Sens at Land's End

It’s been an exciting few days for the Sens, and I haven’t had time to write about any of it until now. I spent most of Friday and Saturday on the bus going to and from Kanata, and then I was also at the Draft for a while.

On Friday afternoon just before I left work to head to Scotiabank Place, I heard that Ray Emery had been placed on waivers. Yesterday, the Sun reported that he had cleared waivers, and the Sens have started the paperwork needed to buy him out. It’s a sad end to what seemed to be a promising career in Ottawa, and it’s certainly frustrating to see yet another Sens goaltender turn out to be a bust. I do think Emery could still make a comeback with another team, as Alfie said:

“There’s a lot of negativity on him here in the city,” the Senators captain said. “I believe if he wants to commit himself to this game and work out hard, he can be a really good goalie. But I just don’t think it could happen here.”

I hope Emery gets back on track with a fresh start somewhere else, or if he’s really uninterested in putting in the work necessary to be a pro hockey player then I hope he finds something else to do. But I’m really, really glad he’s not going to be back in Ottawa. When I found out he’d been put on waivers, I felt relieved. Happy. Thrilled, even. I did the dance of joy! This is something I’ve been anticipating since the Sens’ “playoff run” ended. I’m seeing it as the first step in changing the character of the team. 

As Damien Cox writes in the Toronto Star, it seems clear that the Sens are in the process of “weeding out the dressing room.” Cox quotes Bryan Murray as saying:

“Character is everything to me,” said Sens GM Bryan Murray. “Every time you hire a coach, you hired players, the most important thing to be successful is to have good people, people that really care and have good character, that will work hard every day.

“And if they don’t, you’ve got to try to address it.”

The signing of potential UFA Chris Kelly to a four-year, $8.5 million deal, which I heard about when it was announced at the Draft on Friday night, seems like another step in the right direction. The Sun points out that Kelly was the Captain of the Baby Sens when he was in Binghamton and is very well-liked by his teammates. He’s also a hard worker on the ice, which is exactly what the team needs. I was hoping to see Kelly sign for a bit less money, but I’m very happy to see him back. He was one of the three pending UFAs I wanted the team to re-sign, the other two being Cory Stillman and Shean Donovan. The Sun has a little blurb today about the futures of Donovan and Stillman:

Winger Shean Donovan is willing to accept a paycut from the $925,000 he made last season, but wants more than a one-year deal.

The Senators also haven’t ruled out bringing back Cory Stillman, but the chances of getting a deal appear slim.

It’s being said that the Sens have only offered Donovan a one-year contract. Here’s hoping they step up and give him what he wants, because I think he’s a useful player, and he’s another hard-working guy who will provide a good example for the players around him. The Stillman situation doesn’t sound too good, which is really unfortunate. I thought he was one of the few Senators who looked as though they knew what they were doing by the end of the season and I really liked the leadership he appeared to be bringing to the team.

The same Sun article speculates that with Emery gone, the Sens could try to get Ty Conklin or Dwayne Roloson to back up Martin Gerber next year. I’m against the idea of Roloson: he’s still under contract for next season so we would have to send something the Oilers’ way to get him. Also, he’s under contract for $3 million, and I don’t fancy spending that much on a backup goalie yet again. The Sun speculates that he could challenge Gerber for the #1 job, which means we could have another goalie controversy on our hands, which we should totally try for, because, you know, it turned out so well this year. As for Conklin, well, this is always the first thing that comes to mind when I think of him. But he’s a UFA who made only about half a million last season, he played very well when the Penguins called on him, and he seems like a pretty nice guy.

All that and I haven’t even touched on the Draft. As I already said, I was there, and I made notes! I will post my Draft Chronicle sometime this week.

There is big excitement brewing in Ottawa as the NHL Draft will take place here in our fair city, or at least a suburb of it, starting tomorrow. Prospects, general managers, and TSN’s hockey panel have already arrived in the area. Speculation is running wild about which teams will pick which players, and which players are likely to be traded. Craziest rumour I’ve heard so far: Malkin to Los Angeles?! for a pick and Mike Cammalleri?!!?

… huh?!

I was already starting to question Ray Shero’s sanity. I understand that the Penguins are going to have cap issues pretty soon, but I’m finding the way they’re handling the problem very odd. First I hear that they’re not going to re-sign Ryan Malone, who was an absolute warrior for them in the playoffs. Not only that, Malone is from Pittsburgh and wanted to stay with the Penguins.

