Hastily Made Gonchar Analysis

Settling in for what has traditionally been a boring day for Sens fans, Bryan Murray shocked the world and signed the highest paying contract of the year to open the UFA market. My first thought was of excitement - Gonchar is one of the best offensive defencemen in the NHL. Then, I kinda got upset because we're paying the guy a tonne and he's 36 years old. He was coming off of a $5M contract and this is potentially his last big payday, so did we really need to give him a raise? Especially considering we gave him the term he wanted, I thought we could have saved some money on it.

But as the dust settles, the signing of Sergei Gonchar to the Sens has me completely excited and not really worried too much. Could he get hurt? Of course, but so can Alfie and Kovalev at the same age. Will he suck? Probably not, he's been a very consistent producer and has put up a tonne of 50+ point seasons in his career. Does the contract prohibit us elsewhere? Sure, a bit, but we already have the forwards we wanted (surprised to see Cullen get $3.5M when Whitney only took $3M...) and Gonchar really changes some key dynamics of this team.

First, we have an elite defenceman that can pass the puck. Dare I say, he is probably the best defenceman we've ever had in the modern day history of this team (sorry, Z). He is one of those players that makes his defensive partner a better player. He will also make our forwards better because they can focus on transition instead of backchecking. Guys like Spezza, Michalek, and Kovalev can start actually skating up the ice instead of waiting for our poor defensive defencemen to get the puck out of the corner and move it up the ice. I truly think our 5-on-5 improves a ton here.

Second, and one that has already been identified by most everyone, we have someone to run the powerplay. Karlsson is still a bit too young to take on the entire responsibility and Kuba just isn't enough of a threat to open up opportunities for the forwards down low on the PP. Now we have a guy that can walk off the half boards and get it across to Karlsson/Spezza or draw the forward with him and feed Kovalev on the right side for one timers. Remember those passes that he used to make to Malkin? He can make those to Kovalev now. Our powerplay was 22nd in the league last year, which is unacceptable given the talent on the top unit. Gonchar instantly gives us potential to be a top ten powerplay team.

Finally, it gives guys like Cowen and Wiercioch and extra year to develop in Bingo. Instead of these guys trying to crack the roster out of camp a la Carkner, they can learn the grown-up game on the buses in Binghamton. Now it isn't out of the question that one or both of them has a great camp and beats out Lee and Campoli in the Fall, but there is significantly less pressure on these guys because we have a solid top four already set. I know that it also means that Karlsson has another mentor and we have a vet that is fresh of a Cup win to show us the ropes. My takeaway here is that we don't have to take the ice with about of kids on the blue line now.

I'm curious how Pascal handles the additional rubber he'll see, though.

All in all, I'm thrilled with the signing. I'm not worried about his age and I can live with the money. This team went from another year on the playoff bubble to contender for what will be a weak Northeast Division. While I think about it, I wonder if the Northeast will be the worst division in hockey...

Get Regin done for three years at $1.5M, give Foligno one year and tell him to stay healthy and prove that he deserves a longer deal. Campy hasn't earned the $1M mark yet, either. And finally, give yourself a bit more versatility and go get Comrie (I love that kid!) for 1 year $1M and stick him on the second powerplay unit.

When we're left with no alternative

Ahhh, not that there was any doubt to begin with, but the Ottawa Sun has finally lost its final marbles. Tim Baines has taken to the blogosphere to defend his paper, his writers, and their overall professionalism while attacking, ironically, the bloggers that call him out. It pains me because we are still left with no real alternative. The Ottawa Sun still has extensive coverage of the team and has far more access and sources than any part-time blogger, right? But it isn't like the Ottawa Citizen is this amazing alternative. The Citizen is like the mediocre looking girl in science class that hangs out with the really ugly girl to make herself look passable. The Citizen...is passable. The Sun is just tabloids for sports. But at the end of the day, they don't make up rumours that Spezza is 99% likely to be traded at the draft (thanks, Eklund) and they still have locker room passes. The rest of us on the blog are just left with a growing fan base and a dash of hockey intelligence.

In the meantime, what is new in Hockey Country?

