Ottawa Senators Off-Season

The Ottawa Senators had a very disappointing ending to their 2014-15 season, falling to the New Jersey Devils in 5. This team had the talent and the veteran leadership to go deep into the playoffs, but after limping into the playoffs, they fell flat on their faces after a game 1 victory.

So the General Manger, Jameson Fletcher, knew going into the off-season a few changes were needed, but that they are also close to making some real noise this upcoming season. After trading away their top picks to get Henrik Zetterberg and Zdeno Chara last year, the Senators were left with most of their picks in the later rounds, starting in round 3. With most of the Senators wingers aging, they went into the draft focusing on adding some talent on the wings, and that showed with their first pick, Vladislav Kamenev, a Russian sniper. He has played the last couple years in the KHL, playing against men under the tutelage of Mike Keenan. He didn’t have a ton of ice time on one of the better teams in the league, but he has learned a great deal from a brilliant hockey mind. The Sens definitely envision him in their top 6 in a few years time.

Their second pick wasn’t until the 5th round and it was a stay-at-home Dman in Andreas Englund. Englund is very fundamentally sound and can really be relied upon and trusted in his own zone. He made a big step up this past year and played well in both the SweHL and at the World Juniors for Sweden. He projects to be a top 4 defensive stalwart in the NHL.

In the 6th round, Ottawa made their 3rd pick power forward Justin Kirkland. Kirkland had a great year for the Kelowna Rockets, with 51 pts in 50 games and a very strong +31. He is the type of player who is willing to go into the hard areas, and can be very difficult for opponents in front of the net. He is expected to go back to Kelowna this year, and be one of their leaders.

The 7th round had the Senators picking up 5 players. Their first was Swede Kevin Stenlund. He is a big mobile center that plays a very difficult game to play against. He will be playing the next couple of years in the SweHL. It is up in the air whether or not he will ever develop the offensive skills, but he definitely has the makings of a very good bottom 6 Center. If he develops his offensive skills that he has shown in the SuperElit, the Sens could have a sleeper on their hands.

Ottawa’s 2nd pick in the 7th was goalie Samuel Montembeault. The Sens traded Zach Fucale during the year for Chara, so this pick was used to recover some of that loss. Samuel is a tall, athletic goalie who was very impressive last year in the Q. He had the second best GAA, with 2.59. The Sens are really hoping that this kid will develop into the kind of game stealing goalie they think he will become.

Ottawa then picked up over-ager Trevor Carrick. Carrick has been playing in the AHL, and playing quite well. He had 32 pts in 76 games last year and looks to be NHL ready soon. He is a two-way defender, who likes to get physical. He had 94 PIMs and 8 fights, but he also had 25 assists.

The Senators went forward again with Michael Spacek. He plays a very smart, technically sound game. He seems to read the game extremely well, with good vision and hardly turns the puck over. He played very well as a 17-18 yr old in the Czech pro league last year, but decided to take his game to North America. So far he has had a dominant start with the Red Deer Rebels, with 5 points in 2 games. If Spacek can develop his offensive game, he could be a great sleeper pick for the Sens.

Last but not least, the Senators traded a 3rd round for this coming year to get this pick, which speaks volumes to the selection they made here. They selected Kevin Gravel, a very dependable, non-flashy defensive defenseman. He has just be so reliable everywhere he has been, whether it be for the St. Cloud team in the WCHA, or for the Manchester Monarchs, and that was what was so attractive about him. The Senators have lots of very talented young dmen like Ceci and Beaulieu, but to get just a strong reliable dman to fit with those guys is just so important.

After the draft, the Senators made a HUGE move before going into Free Agency. They traded away a corner piece of their team, Rick Nash. In return, they received James Van Riemsdyk, Brett Ritchie and Scott Harrington. They lose one of the best goal scorers in the league, but the Sens feel like JVR could still put in 25-30 goals for them, and they have guys that can really score like Malkin and Hudler and Hornqvist. This was an opportunity for the Senators to add some youth to that forwards corp that could lose several pieces in the next couple of years. JVR could prove himself so valuable that they franchise tag him when he becomes a UFA in 3 years. They also add a potential top 6 power forward in Ritchie and a potential top 4 dman in Harrington. As much as they didn’t want to trade Nash, they felt like this deal was too good to pass up.

The Senators were pretty quite in Free Agency, but they did pick up 3 players there were on their draft list. Jujhar Khaira, Jean-Sebastien Dea and Michael Keranen. Ottawa believes all three of them could play in the NHL one day, though time might be running out for Keranen, who came over from Europe after tearing up the Finnish Elite league. Dea and Khaira could turn out to be very good signings though. One other signing they made was James Wright. He has NHL experience, and was signed to be a call-up in case of injuries and to really strengthen the AHL affiliate.

Ottawa had an under the radar busy off-season, and they hoped they have really built their depth, which was looking scarce last year.