The Ottawa Senators have high aspirations this season, after missing the playoffs the last six years.
But fate does not seem to be in their favor one week before the opening of the season. There was a lot of reliance on Josh Norris, the club’s number one center two years ago before the emergence of Tim Stützle with 55 points, including 35 goals, in 66 games.
Norris played in only eight games last year due to a shoulder injury and has not played in a preseason game so far after experiencing discomfort in the same area before the start of the season. camp.
Norris is back on the ice this week, and he is expected to play in the team’s final preseason game Saturday against the Canadiens, but we are taking every precaution to avoid a relapse.
Science has made remarkable progress over the decades and shoulder repairs are becoming safer. Josh Anderson has already revealed that he has one shoulder stronger than the other… the operated one. Caufield appears to have recovered well from similar surgery.
Even though he is getting ready to return to the game and has faced a few contact situations in training, we hope the shoulder holds up. The step back that he had to take eight months after his surgery, a second on the same shoulder after that of 2019, is enough to give rise to some concerns.
“We thought he would be ready sooner, we are trying to get him back into the game, but the player also has to be 100%,” coach D. J. Smith told an Ottawa radio station this week. It also has to be 100% psychologically. »
With salary cap constraints, Ottawa is also without its third center, Shane Pinto, 35 points, including 20 goals, in his first professional season last year.
The Senators therefore find themselves with a center line composed of Stützle, rookie Ridly Greig, Rourke Chartier and Mark Kastelic. Greig, 21, first-round pick, 28th overall, shows some promise, but in a midfield role. He had 29 points in 39 games in the American League last year, and 9 points, including 2 goals, in 20 games in Ottawa.
Chartier, 27, is a career player in the American League. Only the robust Kastelic is placed in the right chair within a fourth trio. He had 11 points in 65 games last year.
The Senators got off to a bad start last year with eight straight losses in their first twelve games and missing the playoffs by six points. They started the previous year with a 4-15-1 record.
If they were to have another difficult start to the season, already stuck by the salary cap and without a pick in the first two rounds in the last two vintages despite six bad seasons, heads could roll.
The new owner, Michael Andlauer, is giving the benefit of the doubt to existing managers, but his patience will have limits.
1- Arber Xhekaj needs to improve defensively if he wants to stay in the lineup. With supporting statistics, Simon-Olivier Lorange shows us his flaws in this area.
2- Retired from boxing, Marie-Ève Dicaire gives conferences to young people on mental health in sport. Katherine Harvey-Pinard spoke to him.
3- Defenseman Frédéric Brunet tells Guillaume Lefrançois about his experience at the Boston Bruins camp and the valuable mentorship of young veteran Brandon Carlo.