Now the Pens might actually be trying to get rid of Malkin. They could be taking Evgeni Malkin off their team. By choice! The seven year, $50 million deal they’ve apparently offered to Marian Hossa looks to me as though it could be Malkin’s money going in another direction. I know Malkin didn’t have a great Stanley Cup Final but can the Penguins really already have forgotten what he did when Sidney Crosby was out injured during the season? Not to mention the rest of the playoffs. As much as I like Hossa, I have no idea why the Penguins would prioritize him over Malkin. I just don’t get it. Throw in the fact that Malkin has already told the media he’d be happy to sign an extension in Pittsburgh, and this entire thing looks totally insane.

It probably is complete hogwash, which means Shero won’t have to be committed. Hopefully, the same can be said for Bryan Murray: don’t look now, Sens fans, but the Cammalleri and a pick rumour has also come up in relation to Jason Spezza. I’ve said it before and I’ll likely continue to say it until his no trade clause kicks in, but I’m totally against trading Spezza unless I’m seeing Roberto Luongo come back in the deal and even then I’m not sold on the idea. Bryan Murray, as usual, laughed off the Spezza rumour, thank goodness:

“You guys make up more stuff than I can ever imagine,” Ottawa general manager Bryan Murray told reporters on Thursday. “I heard a rumour last night that Pittsburgh was moving one of their star players. I talked to their manager today to see if I could be included in the discussions and they kind of laughed at me.”

He thinks they were laughing because the rumour wasn’t true, but maybe they were just laughing at him for wanting to be included. Hockey executives can be very cliquey.

I will be going out to the Draft tomorrow afternoon straight from work. I work in Gatineau, so it’s going to take me about two hours to get out to Scotiabank Place on the combination of public bus and foot which is my primary mode of transportation these days. Luckily, Jobs created iPods for this exact type of situation, so I think I’ll survive the trip. Here’s hoping I get to see some serious draft day excitement to make my long commute worthwhile.

If these rumours of the Sens trading up to get a higher pick turn out to be true, then I’m hoping they’ll trade up high enough to take Luke Schenn. This would probably involve making a deal with the Blues, Islanders, or Blue Jackets, who have the fourth, fifth, and sixth overall picks, respectively. In the spirit of Puck Daddy’s five ridiculous reasons why you don’t want to draft Steven Stamkos, I present:

Four Awesome Reasons Why I Want the Sens to Draft Luke Schenn

1. Nickname: Pierre McGuire has dubbed Schenn “the Human Eraser.” I am honestly not sure what Pierre means by this (He rubs out his opponents? He cancels out other defencemen’s mistakes? If you beat him against a wall you’ll get lots of dust?) but it sure sounds cool.

2. Uncanny Resemblance to Peter from Narnia:

Luke Schenn

Peter from Narnia

See, they’re like twins! I have a completely age-inappropriate crush on Peter from Narnia, so I find this resemblance pleasing. Also, Peter is brave, noble, and strong; thus, I assume Luke Schenn must also be brave, noble, and strong. He is therefore exactly the type of person we want on our team.

3. Actual Hockey-Related Attributes: At 6′3″ and 212 lbs., Schenn is the biggest of the top 10 ranked prospects. TSN’s draft rankings state that he is “without question the best defensive defenceman available in the draft, a big, physical presence with an edge who perfectly understands his role as a shutdown defender.” Using my extremely perceptive hockey mind, I have determined that the Sens’ defence behind Phillips and Volchenkov is pretty freaking crappy right now. Schenn would certainly help out in that area.

4. Good Vibes: Yes, I just have a good feeling that Luke Schenn ending up in a Sens uniform would be the best thing for all concerned. Why? I don’t know. But Murray, make it so.

I just thought I would take a moment here to acknowledge the excellence of Sens captain Daniel Alfredsson. I’m not speaking of his hockey excellence — that is something I totally take for granted: he’s Alfie, and he’ll always be there, and one terrible day when he retires I’m going to get a nasty shock — but rather of his excellence as a human being.

What brought this on? Well, I read today that he is lending his support to a Royal Ottawa Foundation campaign which is “aimed at raising awareness and reducing the stigmatization of mental illness.” The campaign’s website (You Know Who I Am) points out that one in five people will suffer from some form of mental illness in their lifetime, but many people never seek treatment because of the stigma attached to it. Here is why I give big love to Alfie for doing this:

When I was a kid, I went through a horrible phase where I would be so scared to go to school in the mornings that I would cry and throw up and refuse to go. For a long time, I would get sick every year on the first day of school, without fail. I was too scared to go on field trips. I hated going to parties because I’d get so stressed out beforehand and often made up excuses so I wouldn’t have to go. I couldn’t eat in restaurants because I’d feel too anxious. I still don’t like eating at other people’s houses. I never wanted to tell anyone about any of this because I was too embarrassed. I only ever referred to my problem as being “nervous.”

