And so begins the end of Christoph Schubert’s career in a Senators uniform? The Citizen reports:

Craig Hartsburg made his first unpopular decision as coach of the Ottawa Senators on Tuesday morning.

He told Christoph Schubert that his position this season would be as a forward on the fourth line, not as one of the team’s six defenceman.

The decision so upset Schubert that he slid out of the Scandanavium after the team’s practice without talking to the media.

Given that there is no room for Schubert in the forward ranks either (unless someone else is about to be traded), and that the team has gone to great lengths to create a more positive atmosphere in its locker room this season, this seems to make it even more likely that Schubert is on his way out. Hopefully Bryan Murray can find a good outcome for this situation via trade.

A few other bits and bytes:

No Thanks, Nikolai. Murray tells the media that the Sens have no interest in the newly-waived Nikolai Khabibulin and his massive contract. I feel shocked.

Scandinavian Getaway. The Sens are now in Sweden, no doubt spending their spare time eating lots of Mother Alfredsson’s home cooking and assembling stylish yet affordable furniture. The team’s official site has photo galleries and video from the trip. TSN also did a nice little story on the trip on SportsCentre yesterday, which included an interview with Alfie’s father Hasse, who really does look like an older, moustachioed version of his son. Looking at the photos and watching the interviews, I’m struck by how totally overjoyed Alfie seems to have this opportunity to bring his two hometowns together. He’s like a proud papa introducing his kids to his country, and his country to his kids. His 23 hulking kids.

Doomsday Scenario. Ross McKeon at Yahoo Sports offers this unhappy prediction for the Canucks this season:

Train wreck. They won’t score, they won’t be good defensively outside of an overworked Luongo, who better be prepared to face 35-40 shots a night. The coach will probably get fired, the fans might turn on them. It’s just not going to be pretty at all.

Yikes! But hey, this could be my chance to recruit a few disgruntled Canucks fans to the Sens Army.

After making a few final cuts, the Senators head off to Sweden today with a roster of 13 forwards, eight defencemen, and three goalies. Brad Isbister, Brendan Bell, Matt Carkner, Peter Regin, and Greg Mauldin were sent to Binghamton before Saturday’s game against Montreal. Zack Smith played in the game, but was told beforehand that he would be heading to the AHL afterwards.

The one player I thought would likely be cut who was not is defenceman Luke Richardson. Richardson, in fact, signed a new one year, two-way deal that keeps him in the Ottawa organization. I heard that Bryan Murray did a radio interview in which he talked about how much Richardson has been helping Brian Lee during camp. Given that, I would guess that Richardson will be the seventh defenceman, and is being kept around mostly for his experience and ability to help the young players like Lee and Alexandre Picard.

So, the eight defencemen going to Sweden are Chris Phillips, Anton Volchenkov, Jason Smith, Filip Kuba, Picard, Lee, Richardson, and Christoph Schubert. Assuming they haven’t decided to give Lee another year in Binghamton — this has always seemed like a safe assumption, and I think the Richardson signing makes it even more so — and assuming the Sens aren’t planning to carry eight defencemen this season — also seems safe — it looks as though someone is on his way out of town. Unless the team moves a forward and then disregards Christoph Schubert’s desire to play defence this season (The Universal Cynic has a post on this subject), Schubert is the obvious odd man out. If they are considering trading a forward and using Schubert up front, they have to be asking the question: just how unhappy will Schubert be if he’s asked to play forward again? I can’t blame him if he’s more than a little irritated about his position on the team, but I don’t suppose the team wants a grumbly player in its newly-purged dressing room. If he’s going to turn crankypants then it’s in their best interest either to accommodate him or move him.

In other news, the Sens recovered from their terrible performance on Friday to beat the Habs 3-1 yesterday. I was a little disappointed to see the Big Three reunited already, or as disappointed as I can possibly be when putting them together results in a breakaway goal for Alfie. It must be extremely difficult for a coach to have such a potent weapon at his disposal and not use it. I can see how tempting it would be to put them back together. Still, I hope Hartsburg will get back to the spread out the offense plan. Using the big line might make us all feel better right now, but in the long run it’s only hurting us.

Much like that line of Cody Bass, Jarkko Ruutu, and Chris Neil is going to be hurting Ottawa’s opponents and slowly driving them mad. All three have looked good so far in the pre-season, and playing with two fellow gritty agitators seems to be reminding Chris Neil how he can be most effective. I’ve nicknamed them the Burn Line, or maybe the Buurn Line.

