Senators bench Filatov for Wild contest
The Ottawa Senators entered this season hoping young forwards Bobby Butler and Nikita Filatov would help revive a flagging offence.
The Ottawa Senators entered this season hoping young forwards Bobby Butler and Nikita Filatov would help revive a flagging offence.
Three games into the season, both will be watching their colleagues from the press box. Butler will sit his second straight game as a healthy scratch, while Filatov will cede his roster spot to Peter Regin.
Head coach Paul MacLean had a simple answer for why he chose to take Filatov, the team’s flashy reclamation project, out of the lineup this early in the season.
“The other guys have played better,” MacLean said Tuesday morning ahead of his team’s match-up against the Minnesota Wild. “Nikita is making some great strides in the organization in the way that he’s approached it. He’s worked real hard…things haven’t gone good for him, much the same for Bobby Butler. I think he’s still learning how we’re playing the game and the speed we’re playing the game at and it’s kind of affected their offensive play at times.”
Brian Lee will also be a healthy scratch so that David Rundblad can get into his first NHL contest. Lee, who leads all Senators in hits with 10, appears to be caught in a numbers game. While he has been one of the Senators’ more physical and reliable defencemen, the team probably won’t be benching high-paid veterans like Sergei Gonchar and Filip Kuba any time soon.
MacLean said those are the type of players the team is asking to lead the way on a very young squad, and they need to be better.
Here’s how the Senators lined up during the morning skate:
Greening – Spezza – Zibanejad
Michalek – Da Costa – Alfredsson
Foligno – Regin – Neil
Smith – Konopka – Condra
Phillips – Rundblad
Kuba – Karlsson
Cowen – Gonchar
How do you feel about the Senators’ roster moves today? Leave your comments below.
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Benching Lee is a total crock. He is far better than Kuba, Gonchar and Phillips. If we are truly rebuilding, why does the Sens management continue to reward brutal, lacklustre, lack of effort play, like Gonchar and Kuba. Sit their butts down, or risk losing my butt in the stands.
I will no pay to watch overpaid spoiled baffoons like Kuba and Gonchar, they bring absolute zero to a hockey game, but we keep rewarding it… I say enough, it has to stop!!!
Miguel,
Lets be honest, you will continue to go to games regardless of who plays. Lee has played better than phillips, Gonchar and Kuba, but at the same time, we need Gonchar and Kuba to play because we need to continue to inflate their trade value (however slim it might be).
Sitting them gains us nothing, and we lose trade value. While sitting Brian Lee, a still relatively young CONTROLLABLE player is really the only option.
Think about it, you may not like it, but at least you should be able to see its the only reasonable course of action.
Jordan, I will always support my team, but last year I watched an entire year of Kuba, who has proved he can no longer play at this level. Now this year he has been joined by Gonchar and Phillips, and really hard to say which of the 3 is the worst.
However it is more than clear that we have 2 or 3 d-men that are better than those 3 and given they may make some mistakes, effort will never be questioned, and experience would be gained.
Those 3 have zero trade value, will never be moved, let them watch and earn their playing time!
Your points are well-taken but I believe the organization would gain more if they rewarded merit instead of salary – that would go a long way to instilling a winning culture and mitigate what little we would get in trade value
IMHO Ottawa should sit Kuba (he is on the last year of his contract anyway) and play Lee with Karlsson – I would also make Gonchar the 7th defenseman and use him as a power play specialist.
“the other guys have played better” is used to sit young Filatov, but for sitting Lee over lackluster Gonchar and Kuba its “we need them to lead the way.
The kids don’t need the leadership those veterans have provided thus far.
Filatov and Lee should be playing. Konopka and Gonchar should be in the press box.
Precisely.
If MacLean plays Gonchar and Kuba together all game, as the practice pairings suggest, and they can’t even work well together, then I’d gain a lot of respect for the Sens if they sat the 10 million dollar pair and played Lee and Runblad next game. At least the kids won’t give up and they aren’t afraid to hit somebody!
Lee has been their most consistent D-man so far and has made enough deposits to the “Bank of Numbers”, already. He is only 25 and worth the same investment as Cowan and Runblad. As for Kuba, if there’s a softer 6’4″ defenceman in the NHL, I can’t think who it is. Gonchar might be worthwhile for a contending team needing a power-play push (remember how bad Larry Murphy looked with the Buds, and how good he looked when he rejoined a real team like the Wings), but on this team so far Gonchar hasn’t provided much of an example for Karlsson, and he and Kuba are only useful as a quick solution to the cap minimum. I’d love to see either of them make me a liar this season, but I won’t hold my breath.
As for Phillips, he took enough of a discount and has been steady for this team for more than a decade – lay off him, he’s at least putting his body on the line and demonstrating loyalty to the organisation.
That’s gotta work both ways, fans, if anyone is going to want to sign here in future when it matters…
I have no big issue with the benching – but in the overall picture Conchar has been our worst player – with Kuba close behind. Why do they take out Lee – Overall the d have been very bad !
I agree with Tony – Why did they even get Konopka? Gonchar is a liability, look at his + – last year.
I want to see the young guys (even if we lose)