Western Swing Throws Senators' Playoff Aspirations into a Tailspin
It started out so promising.
After the Senators impressively rebounded with a critical 5-4 come-from-behind win over the Seattle Kraken last week following Monday’s 5-0 loss to Chicago, three games against the Canadian Western Conference teams represented the best opportunity to collect a few points off two teams that have endured challenging seasons.
Consider it an opportunity missed. Nothing has gone right for the Senators since their stretch of games between January 25th through March 4th.
The Senators rattled off a 12-3-1 record while staying on the right side of the 50.0 percent mark for shots (50.21 CF%), goals for (61.76 GF%), and expected goals (52.34 xGF%) during this time. When the underlying numbers are good and the team is getting saves (92.84 5v5 Sv%), you can have a lot of success. Now throw in the fact that Ottawa’s skaters had the league’s best shooting percentage during this time (11.08 Sh%) and it is easy to understand why Ottawa had success.
Since March 5th however, the tide has turned. Heading into Tuesday night’s action in Edmonton, the power play had not scored a goal in six straight games. Making matters worse, the power play actually ran a deficit by allowing shorthanded goals in four of those six games.
At even strength, the team’s underlying metrics cratered. The Senators generated 48.68 percent of the shots (CF%), 33.3 percent of the goals (GF%), and 40.10 of the expected goals. Their shooting percentage dropped to 8.65 while the goaltending has stopped 84.07 percent of the five-on-five shots — the league’s poorest mark over this stretch.
Now the Senators return home from Western Canada reeling. The team is eight points back of the Islanders with three games in hand, but the remainder of their schedule is the most difficult in the NHL.
The odds of reaching the postseason diminished to under 5-percent per Hockeyviz.
With such long odds and 15 games to play, the season should pivot to gaining more information that can help this club as it heads into the offseason and next season.
One of the first steps in this direction was made last night.
As much as Dylan Gambrell has been a decent defensive centre and effective penalty killer, he is a black hole on offence. After scoring in his first game of the season, the centre has gone 46 games without a goal and only has six points on the season. The Senators need to generate more offence out of their bottom six and transitioning Gambrell out of his third-line centre role will help.
Impending unrestricted free agents like Nick Holden and Travis Hamonic should see reduced roles and workloads. The organization’s sentiment that Hamonic is good for Jake Sanderson’s development because he’s a veteran with character has been parroted around the interwebs, but it’s simply the latest example of the team showing loyalty and commitment to another ineffective veteran.
The best thing for the organization would be to juggle defencemen and experiment with defensive partners in their top four to determine which players complement each other best. Jake Chychrun and Artyom Zub should both spend time with Thomas Chabot and Sanderson down the stretch. Erik Brannstrom should never be relegated to the bench in the last 15 games and perhaps an opportunity should be given to Lassi Thomson or Jacob Bernard-Docker to play some third-pairing minutes.
Egor Sokolov’s another Belleville prospect who should get an extended opportunity to show what he can do at the NHL level. Mathieu Joseph’s lower-body injury may eventually open the door for a promotion there, but at some point, Belleville’s leading scorer needs to play NHL games to evaluate his game at this level. If the organization’s uncomfortable with giving players like Sokolov, JBD or Thomson the time now, it probably does not bode well for their long-term future with the organization.
They may have more value to the team as trade assets than prospective depth pieces.
Goaltending is another area that will warrant attention in the offseason.
After a strong first month in the NHL in which he earned ‘Rookie of the Month’ honours for February, Mads Sogaard has stumbled with the rest of his teammates. In fairness to the young Dane, he has not had a ton of defensive support lately, but an unflattering five-on-five save percentage of .878 is not going to earn him anything.
With Cam Talbot’s latest injury and unrestricted free agent status this summer, there is no guarantee that he returns next season. Anton Forsberg has two years left on his contract ($2.75 million AAV) but is recovering from ACL injuries to both knees. Should there be concerns about his effectiveness moving forward?
Looking at the goaltending market, free agency does not offer up a ton of intriguing candidates.
Tristan Jarry will probably sign for a larger figure than Ottawa can afford based on his past success in Pittsburgh and his being one of the younger options out there. For me, Joonas Korpisalo, Frederik Andersen and Semyon Varlamov represent some of the more intriguing talents who may align better with what Ottawa’s looking for in terms of cost and effectiveness.
They are obviously not without risk but represent upgrades on what Ottawa currently has.
The Senators could also explore trades, but having given up a number of well-regarded assets in previous deals for Alex DeBrincat and Jake Chychrun, the idea of depleting the farm system even further may not be that enticing.
A lot of important decisions need to be made regarding this team’s roster, which underlines how important it is for the league to make a decision on this franchise’s ownership in a timely manner.
If new ownership arrives and wants to put its own people in place, that will take time. The Senators dealt all of their draft picks from the first three rounds of the 2023 NHL Draft, so the impact on the amateur scouting side should not be that significant.
At the professional level, however, there are many consequential decisions that need to be made to improve this team’s competitiveness. The faster the ownership process gets resolved, the faster the organization can go about hiring the right people to help turn this ship around. Fresh voices, fresh ideas, an in-house analytics department to mitigate risks and assist the decision-making process, are all needed.
