team’s forwards who has a salary that is similar to or exceeds what Pinto is looking for on an extension.
Impending UFAs like Vladimir Tarasenko and Dominik Kubalik were acquired during the offseason, which means the likelihood of Dorion moving one of these pieces and admitting the errors of his wheeling and dealing is remote.
Which means Mathieu Joseph may be shown the door.
His $2.9 million salary would be considered an overpayment if his struggles to fill the net continued. But, as a 13.2 percent career shooter, the safe money is on Joseph to regress to his career norms while providing some sorely needed two-way depth at the bottom of Ottawa’s lineup.
Joseph’s defensive ability and penalty killing prowess make him distinct from the alternatives. He also offers the Senators two more seasons of team control.
The more efficient move is probably to cut bait with one of the short-term additions but to cut bait now would highlight the mismanagement of the roster that occurred this summer before the likes of Steve Staios and Sean Tierney were added to the front office.
I do wonder how the presence of these two individuals will affect trade strategies and decision-making. There is no question that Dorion’s body of work and his efforts are currently being evaluated, so this dynamic that is at play will be fascinating to watch carry itself out. Will his new bosses prefer to see a manager who can admit mistakes and quickly move on from them? Will they allow Dorion to make another move that could potentially compound this offseason’s work? Or, if he’s not long for the job anyway, will it even matter?
Moving Kubalik makes the most sense. Tarasenko more or less duplicates what he offers and Kubalik could be more useful to a number of teams in the league than he is to the Sens.
In a sense those two RFAs are the business equivalent of a sunk cost. Chasing an illusion of a win with them over making the best deal - right now - for the team would be a classic blunder. Unfortunately, despite sunk costs being a known dilemma, businesspeople still fall victim to it as, no doubt, PDGM will if he isn’t straightened out by his hockey ops team.