Like Hester Prynne, Dany Heatley will soon wear a scarlet (or white) A on his chest. Unlike Hester Prynne, Heatley is not going to be publicly shamed by the town elders. Probably not, anyway.

Alright, so the Sens played like a giant steaming pile of poo poo last night and pretty much let themselves get violated by a makeshift version that stupid team from Montreal. It’s okay. It’s only pre-season, so let’s not think about it too much and just move on.

Aside from all the fights, I thought the most interesting thing about last night’s game was some new accessories which were, according to Dean and Gord from The Team, pinned to the chests of Dany Heatley and Jason Spezza: with Chris Phillips and Daniel Alfredsson both sitting out the game, Heatley took on the captain’s C, while Spezza wore an A. (Former Binghamton Senators captain Chris Kelly, who wore the C in one of the other pre-season games, had the other A.) Okay, the dynamic duo’s first foray into leadership together may have looked a bit, er … crappy. Even so, I think this is an extremely positive step for the team and two of its best players.

Obviously, this is just preseason and a heck of a lot of guys had to be taken out (Mike Fisher and Jason Smith also did not play) before Mr. Giggles was symbolically anointed with a leadership role. But it’s still good to see that the team is now comfortable placing this kind of trust in him. Spezza is a guy who, it seems to me, works very hard every offseason to get better at what he does (thought he rarely gets credit for it). The Senators have asked him to become a more complete player, and he seems eager to take on that challenge. He’s also establishing himself as a part of the community in Ottawa. These are great steps for a player who is going to be an important part of this team for a long time to come (knock wood, or I guess composite now).

As for Heatley, I offer him a big congratulations and a hearty “Well done!” as the Sun reports that he will most likely take on the alternate captain’s A left vacant by Wade Redden this season. Heatley says:

“I’ve always been known as a goal scorer and that’s never going to change. That’s kind of been my reputation: Just score goals and do nothing else. But I feel, and I think the staff feels, that I’m capable of doing more than that and I’d like to do it this year.”

And Bryan Murray agrees:

“I know after speaking with Heatley after the world championships (in May, where he was named MVP) that he wants to be a really important guy on our team and for it to be his team some nights. I’d like him to step up.”

Craig Hartsburg, too, has positive things to say:

“He’s a guy that I look to and he wants people to follow him. For a guy that’s scored 50 goals, everybody talks about his offence, but he wants to do more and not just be a goal scorer. He wants to be involved in other parts of the game. Sometimes those guys aren’t like that.”

I really like the fact that Heatley has actually asked to be placed in a position of responsibility on the team. It shows a great level of commitment and, as Hartsburg says, a lot of superstar players would probably be content just to show up, score their boatload of points, and go home. It should make all Sens fans very happy to know that ours intends to reach above and beyond merely being one of the best scorers in the game (though I doubt we’d turn down another season of 50 either).

It’s interesting that this year’s World Championship has been mentioned in connection with both Heatley and Spezza’s growth. If that tournament has actually been a major catalyst for all this, then it really might turn out to have been a huge boon to Sens fans, and we’ll all have to write Steve Yzerman, Ken Hitchcock, and the rest of the coaching staff a long letter of thanks.

Tonight is the Sens’ last pre-season game before they head off to the distant land known as Sweden (that’s where they make Alfies!) tomorrow night. Hopefully they can exact some revenge on the detestable bleu, blanc, et rouge for yesterday’s humiliation, not that the humiliation even matters ’cause you know it’s only pre-season. If you have TSN2, you can watch the game. If you only have TSN, you can watch the Stampeders taking on the Argos in exciting CFL action.

My apologies to anyone who happens to be reading for my absence over the last few days! School and … well … a general desire to sleep have kept me a bit busy. However, I did catch the Sens’ first two pre-season games against New York, and am currently listening to their third against Philadelphia. It’s been a little hard to judge the team as a whole, given that half or more of the roster changes after each game, but I have a few comments:

• Could there possibly be a better way to start 08-09 than with a Heatley one-timer goal followed by a Spezza shorthanded breakaway goal? No, I didn’t think so.
• Schubert looked extremely weak in the first game. I just don’t know if there’s a spot for him on the team.
• Brian Lee also struggled in the first game. I can’t say that I noticed him as much in the second game so maybe it was just first game jitters.
• It fills me with dread to see Alfie and Mike Fisher injured this early on, and I’m clinging to the idea that the team is just being extremely cautious with them. Alfie seems to be playing quite well today, so that gives me hope.
• Jesse Winchester has done pretty well on the first line! I hope this experiment works out.
• It was weird and somewhat upsetting seeing Wade Redden in another team’s colours in the second game against New York. It got a little less upsetting when I watched him get badly beaten on the Sens’ goal though.
• Jason Smith: point-getting machine? Two make that three points in two games so far for the man with 0.17 points per game over his career.
• Let us all take a moment to ooh and aah over the coolness of Martin Gerber’s excellent new Darth Gerbs mask, and hope the fact that he let in the first shot he faced while wearing it today doesn’t put him off it completely.