Then a couple of years ago I had a panic attack. I thought I was dying, but it was panic. Then I had another one, and eventually I went to my doctor and told her about my symptoms as about my previous issue with “nervousness,” and the doctor said I likely had a mild anxiety disorder. It made a huge difference to me to put a name on it, because I was finally able to tell people my problem instead of just avoiding it. When I looked up a list of anxiety symptoms on the internet I found things that I’d had but never knew what they were. It was a great comfort. Once I started telling people about my problem, I soon discovered that many other people had similar problems, which was also very comforting. It occurs to me often that a whole lot of people suffer from this kind of thing, and no one really talks about it. I think that needs to change, and I think having Alfie’s image associated with the problem will actually help, given the way he is perceived around these parts: if Alfie, who was strong/brave/tough enough to play in the playoffs with a torn MCL this year, is telling us a condition is serious, then it surely must be serious.

That is why I think Alfie is excellent. Well, one reason.

In other Sens news, it seems New Coach Uncle Ben spent a lot of time on the phone this weekend, introducing himself to various Sens players. (Though I guess it wouldn’t take that long to phone all the players, given that we only have about half a roster right now. Oh how I’d laugh if it didn’t seem so dire!) Here is what Alfie, in all his awesomeness, had to say about his telephonic tete-a-tete with Hartsburg:

“We had a talk and it was a chance for him to introduce himself,” Alfredsson said yesterday. “I know everybody talks about us having to have this guy who has this no-nonsense approach. Whether he has that approach or not, we all want the same thing here: We want to win.

“If we’re not doing the things that it takes to win, then he’s going to help us to get better. He’s an ex-player, who was an elite player. He knows what it takes for us to be successful. I think we’re really going to welcome that approach. It’s going to be a positive situation.”

I don’t know whether the mental health campaign has me extra full of confidence in Alfie today or what, but that seems like a really super good point and it made me feel even more positive about the new coach. I revisited his Wikipedia page (it is my #1 source of info) to see what I could find out about the man’s playing career — specifically his playoff experience — which I had not really looked at before. I found that he made it to the Stanley Cup Final with the Minnesota North Stars in his second season in the NHL (1980-1981), but Minnesota lost to the New York Islanders. He also made it to the Conference Final as a rookie in 1979-1980, but aside from that there wasn’t a lot of playoff action happening in his career and so in the end, I did all that work clicking around Wikipedia and I still come up wishing he had more post-season experience.

Despite that one shortcoming, I do like the way the coaching staff is shaping up. The Sun is now reporting that it is Calgary Flames assistant coach Wayne Fleming who is the top candidate for the second assistant position in Ottawa, and not Regina’s Curtis Hunt as they had previously said. Fleming and Hartsburg were assistants to Ken Hitchcock together in Philadelphia for two seasons. In 2003-2004 they took the Flyers to the Eastern Conference Final.

By far the most important news of the day, though, is that this blog got its first ever link back, from Senators Lost Cojones at Five for Smiting! To celebrate, I’m buying myself a new pimp hat.

Puck Lit Project Review #2: When She’s Gone by Steve Lundin

Plot Summary: A young Canadian named Mark, disillusioned with the state of hockey in Canada after the departure of the Jets from his hometown of Winnipeg, goes with his brother Jack to the UK to try out for a goaltending position on a Welsh hockey team. The novel tells the story of their canoe trip from Hadrian’s Wall to Cardiff, as well as stories from Mark’s past about his relationship with his girlfriend Caroline and Mark and Jack’s youth playing hockey, attending Jets games, and canoeing in Manitoba.

Genre: Fiction, Fantasy, Eulogy, Polemic, Adult, Youth Hockey, Mythology, uh … Travel? Very hard to describe.

Hockey Content: The characters attend several Jets games, and the book has quite a few references to the WHA, the Jets’ history, and players who played in Winnipeg over the years along with other real NHL players, and the team Mark is trying out for (the Cardiff Devils) is a real team in the UK’s Elite Ice Hockey League. This is a book that positions hockey as Canada’s greatest national myth, and several episodes from Canadian history are retold in a hockey context. Additionally, there are a few hockey folktales, such as the one about a zombie hockey team. And of course, the main characters play hockey, and there are descriptions of their games as well.

