The Senators played their first game of the season on Thursday with one less forward. The rough Zack MacEwen was still not recovered from his check suffered at the hands of Emil Heineman in preparatory matches, Josh Norris still fears damaging his freshly operated shoulder and Ottawa had no space on its payroll to recall a player from the minors.
Managing the salary cap also gives management headaches. One of the team’s good young forwards, Shane Pinto, is patiently waiting for general manager Pierre Dorion to release a player to sign his contract.
Pinto, 22, a second-round pick in 2019, had 35 points, including 20 goals, in his first full NHL season last year. In his absence, and that of Norris, Ridly Greig, a rookie, Rourke Chartier and Mark Kastelic, fourth line players at best, constitute the centers behind Tim Stützle.
The situation should eventually recover. We hope for a return to play for Norris on Saturday or Sunday and we would seek to trade Mathieu Joseph, who has three years remaining on a contract with an annual salary of almost 3 million, to offer an agreement to Pinto. But Joseph is smoking hot these days. He also obtained two points in the first game, a 5-3 defeat against the Hurricanes.
However, the Senators should never have found themselves in such a situation. We would understand for Stanley Cup champions, like the Colorado Avalanche, the Tampa Bay Lightning or the Vegas Golden Knights, with players becoming too expensive after years of success, but a club having missed the playoffs six years straight away and the fruits of a reconstruction have not yet been reaped?
This is the fate of teams too eager to win. We took two big shortcuts last year by giving up the seventh overall pick and his second-round pick to get Alex DeBrincat and we put Claude Giroux, now 35, under contract for three years at an annual salary of 6.5 million.
Giroux obviously gave Pierre Dorion a run for his money with 79 points, including 35 goals, last year. But this is a piece that we add when we can almost feel a Stanley Cup after a few successful springs, not when we are still learning to run.
DeBrincat has already switched sides, scoring Thursday night for the Red Wings the night the player drafted seventh overall by Chicago under the trade, defenseman Kevin Korchinski, 19, played almost 22 minutes in his second game in career, against the Bruins.
To replace DeBrincat, Dorion rushed to free agent Vladimir Tarasenko, 32 in December, hired for one year and 5 million. To this sum, we add the 2.5 million to Dominik Kubalik, who we accepted in the transaction for DeBrincat.
We recall the context. Pierre Dorion knew of the imminent arrival of a new owner. After five years of failure, we can guess that last season he wanted to restore the team’s image, and by doing so, present a better business card to the new boss.
For those convinced that the Senators have the ingredients, with Tim Stützle, Brady Tkachuk, Josh Norris, Claude Giroux, Drake Batherson, Jake Sanderson, Thomas Chabot, Jakob Chychrun and goaltender Joonas Korpisalo, to compete for a Stanley Cup season after season, the work of Pierre Dorion should not be called into question.
For others, you are right to raise some concerns. The team will not improve. Salary constraints will not allow the arrival of new top players.
And the source of hope has dried up. The Senators did not draft in the top sixty in 2022 and 2023 due to the acquisitions of Chychrun and DeBrincat. The tenth overall pick in 2021, forward Tyler Boucher, will become a supporting player at best. He struggled to get a point per game in the junior ranks at 19 years old.
The 2018 and 2019 first-round picks, defensemen Jacob Bernard-Docker and Lassi Thomson, were recently placed on waivers to be transferred to the American League.
We wish Senators fans a participation in the playoffs this year. We sold them the idea of reconstruction and they were patient. You should not miss takeoff because the plane risks being grounded for some time afterwards…
Columbus Blue Jackets president John Davidson repeated it during the press briefing to announce the departure of Mike Babcock and the hiring of coach Pascal Vincent: the Blue Jackets should get better results this season otherwise the owners would risk using the guillotine.
GM Jarmo Kekalainen confirmed this this summer with the acquisition of veterans, Ivan Provorov and Damon Severson on defense, among others.
However, the Jackets are one of the youngest clubs in the NHL and are just beginning a rebuild/reset phase.
There is therefore undoubtedly a limit to putting young people in uniform, when you want to win. This probably explains why Pascal Vincent left three first-round picks on the press box for the first game of the season, Kent Johnson, Liam Foudy and Adam Boqvist (a Blackhawks pick obtained for Seth Jones).
Johnson, 20, the fifth overall pick in 2021, had 40 points last year but didn’t have a training camp that lived up to expectations and was given preference to Emil Bemström on Thursday. There were, however, several young players on the roster, including this summer’s third overall pick, Adam Fantilli, Kirill Marchenko and Cole Sillinger.
Columbus, however, lost its match 4-2 against the Philadelphia Flyers, a club resolutely rebuilding which will not have much to lose this season.
1- Nicholas Richard visited Quebecer Matthew Bergeron in Atlanta and tells us about the young man’s new life with the Falcons.
2- Canada suffered a crushing failure against Japan, one of the teams of the hour internationally, during a friendly match. Jean-François Téotonio analyzed this meeting presented in Niigata.
3- Young defenseman Tristan Luneau surprised by earning a position with the Anaheim Ducks at just 19 years old. Katherine Harvey-Pinard spoke to him and recounts her journey, although it has been strewn with pitfalls recently.
