Sens have answer to scoring woes right inside dressing room: Alfie
The Senators are adapting to life without Jason Spezza while the Buffalo Sabres are just trying to stay afloat in the Eastern Conference. Although trade rumours may be heating up, Sens’ captain Daniel Alfredsson believes in his group no matter who’s in the lineup.
As the Buffalo Sabres visited the Ottawa Senators for a second consecutive Tuesday date at Scotiabank Place, it was a meeting of two teams trying to find out what they are.
The Senators, expected to miss top centre Jason Spezza and cornerstone defenceman Jared Cowen for most or all of this abbreviated regular season, might soon come to the conclusion that this year is one for development — next season is for contending.
That day, though, is not here yet — and the presence of a couple of Anaheim Ducks scouts Tuesday night fuelled speculation the Senators are in the mix for Corey Perry, whom Senators general manager Bryan Murray drafted on behalf of Anaheim in 2003.
Perry and Ducks captain Ryan Getzlaf could both become unrestricted free agents this summer, although Getzlaf is the more likely of the two to stay in Orange County. Unless one or both is signed soon, they will spice up all trade talk prior to the April 3 deadline.
Even if the centre most likely to dish to Perry — Spezza — is out for several more weeks following back surgery, the Senators believe the 2013 playoffs are a legitimate hope. To get there, they will lean on youthful prospects, including rookie Mika Zibanejad, who centred the top line against the Sabres among other shuffled offerings.
Buffalo — now there is a team with high pre-season expectations but in danger of falling out of the playoff picture entirely if it doesn’t string together a few wins. On Monday, instead of skating, the Sabres held a team think-tank, a series of meetings and film sessions examining where they’ve gone wrong in losing eight of their first 13 starts prior to Tuesday’s game.
You know how these things go. If Buffalo starts to turn things around, media will point to that day of introspection as the spark the team needed. If things don’t pick up, franchise owner Terry Pegula, the man who was supposed to be the face of a Sabres’ renaissance, will face some tough questions.
Closer to home, Murray and coach Paul MacLean are trying to get a boost from their young talent, but the organization could make a move if the roster doesn’t get healthier soon. Forwards Peter Regin and Guillaume Latendresse are both out for at least this week and in the case of Latendresse, likely longer.
If nothing else, Murray would like to be able to send the AHL Binghamton farm club a player or two before B-Sens coach Luke Richardson himself has to suit up on defence.
For his part, captain Daniel Alfredsson believes in the group he commands. And why not, with goaltender Craig Anderson at the top his game.
“We don’t feel like we need to do anything,” Alfredsson said, prior to the Sabres game. “We feel we can get it done with the personnel we have. We’ve played some pretty good games, and some that haven’t been as good.
“We’ve kind of talked about what we need to be more consistent at — one of the big things for us is the starts of games, get ready from the drop of the puck. We did that against Carolina, where we come out strong and start the way we want, dictate the pace of the game.”
“Against Winnipeg, we didn’t do that and we found ourselves in a tougher spot. Those are the things we’re going to focus on. If we do that, if we get skating, we get our forecheck going, we know we’re going to get some chances, and probably some goals as well.”
That quick start wasn’t exactly evident against the Sabres, either, although goaltender Craig Anderson was strong from the opening faceoff. Good thing, because he needed to stop 13 Buffalo shots in the first period while the Senators had just seven shots and extended their goal-scoring drought to five periods.
After failing to connect on five power-play chances — nothing but iron — Norris Trophy defenceman Erik Karlsson finally ended the team scoring slump late in the second period while the Senators were shorthanded. It was appropriate that Karlsson would get the goal, he’d been setting up his teammates for the better part of two periods and he decided to show them how it’s done, wiring a shot past Ryan Miller in the Sabres’ goal.
Erik Condra got the idea. Less than two minutes later, he made it 2-0 and the home team was on its way to the win it needed before flying off to Pittsburgh for a Wednesday game against the Penguins, the start of three on the road. After losses at home to Carolina and Winnipeg, the Senators could feel good about themselves again.
“We have the same coaching staff as last year, we know what to expect, we know the way to play,” Alfredsson said. “And last year, even though Jason pulled a big load for us, we still relied on everybody to contribute. Everybody gets that chance, all four lines are playing — but we know that offensively, more is expected of some guys than others.”
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Trading a couple of promising young players such as Zibanejed and Weircioch for Perry would be similar to the trade Burke pulled off for Kessel-except that Kessel is much younger than Perry.
Perry’s play has gone down sharply this year and the Ducks may not be averse to getting rid of him for a good return. But for a supposedly rebuilding team such as the Sens to make this move would be counter productive. I am afrad that this might be possible though as Murray sometimes is blind to changes in his favourite players.
AD, Perry is due to be an unrestricted free agent this summer and so I doubt very much the Ducks are going to get as much as you has suggested for him. As you said, Kessel is young and that’s why the leafs gave up so much (too much, yay!) for him. The Sens have enough organizational depth right now to be able to offer some combination of draft picks and (hopefully lesser) prospects to hopefully have a decent shot at Perry. They also need to do something about the goaltending situation and as much as I like Bishop, I’m pretty sure he is certain to be traded eventually to make room for Lehner. With Perry’s connection to Murray and desire to play closer to home they also have a good chance of re-signing him. He’s only 27 and I doubt very much that he’s going through anything more than a temporary drought right now.
I agree that they shouldn’t give away either of Zibanejad or Weircioh. Those are the kind of long term building blocks Murray has carefully assembled to put this team in a good place going forward. And they are easy on the cap right now. They are the kind of players you trade (if you must) when they become RFA’s and start to put pressure on the team’s salary structure. Same for Silfverberg, Borowieski, etc. These are young players whose impact is out of proportion with their cap hit right now and that’s a big part of what success in today’s NHL is all about.
That said, I trust Murray. He did a brilliant job of rebuilding in a short period of time. I believe he knows what he’s doing. I have to trust that if the right trade is there, he’ll make it and if not, he won’t.