The Most Interesting Thing From Last Night's Game
At the risk of glossing over Filip Gustavsson’s 28-save performance in last night’s 2-1 victory over the Winnipeg Jets, but the most interesting thing from tonight’s TSN broadcast was Bruce Garrioch’s last ‘Question Period’ segment of the season.
Garrioch was asked by the host, James Duthie, to submit what he believed would be the Senators’ prospective opening night roster for the 2021-22 season. One of the caveats of this roster projection was to ignore potential roster casualties who could be lost through the expansion process.
Here is what Bruce came up with:
Irrespective of how anyone feels about Garrioch’s work, few members of the local media have as good of standing with the Senators’ front office and ownership. While this information could be Garrioch’s own opinion, the perk of having a direct line to Pierre Dorion allows Bruce to get exclusive information from the general manager. Due to this relationship, it is not hard to assume that Bruce would not just put stuff out there without checking in with the front office.
Circumstances and trades can quickly change the composition of the roster, so the names and slotting of names aren’t really too important here. What is interesting is the insight Garrioch gave viewers in regards to how the organization will likely look to address its depth at each of the three major positions — goaltending, defence and forward.
“Well, I know that Anton Forsberg is an unrestricted free agent,” explained Garrioch. “But, I think there’s a possibility that they bring him back and walk away from Hogberg who has had an absolutely disastrous season.”
With the depth and the performance of the team’s prospects at the NHL and AHL levels this season, any decision to walk away from Marcus Hogberg will be anticipated. The Senators do have a long history of extending back up goaltenders who look competent over a short period of time. Dating back to the ‘Hamburglar’ run with Andrew Hammond, the Senators have extended themselves on the likes of Mike Condon, Anders Nilsson and potentially Anton Forsberg.
Forsberg has played relatively well, but he’s a stopgap player. If the Senators are interested in retaining the 28-year old veteran, it may reflect a reservation to rely on one of the team’s young goaltenders next season as a backup if Matt Murray’s struggles continue.
Garrioch would go on to shed some light on the goaltenders and the expansion draft.
“I also give the edge to Daccord over Gustavsson because I think Daccord is the kind of guy who teams rally around. He’s a competitor. He’s a guy this organization likes. They’ve invested a lot in him and I think Gustavsson, if I had to say one thing, I think Gustavsson has caught lightning in a bottle here a bit. And I think when push comes to shove, I think they protect Daccord in the expansion draft.”
It is reaffirming to hear Bruce explain that the Senators will likely elect to protect one of their young goaltenders rather than protect Matt Murray as a gesture of confidence. With three years and $21-million left on Murray’s deal after his disastrous season, there is not a chance that the analytically-inclined Seattle Kraken take Murray without some significant prospect or draft pick capital going the other way.
The decision to protect Joey Daccord over Filip Gustavsson would be an interesting one. Daccord’s two years older and has only played in nine career games with a career save percentage of .894. Although Gustavsson’s sample size of NHL games is essentially half of Daccord’s, Gustavsson has posted the highest save percentage and 'goals saved above expected’ (GSAx) per Evolving-Hockey.com. Relative to the performance of Hogberg and Murray, both Daccord and Gustavsson have impressed with their athleticism and ability.
When watching Gustavsson and the success that he’s had thus far, to my eyes, it feels like his performance is not fluky. His athleticism has been matched by his technical ability, positioning and ability to track and absorb shots through traffic. Mixing in Gustavsson’s pedigree (second-round 2016, 55th overall), age and international experience, he feels like a safer bet to be selected if exposed. (As an aside, with 30 teams only being able to protect one goaltender, there is a strong chance that the Kraken don’t even use a selection on one of Ottawa’s goaltenders. The only reason that it feels like a strong possibility is simply because of how weak the choices at forward and defence will be.)
The last important distinction is that Garrioch believes the Senators will be looking to add another centre and another defenceman. For fans who are clamouring for the organization to spend some money and improve the competitiveness of the club, this revelation will be welcomed news.
CapFriendly.com lists the Senators as having 15 skaters under contract next season at an estimated cap hit of approximately $49,648,333. With slightly more than $31-million of cap space, the Senators have the opportunity to spend, but what they don’t want to do is overextend themselves in term of the players that they decide to target.
“Well ultimately, I think they need to add or develop a second-line centre either through free agency, trade or through the draft,” Garrioch stated. “But, they’re difficult to acquire and I think Josh Norris has shown this season that he can absolutely be a number one centre. Or at the very least, be a good number two.”