The possibility that the incumbents could go into the offseason and make influential decisions for the future while preserving their lame duck status is worrisome.
Ryan Reynolds Loading Up
In an interesting bit of news, T-Mobile bought Mint Mobile for a reported $1.35 billion. The mobile company was partially owned by Ryan Reynolds, who will reportedly collect a cool $350 million for his 25-percent stake in the company.
For the actor and businessman to add that kind of liquidity is important because it should conceivably bolster his group’s efforts to purchase the Ottawa Senators.
At the GM’s meeting out of Florida, deputy commissioner Bill Daly acknowledged that the league is reviewing the first round of ownership bids.
(It's) too soon," he explained. "Obviously, working and refining those bids will take a couple of weeks and then we'll see where we are." ~ Bill Daly via TSN
Considering how savvy of a businessman Reynolds has proven to be outside of his acting career, it is pretty exciting how seriously he is taking this ownership pursuit. Admittedly, it is still early in the process and I don’t want to get too excited about the idea of Reynolds coming in here and reinvigorating the organization and its brand — especially when there are a number of other heavy hitters vying for the franchise.
At the same time, the idea of the organization being run by an ownership group that never has to rely on the financial worth of one person or family is attractive. Maybe the other prospective groups offer many positive attributes, but no one in Ottawa needs a long memory to remind itself of how one person can run a franchise into the ground with their personal finances and decision-making. And, then throwing Reynolds’ marketability and persona into the mix puts it over the top for me. He needs to be involved and if he is, it’s hard not to imagine the Senators becoming a viable destination for sponsors and corporate support. For a franchise that has struggled because it’s so reliant on season tickets and ticket sales to drive revenue, this opportunity cannot be understated.
It is exciting to think about, but I just hope we see it realized.
DeBrincat’s Performance
I like Alex DeBrincat.
It certainly feels like we are getting the worst version of him as a player in 2022-23.
It is a small sample size, but when he has been on the ice at five-on-five over his last five games per NaturalStatTrick, the Senators have generated 39.33 percent of the shots (CF%), 25.0 percent of the goals (GF%), and 29.85 percent of the expected goals (xGF%).
Moving to a new team and a new system with the pressures of playing for a new contract probably was not easy. I have no idea if the player has been battling undisclosed injuries either.
Losing Josh Norris as a centre has certainly hurt, however. The DeBrincat-Norris-Giroux line was pretty effective with strong underlying numbers before Norris was sidelined with a shoulder injury according to Evolving-Hockey.
I would love to see how he could fare with a new head coach, a full season alongside Josh Norris, and a revamped blue line that should help improve the team’s five-on-five shot and goal metrics. In saying that, however, it is hard to ignore his performance and wonder what kind of terms DeBrincat will be seeking on a new contract.
The winger will become a restricted free agent this summer and to maintain their rights, the Senators will need to qualify DeBrincat at $9.0 million. Despite his past production, that is a large figure for the Senators to absorb within their payroll and it will inevitably open conversations about whether that kind of money could be allocated more efficiently.
In a perfect world, the Senators could leverage DeBrincat’s down year to drive an extension’s annual average value down well below that of what it is paying their other young forwards like Tim Stützle and Brady Tkachuk. If DeBrincat is invested in this city, enjoys the team’s young core, and is swayed by the prospect of new ownership, perhaps there is a possibility that he signs an extension at a lower cap hit than anticipated.
The worst-case scenario would be for him to accept his qualifying offer of $9.0 million. Doing so would allow him to bet on himself and hit unrestricted free agency in 2024. DeBrincat has bounced back before. As a 22-year-old in his third NHL season, the winger only put up 18 goals and 45 points in 70 games in 2019-20. He followed that up by posting seasons of 32 and 41 goals over the next two years.
For many of the reasons that I outlined earlier, there are a lot of factors to suggest DeBrincat should rebound next season. And, if he has designs of maximizing his value and hitting unrestricted free agency as a 26-year-old next summer, it could put the Senators in a really tough spot.
A one-year contract carrying a significant cap hit will be tough to recoup value on if the Senators are forced to move him. DeBrincat would be too good of an asset to risk losing to injury during the season, so it would force them to move on from him this summer. Unless DeBrincat is willing to sign an extension elsewhere, expecting the kind of return that Ottawa gave up to acquire him may be unrealistic.
Other News and Notes:
Brady Tkachuk and his fiancee Emma Farinacci announced that they have partnered with the Boys and Girls Club (BCG).
From the official press release:
Tkachuk and Farinacci have also made a significant private financial donation to BGC to help the growth and development of youth, with specific focus to support recreational programs, fostering self-development and leadership. Providing resources to give underprivileged youth an opportunity to participate in all kinds of sport and recreational activities is meaningful to the couple. Physical well-being, leadership development and teaching the importance of responsibility in a safe environment are some of the things that drew them to BGC Ottawa.
It is pretty awesome to see players become so invested in this city through charitable initiatives. It started with Wade Redden running ‘Wade’s World’ and extended through Daniel Alfredsson’s mental health efforts with the Royal Ottawa hospital. To see Tkachuk forge a legacy on and off the ice is pretty special. This city is lucky to have him be a part of it.