1. Jason Spezza. I had almost gotten to the point where I would have been okay had he been dealt this past weekend. Brassard and Columbus' first rounder? Sure. Horton and the 3rd overall? Maybe. Savard and Boston's mid first rounder? Probably. It isn't that I don't like Spezza. I actually love his style of play and think he has the talent to win an Art Ross at some point. But my concern becomes that we have this elite centre and he has no elite winger to match his skill. Is it worth it to us to carry a $7M superstar who has no matching playmate? Heatley was an elite winger and when he left, so did the need for Spezza's cross crease one-timer passes. If we could have gained cap space AND found some a decent centre in return that could play with a Michalek, Kovalev, Alfredsson, Fisher, Cullen type player, is it that bad of a deal?

2. Anton Volchenkov. Why are we still talking about him? He's already thinking of his new team and his pay raise. I was miffed at how Murray couldn't at least get a mid round draft pick for his negotiating rights, but it must just mean that he and Grossman have made it abundantly clear that he won't sniff a contact until July 1st. But even then, Hamhuis was traded twice and still hasn't signed! I would be disappointed if we find out that Murray had no intention of renegotiating with A-Train AND turned down even a shitty draft pick considering he's walking for free on Thursday.

3. Matt Cullen and Andy Sutton. We're all saying the right things, but these dudes are headed elsewhere. I couldn't really care less about Sutton if he is seriously looking for a raise on $3M. He was a bruiser and a great shot blocker, but he's at a point where he needs to start settling into that Adam Foote lifestyle but without the gold medal. $2M is fine, but a raise over $3M is nothing we need. Cullen, on the other hand, is a great fit. A nice second line centre that kills penalties and can handle the point on the powerplay. He is good for 50 points per year and to me, that is worth a few hundred thousand over $3M. Hell, Kovalev can't kill a penalty and puts up the same offence for $5M! I would love to see Cullen back but I'm not getting my hopes up given the way Murray has worked the last two UFA seasons.

4. Marc Savard. Sure, it would mean the end of Matt Cullen, but who wouldn't take this guy on a $4.2M cap hit? Healthy, he puts up 75 points a year. Hurt, and he might really still be hurt, he is LTIR and off the books. That isn't what people want, but Cup winning teams have their strength down the middle. Goalie, defence, and centres. We sure as shit down have the goaltending and our blue line is years away from being great, but wouldn't it be nice to find a way to get Savard and Spezza on the same team? If Chiarelli is looking for a soft trade because he can't have Seguin's three years up and still have Savard, then take Kovalev for this year alone.

5. Bryan Murray. I'm kind of growing tired of him, to be honest. I'm tired of his tactics to try and light a fire under Spezza's ass (there are 101 better ways that he could have accomplished this) and I'm not happy with the fact that we look to be a weaker team this year (stars are older, losing a top dman, goaltending still a mess). I know everyone speaks volumes about how he and Tim have 'restocked the pantry', but the guy inherited a Cup finalist and now hasn't won a playoff series in three straight seasons. Could the dude not have found a way to be competitive now and still build for the future? I'm forever optimistic about this team but I'm curious as to what kind of direction Murray really is taking it. Are we lunchpail? Are we defence first? Speed? what?

Looking ahead at UFA Day, it is funny to see that the hype is so much lower than it was last week for draft-day trades. Obviously, Kovalchuk (who has two playoff game wins to his name) is the big piece, but I'm curious how soon the four Sens UFAs go.

In the meantime, let's go back to reading the Sun and Citizen and save time for all those Sens blogs that are warranting this tongue-lashing...

Is it time for Bryan Murray to stop talking?

I don't think it is a stretch to say that Bryan Murray was handed the keys to the car three years ago and given a blank cheque to do what he felt necessary to fix the program. I also don't think it is a stretch to say that he has done quite well in many areas of the organization. The Binghamton Senators actually resemble a farm system with a handful of prospects, something that the Murrays have done from scratch (with the scouts). The big club also found a decent coach, albeit falling behind 0-2 in the count with big whiffs in Paddock and Hartsburg.

But does anyone else think it might be time for Murray just to shut his mouth for a bit?

Let me explain: there is no arguing that this is his team. The ONLY contracts that he inherited here are Phillips and Volchenkov. Every single contract here is one that he signed, including the departed players like Emery and Picard. Just about everything that we accomplished here this past season is a result of his work.

With that, though, comes the bad stuff - the Heatley trade demand and the alleged Spezza unhappiness. This wouldn't even have been newsworthy, though, if Murray hadn't gone yapping to Ian Mendes last week at length about how his star centre was unhappy last year with the media and the fans and how they need to talk again before July 1st.