One important distinction is that Garrioch does not believe that the Senators have an internal option that makes sense next season.
“I know people here have talked about the fact that Tim Stützle is maybe a guy that could move to the middle, but he hasn’t played centre in two years. And I don’t see that happening next season either.”
If the Senators do not believe that they have a player who is capable of filling that role, you would hate to see the organization commit too many years to a free agent to address a short-term need now. It seems reasonable to assume that Shane Pinto or Tim Stützle can reach that level at some point in their prospective futures, but you do not want to have another Chris Tierney situation down the road when money allocation will be much more important. The risk of overpaying a veteran who could get leapfrogged on the depth chart by younger players and have his contributions and role be diminished is real. (As an aside, you have to wonder when Tim Stützle will get an opportunity to start getting reps down the middle. The further removed he is from playing the position, the less likely it feels that he’ll ever play there as the team improves around him.)
In a way, it is not much different than the problem that could be created by acquiring another right defenceman.
The thought of upgrading the Senators’ top-four and allowing Jacob Bernard-Docker to develop in Belleville should be a welcomed one. Adding a player like David Savard, for example, would definitely bolster the right side. An unfortunate complication of adding another defender is that the Senators have Artyom Zub and Nikita Zaitsev under team control for the foreseeable future. Zub is a restricted free agent this summer, but Zaitsev is slated to earn $4.5-million per year over the next three seasons. By reducing Zaitsev to a third-pairing role where he would probably be best served, the organization would be boxing JBD out of a job. In this situation, the Senators would finally be faced with the predicament of trying to get out from a contract that they never should have acquired in the first place. If there is a saving grace, it is that Dorion has demonstrated that he is capable of finding creative avenues to dump salary. Like the Dion Phaneuf for Marian Gaborik trade, some of Dorion’s best moves have involved getting bad money off the books.
Garrioch believes the Senators will look to address the absence of a rugged defender who can consistently play in the top-six.
“Well, the TBD could be JBD. And by that, I mean Jacob Bernard-Docker. But, he may not start the year with this team. He may be a guy who comes in mid-way (through the season). I think they could use another rugged defenceman though to help with Josh Brown, who I see next year playing a seventh (defenceman) role. There’s obvious shortcomings on that left side with two 5’9” defencemen, but I think they’ve liked Victor Mete and I can see him being a guy that they could bring back.”
There is certainly something to be said about the benefits of adding a rugged and physical defenceman. The concern is that the Senators may fall into that pattern of behavior in which they overemphasize character and exclusively believe that being tough to play against is defined by a player’s willingness to hit, fight and punish the opposition’s forwards in front of the net.
Hopefully, the ineffective play of veterans like Braydon Coburn and Erik Gudbranson will shine a light on the reality of the modern game. If a defenceman cannot skate, win battles, retrieve pucks or move the puck efficiently, that defenceman is going to struggle to help tilt the ice in the Senators’ favour. With that player on the ice, the team will inevitably spend more of its time defending in their own end.
Garrioch discusses the size of Victor Mete and Erik Brannstrom and given D.J. Smith’s reluctance to dress Christian Wolanin and Brannstrom for games this season, I could see the organization looking to add a short-term solution at left defence. Like with Bernard-Docker’s path to the NHL, the Senators would have to figure out how to address the left defence position without blocking Jake Sanderson’s development. It is expected that Sanderson will join the Senators once his sophomore season in North Dakota comes to an end.
One advantage that the Senators have when it comes to free agents is that the team does have a lot of cap space. With so many teams pressed up against the cap ceiling and the Senators having a fun and energetic young core, there may be a unique opportunity in which the Senators use their cap space to overpay in dollars to ensure some quality veteran players sign one or two-year deals.
If Eugene Melnyk is true to his word and is willing to spend, the Senators could get creative. Granted, when the Senators are trying to compete, Pierre Dorion’s track record of targeting the right players in trades or free agency is not great. Too often, the team has overpaid to acquire players because of their reputation and (or) past performance.
Taking account of all the factors and this offseason is shaping up to be one of the more intriguing and important offseasons in recent franchise history. Provided that the front office has learned from its missteps, it should be a really exciting summer. And at the very least, it is going to provide one hell of an opportunity to learn a lot about how much (or whether) this organization’s decision-making process has improved.
Other News and Notes:
One of the last points Garrioch made in his segment was to touch upon how Ridley Greig’s stock has soared with the organization. The Postmedia scribe believes that the gritty forward has an opportunity to compete for a roster spot out of camp next fall.