After today’s game, the Sens have a home and home against Montreal on Friday and Saturday. On Sunday, they’re off to Sweden where they’ll meet Frolunda on October 2, in what will be a very special game for Alfie. It’s nice to think that there are places other than Ottawa where Alfie’s greatness is truly appreciated.

The trip to Sweden means that the Senators have to get their roster settled quite quickly, and Bryan Murray told the Citizen: “we have to get our team selected probably by Saturday morning, at the latest.” The team made seven cuts today — forwards Ilya Zubov, Josh Hennessy, Dany “Not That Dany” Bois, Alexander Nikulin, and the recently-signed Ryan Shannon, as well as defenceman Mattias Karlsson and goalie Jeff Glass — leaving them with 30 players on the roster. They will most likely take the maximum 23 players to Sweden, which means we can expect seven further cuts. Unless something really surprising happens, my guess is that Greg Mauldin, Zack Smith, Matt Carkner, Peter Regin, Luke Richardson, Brendan Bell, and Brad Isbister probably won’t be visiting the Daniel Alfredsson Birthplace tourist attraction next week.

This morning, I headed over to UBC’s hockey rink (scene of all my own greatest hockey triumphs and tragedies, if such terms can be applied to me scoring a few goals and then falling and cracking a bone in my finger during scrimmage in the UBC Ladies’ Beginner Hockey classes) to watch the Canucks’ rookies in action. Yes, the Canucks. Well, I live in Vancouver, and I have to work with what’s available.

But anyway: rookie camp! You know what this means. Hockey season is almost upon us! In fact, it is one week from today that the Senators will be taking the ice for their first pre-season game against Wade Redden and the New York Rangers.

Yesterday I did one of those fan surveys for NHL.com. It asked me a bunch of questions about how often I listened to games on the radio last season, which was pretty much all the time, due to my geographical situation. This season, I plan to avoid the radio by ordering Center Ice Online. Not only will I be able to watch the Sens to my heart’s content, I will also have the option of watching just about any other game I want to. It’s going to be like an all-you-can-eat hockey buffet!

I’m excited about it, because there’s a few teams other than the Sens I’d like to keep an eye on this year, for various reasons — because the Sens can’t play every day and I have to get my hockey fix somewhere, but also because some of these teams have players I like, some of them look like good young teams whose development will be interesting to watch, and one is a team I could not possibly avoid, even if I tried really, really hard.

Five Teams to Watch This Season on the Sens’ Days Off

Rick Nash and his wacky spaceman hockey suit want you to watch the Blue Jackets this season!

Columbus Blue Jackets: Oh, the Blue Jackets. One of those weird expansion teams no one really knows much about. They entered the league in 2000-2001, and have still never made the playoffs. I think that right there is actually a pretty good reason to watch them: they’ve got to make the playoffs someday (don’t they?) and maybe this year will be their year. It could be quite exciting to watch. The Jackets made some fairly big changes during the offseason. They also gave coach Ken Hitchcock a three-year contract extension, and seem to be building the team around his style of play. Will this plan work? Can goalie Pascal Leclaire, fresh off signing a three-year deal worth almost $12 million, match or better last season’s performance? Was the R.J. Umberger we saw with the Flyers during the playoffs last season the real R.J. Umberger? Will Mike Commodore do better in Columbus than he did in Ottawa? These are all things I’ll be watching for. But even without all that intrigue, I would still have one excellent reason to watch the Blue Jackets, and that reason can be summed up in two words: Rick Nash. My love for him is on its own enough to make the Blue Jackets my number one hockey destination when the Sens are off doing whatever they do when they’re not playing hockey.

Chicago Blackhawks: This one is a no-brainer — anyone who follows the NHL knows the Hawks are one of the most exciting-looking young teams out there right now. There’s an extremely strong chance they’ll make the playoffs this season, led by two fantastic young players: 2007-2008 Calder Trophy winner Patrick Kane (19) and his fellow Calder nominee Jonathan Toews (the Hawks’ newest captain at just 20 years old). Dustin Byfuglien (23) and my personal favourite Patrick Sharp (the old man of the group at 26) aren’t exactly chopped liver either. On defence, the Hawks were of course the winners in the Brian Campbell sweepstakes this summer: as an old 67’s season ticket holder, I’m a longtime Campbell fan and I’ll always keep an eye on him. Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook are two other Chicago D-men of interest. Aside from all that, there’s also the annual Martin Havlat Injury Watch and the debut of The World’s Most Expensive Goaltending Tandem, with Nikolai Khabibulin ($6.75 million) and Cristobal Huet ($5.625 million) both still on the roster, to keep things interesting in Chicago.