Bryan Murray is a smart hockey man, people. He has been in the big offices of NHL clubs for 30 years and you can be sure that every time he talks to the media, it isn't the off the cuff sound bytes that he'll regret later that afternoon. There is a strong belief that the Sens are the ones that leaked the Heatley request so as to paint him a a villain. That obviously blew up in our face, so it begs the question as to why Murray would say anything to Mendes about Spezza now.

Jason Spezza is a star centre, there is no question about that. He will never be Pavel Datsyuk and he'll never be Steve Yzerman. He is a younger Joe Thornton that has actually played in the Finals. He makes plays and carries risk with his passes. To us, that is worth $7M per year. He is also a polarizing player - people in Ottawa either love him or hate him. Need proof? There are people that want him run out of town for nothing more than cap space and there are people that started a facebook page to keep him. The end result is that so long as Spezza plays in a hockey fishbowl, he'll attract cheers and boos and that is just the nature of Canadian hockey fans.

But isn't it the responsibility of the organization to do what it can to protect its star players? Isn't it their responsibility to keep them happy and playing hard? Then tell me why Murray would take time out of his day at the GM Meetings to make a story out of nothing. He could have put this to bed by simply calling Mendes an idiot and saying that Spezza is a core player. But instead, he highlights his risky style of play, shares details of a 'private' player-manager meeting, and gives the media enough ambiguity to make headlines going into the June draft to make us recall the bitter taste in our mouths of 12 months prior.

Murray has done some great things here in Ottawa. He knows his organization well and has hit a few homeruns for us. But his handling of the Heatley situation and now the Spezza 'situation' has really left me wondering why he seems so loyal to his core players and so hard on his new kids on the block? It is time to take care of the players and handle a few of these things inside the four walls of his own office. One thing is for sure - all future trade requests should come with a manual on how to handle the PR nightmare that the GM will send your way.

The Talk

Two different writers, two different perspectives on what Bryan Murray will talk about with Jason Spezza.

Take resident shit-disturber Booboo Garrioch: His article today discusses Spezza's unhappiness with being booed and the speculation that he requested a trade. Of course, nobody else in hockey has mentioned this mysterious trade request. Furthermore, Garrioch penned a random piece last week that said there is simply no trade market for Spezza, even though Murray has shown no indication of shopping him. There is no trade market for Alfie or Phillips, either, if you are using the logic of availability.

Then the slightly more sensible Stevenson throws down an article today about how the conversation that Murray wants to have has nothing to do with trading him, but rather about including him in the veteran panel on how to shape the team next year. Murray says that Spezza is now in that group that takes on leadership responsibilities and Murray wants to talk with him about what they need, who is leaving, and how the team will look in the Fall. Quite a different angle than his colleague at the Sun, no?

I don't mind journalists uncovering player unhappiness and printing it. In fact, it is usually Murray that tells them about the player's emotions - Corvo requesting a trade, Schaeffer requesting a trade, etc. But to randomly print that Kovalev is untradeable, Spezza is untradeable, that is just amateur hour stuff that is best suited for half-witted blogs. It still shocks me that some of those guys get paid to travel with the team to write smut like that.

As for Spezza, of course he isn't going to be traded. I'll admit, when I read the comments from Murray in Garrioch's rendition (I know, I should have known better), it sounded like the possibility was opened that he'd be available at the draft. Now after seeing the entire set of comments, it is clear that we still have our #1 centre locked and loaded and probably a bit pissed off. Would anybody be upset if Spezza came back with a chip on his shoulder in the Fall? Not a Yashin chip, but just a bit of surliness to get back to the 90 point mark?

It is clear that this team is in a holding pattern for one more year, too. We just have so many big contracts on this team right now that our hands will be tied when it comes to UFA day. We'll hopefully have a competitive year in the Fall with Pascal playing well and Karlsson and Regin continuing to improve. After next season, we lose the Kovalev, Cheechoo, and Pascal contracts and can really start to shape this thing out properly. In the meantime, Murray will need to get Cullen back in the fold and somebody, anybody, to pair up with Phillips on the blue line.

And Garrioch - I'm not asking you to be a superfan and just blow smoke up their ass, but don't get lazy out there. You get these awards for breaking the Hasek signing and covering the Heatley saga, but don't just sit back and think you're work is done. Go find a real Sens story this summer.

the Pascal Leclaire trade. Would you do it again, Part 2

First off, congrats to the Habs and Jacques for taking down two really good teams. Really neat to see what Jacques can do with proper goaltending. He's won two Game 7s now after not winning one in 9 years in Ottawa.