Choice Quotation: “To what god have we sacrificed our most precious myth? And who the hell said we had to and why the hell why in fucking hell did we listen to them?”

My Thoughts: I’m really undecided about this book. I wasn’t crazy about the writing style — the author is one of these people who seems to think writing really long sentences and not using punctuation is automatically “poetic,” which it is not — and some of the plot is just plain nonsensical. On the other hand, I did find the equation of hockey to mythology really interesting, and some of the guy’s rants about the commercialization of the game were well-written. What this book reminded me most of was, oddly, the Angels in America mini-series. I’m not saying When She’s Gone is as good as Angels in America, but I think they share certain themes. They are also both written from a place of real rage and sadness, and they both benefit and suffer from that: on the positive side, the strong emotions make them powerful; on the negative side, the quality of what’s being written is sometimes sacrificed to the strong emotions, if that makes sense.

Rating: 2.5 pucks out of 5. I’ve gone with 2.5 instead of 3 because there’s a fair bit of sex in the book (not to mention the incredible amount of penis talk), so I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who doesn’t want to read that sort of thing. I’m also guessing that the writing style won’t appeal to a lot of people, since it didn’t appeal to me, and the plot may be just too out there for some. But if you’re in the mood to read something that’s very ranty about the state of hockey, or you’re still feeling depressed about the Jets, then you will probably enjoy it. At least parts of it.

The Sun is reporting today that the Sens might make a draft day trade to move up from their 18th overall selection to something in the top ten, and in order to do so the thought is they’ll have to give up their pick and a roster player. It’ll be interesting to see if this happens, and, if it does happen, it’ll also be interesting to see what the reaction is from the fans at Scotiabank Place. I will be going to the draft, so I’m hoping to see some excitement. On the other hand, if one of my favourite players ends up getting traded while I’m there, I’ll be pretty disappointed. Distraught, even. I’m not saying I’ll throw myself off the third level of seats or anything, but it might ruin my evening. Take heed, Murray.

If they could somehow trade away the rights to one of their free agents (Wade Redden?) for a pick or maybe convince someone to take Ray Emery, that would be ideal. As much as I would like to see Emery gone as soon as possible, keeping him around until after the draft, just in case, seems like a wise move.

CBC’s website has a pretty good article about Uncle Ben Hartsburg today which quotes Bob Nicholson of Hockey Canada and Dave Torrie, who was Hartsburg’s boss in Sault Ste. Marie. Both have only good things to say about him.

“The key with Craig is he’s up front, he’s honest and he gives a real clear picture of what he wants his players to do,” Nicholson — who watched Hartsburg lead Canada to back-to-back world titles as head coach in 2007 and this year — told CBCSports.ca.

“The last two years as the head coach of the world team, he’s done an outstanding job with top-end players and with the role players and I think that’s because his message is clear and he doesn’t play games with anybody.”

I like the sound of this: a system, with clear-cut roles for everyone, is exactly what the Sens lacked for much of last season, which is why they looked like chickens with no heads out there a lot of the time.

Don Brennan writes today that Curtis Hunt of the Regina Pats might be brought on as an assistant in Ottawa. He also points out that current Sens assistant Greg Carvel previously worked with Hartsburg in Anaheim. It’s good to know they have that previous relationship. Hunt, meanwhile, was Hartsburg’s assistant with the Canadian Junior team, so there’s familiarity there too. I really like the way the coaching staff is taking shape at this point.

A final, non-Sens-related note: I don’t normally write about basketball (because … I don’t care about it at all), but I love Harry Potter so I thought this one was worth noting: Kobe Bryant has turned to the Harry Potter books for help in finding a way to beat the Celtics. The boy wizard earned praise from Kobe for his ability to deal with certain obstacles:

“He had more problems with Voldemort than we have dealing with the media after a loss,” Bryant said Saturday after practice.

Well, that’s probably true, because Voldemort is ultimate evil and will not hesitate to kill even his own followers. I don’t think the media even have wands.

But I wonder if Bryant has perhaps missed the point of the books a little. Surely the analogy would make more sense if Voldemort represented the Celtics, and the Lakers were Harry. In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, when Harry and Voldemort have their duel in the graveyard and the wands join and Harry has to force the spell back onto Voldemort’s wand — that is actually not unlike basketball (or hockey), if you think about it. You’re just trying to keep the other guy’s magic out of your end.