Edmonton Oilers: With the Canucks and the Avalanche looking mighty bad and the Wild seeming to have taken a step backwards, I think the race for the Northwest this season will be between Calgary and Edmonton. It should make for some very entertaining Battle of Alberta games! I like both Alberta teams, and so the question arises: which do I root for in what will no doubt be an intense struggle for Northwest supremacy? My gut tells me I will be cheering on the boys from Edmonton. I was really rooting for the Oilers to squeak into the playoffs last season, and will be shocked if they don’t see some post-season action this year. They’re a fun team to watch, and a likeable one too. Beyond my somewhat random love of Shawn Horcoff, I admit that I have no reason for this preference of Oil over Flame. The Flames thus get an honourable mention on my list of teams to watch, too.

Phoenix Coyotes: The Coyotes haven’t made the playoffs since 2002, but I think they have a good chance of ending that streak this year. They’ve got a strong goalie in Ilya Bryzgalov, a great captain in Shane Doan (he is one of my favourites), and, in Todd Fedoruk, the always entertaining Daniel Carcillo, and our own Brian McGrattan, they’ve also got more enforcers than you can shake a stick at, though I don’t know that shaking a stick at an enforcer would ever be a good idea anyway unless you wanted your face broken. With that lineup, the Coyotes might just be trying to scare the rest of the Pacific Division into submission. But with young talent like Peter Mueller and Kyle Turris, who should be making his NHL debut this season, in the lineup along with new addition Olli Jokinen, they may not have to.

Vancouver Canucks: Vancouver Canucks? Shouldn’t it be Vancouver Ca-sucks? Zing! This team is going nowhere but down. With the departures of Markus Naslund, Trevor Linden, and Brendan Morrison this offseason, the Canucks lost three longtime players and important team leaders — Naslund had been the team captain since 2000 and Morrison was an alternate, while Linden, though he played only 59 games last season, was one of the greatest Canucks ever and no doubt took on a huge leadership role for the team. New GM Mike Gillis has replaced these guys with, er, Steve Bernier, Pavol Demitra, Kyle Wellwood, and Nolan Baumgartner. That doesn’t exactly seem like a step up, and with this loss of offense, Vancouver fans seem destined to have to watch an even more boring brand of Alain Vigneault defensive hockey than they saw last year. The Canucks’ one ace in the hole is Roberto Luongo, who can undoubtedly carry the team when he’s playing well. But Luongo did not seem happy last season, and I wonder how long he’s willing to stick around if this team doesn’t start winning. Which it won’t. So why am I going to be watching them, you ask? Simply put: they’re the only thing on TV. I get Sportsnet Pacific. Pacific! It’s not even Sportsnet West! It’s a channel with one audience: British Columbians. Their only job during hockey season is to cover the Canucks! It is wall-to-wall blue and green and orca logos out here, and because of the sad depth of my hockey obsession, I am incapable of looking away. It’s like a particularly nasty form of self-imposed torture.

As you can see, all the teams on my list are in the Western Conference. This is partly because most of the Eastern teams I don’t hate with a fiery passion are either really bad or incredibly boring, and partly because I am first and foremost a Senators fan, and I am really too invested in their fortunes to want any other team in the East to do well. However, if I were to pick a backup Eastern team, I would go with the Washington Capitals. I developed a soft spot for this bunch as I watched them systematically dismantle the Sens four times last season. Yes, it was truly horrifying and embarrassing, but at the same time I had to admit that, wow, those guys were good. Once the Sens had been eliminated from the playoffs, I was prepared to make the Caps my Eastern team in the second round … until they didn’t make it through. This season, they should only get better. There is, of course, the brilliant Alex Ovechkin to watch (bonus: the Ovechkin factor ensures that a lot of Caps games will be televised nationally), and add Alexander Semin, Nicklas Backstrom, and Mike Green to the list of great young players in DC. Though I can’t say I hope they win the conference, I will at least not actively be hoping for the Caps to fail.

If I do manage to follow through on my plan to watch as much hockey as is humanly possible this season, you may see posts about some of these teams in this space. But rest assured — I’ll be thinking of the Sens the whole time.