Now, on to Snoopy. You came, you saw, you got belted in the head twice (neither occasion being in a game, either). Outside of Hasek, no goalie has come to Ottawa with as much fanfare as Pascal. After his first full season, he's at least surpassed Hasek in terms of freak injuries that tainted his year.

At the trade deadline in 2009, BM sent longtime underachiever Antoine Vermette over to Columbus for injured goalie Pascal Leclaire (and his $3.8M contract) and a 2nd round draft pick. Vermette went on to sign a 4-year extension for $3.75M and set career highs in goals (27) and points (65). Pascal nursed his injury last year and went on to just find new injuries this year, including a broken jaw and a concussion. It is safe to say that this season was an unmitigated disaster for Pascal. When he wasn't sitting in the trainer's room or eating through a straw, he was shitting the bed in the Sens crease. It wasn't until his last two games in the playoff loss that he fared well. The silver lining is that he might be on to a new start, and we MUST mention that the second round pick nabbed Robin Lehner, our future goaltender of the future...after Elliott, who is the current goaltender of the future.

A few more points - we couldn't afford to have a goalie AND have Vermette on that kind of contract. Sure, we probably could have signed him for something just over $3M, but would we have paid that much money for a guy that just always left you wanting more. So fast, good hands, but always struggled to hit that 50 point mark. Vermette also received FAR more icetime playing with Nash in Columbus than he did here, where he was a third liner and on the second PP unit. Could he have pushed for 30 goals in Ottawa? I doubt it. I'll also give Kovalev some credit here because Vermette never had an effect on the Fish that Kovie did. Or am I now giving Floatalev too much credit here? In hindsight, $3.75M for 65 points is a great deal. He also killed penalties.

The biggest challenge to evaluating this trade is that we still don't know what we have in Snoopy. Is he the goalie that gets concussed stopping shots with his head (aren't goalies supposed to stop shots anyway?)? Or is he the goalie that stole saves and made the first round playoff series semi-exciting? I hate to say that our sample of good games is FAR less than our sample of brutal games. Add to the fact that a guy like Turco is now available as a UFA this summer and you start to wonder how this deal worked out for everyone.

Vermette with more icetime in Columbus puts up 65pts. His $3.75M is more reasonable than the $5M we put up for Kovalev to replace his points. Lehner is supposed to be a stud, and Pascal might have a decent year in his sights.

Sens Fans - Would you do the Pascal trade again?

Would you do it again? Part 1 - Alex Kovalev

Boredom, sadness, anger. These are the continued emotions I have at dealing with the Sens loss and watching players like Heatley, Crosby, Thornton, etc having success in this year's playoffs. So I'm going to keep busy with a new series that gives us a chance to play hockey's version of armchair quarterback.

First - the Alex Kovalev signing.

It is a very safe argument that when Kovalev was on his game this year, he helped Mike Fisher have his best season as a Senator. He also saw time with Regin and Shannon and helped their play. He commands attention on the ice, clearing room for his centre to find open ice in the slot for one timers and rebounds. His hands are still strong and he knows how to skate and conserve energy by being in the right place at the right time.

But he was given a two year deal and he was given a lot of money. He had two points after the Olympics. He is 37 years old and just had major knee surgery (not his fault, of course). Let's think back to summer 2009 - do you think Kovalev could have been acquired on a one-year deal instead of two? Montreal had already made up their mind to move on and so it would have come down to us and whoever else pursued him. I'd like to think that Kovie would have gone for a one year deal near his beloved Montreal. Do you think that Kovalev could have been signed for $4M a year instead of $5M? Again, his bargaining power had dropped and I don't think he was a very highly sought free agent. Did we have to spend the full $5M and make him our second highest paid player?

There is also the consideration of other eligible players that we passed up. I don't want this to turn into a "we should have signed Mikael Samuelsson" thing, but did we pass up on something more important? Our hole was on defence, especially when we didn't know what we'd get from Karlsson to start the year. Could the money have been better served on a lesser forward and another defenceman, thus pushing someone like Campoli a bit harder?

Let us know - if you could do it all over again, would you still sign Alex Kovalev and would you sign him to that contract? Why?