Sens at Land’s End

As I watch the first lot of free agent signings and trades come in, I think about what might have been. Back in September, today looked like it could be a type of doomsday scenario for Sens fans with Mike Fisher, Dany Heatley, Wade Redden, and Chris Kelly set to become unrestricted free agents and Jason Spezza a restricted free agent along with Andrej Meszaros and Antoine Vermette.

Then Bryan Murray was able to sign Fisher to a five-year extension on September 17, and things looked a little less bleak.

Heatley had set a deadline for a new deal, saying that he didn’t want negotiations to go on during the season. It looked as though the deadline would pass with nothing settled, but finally, just before gametime on opening night, it was announced that Heatley, too, had re-signed with the Sens. Big relief. (And while I’m on the subject, I will note that his no trade clause has now officially kicked in, so he will be scoring boatloads of goals for us for the next six years unless he wants to leave. I don’t know about you, but I feel pretty good about that.)

And in early November, Murray signed Spezza to a seven-year extension. Phew!

That’s half the core players on the team we don’t have to worry about being poached by some other team, probably the Lightning, who seem hell bent on signing an entirely new roster to back up Vincent Lecavalier and Martin St. Louis. I’m still hoping Murray will be able to make a nice signing to get us in better shape for next year (Nothing so far! Come on now Murray, at least get a cheap backup goalie before they’re all gone!), but all in all I think we can all be thankful that the Sens fan is not the new Sabres fan, watching helplessly as our biggest star players walk away for nothing.