Spartan Defense

If I had to boil down the Senators over the past two years to one tweet, it would be this: Senators…Epic Fail.

They had a monumental collapse two seasons ago and were swept from the playoffs by the Penguins. Then they had the audacity to miss the playoffs for the first time after being part of the dance the previous 11 years.

The Senators traditionally had a strong defensive corps. But everything went south after GM John Muckler made the asinine decision to re-sign Wade Redden over Zdeno Chara. At least Redden is earning the worst sports salary somewhere other than Ottawa.

The Senators biggest issue was their transition game. When their defensemen took possession, they had difficulty getting the puck to the forwards. Chris Phillips and Anton Volchenkov remain a great shutdown pairing, but both lack mobility and are prone to puck-moving gaffes. It may be time to split them up, but that doesn’t appear to be the case to start the season.

Ottawa’s final cuts revealed a surprise with the demotion of Brian Lee. Some have suggested it was a salary-related move, but he’s on a rookie contract…which is telling…and disconcerting. Lee was taken with the ninth overall selection in the 2005 draft, three spots ahead of Marc Staal. Word came out recently that Bryan Murray, then the Senators coach, pleaded with Muckler to draft Staal. Again, nice move Muckler.

The Senators kept blue-chip prospect Erik Karlsson, who looks like he’s going to be the next Sergei Gonchar. This kid is a gamer. He’ll keep you on your toes with his creative plays in the offensive zone and his chicken-with-his-head-cut-off approach in the defensive zone. Filip Kuba is a reliable defender. Reliable is about as exciting a term as we can use for Kuba. He can make the simple pass, has decent vision, can skate well and has a hard shot from the point. All good traits, yes, but he doesn’t do anything spectacularly well. Plus, he’s 6’5″ with the demeanor of Snuffleupagus. Too bad he didn’t have the determination of T-1000 Mike Fisher, then he’d be a smaller version of Chara.

Chris Campoli looks like a slightly better version of Karlsson…for now and he’ll keep the power-play quarterback seat warm until Karlsson takes over full-time at some point this season. Then there’s Alexandre Picard. He also falls into the puck-moving category, which is a good thing for Ottawa, but like many of the other blueliners, he doesn’t throw his weight around enough. Matt Carkner is the requisite seventh defender that can hit and fight, which means he’ll dress against the Leafs and Flyers, but sit against the Mighty Mice of Montreal.

Here’s how the blueline looks:

Phillips – Volchenkov

Kuba – Karlsson

Campoli – Picard

Carkner

So, to sum up, much more puck-moving defensemen this year, which will lead to increased offense on the whole. But the only one that will hit anything is Volchenkov. But they’re better off than last year.