Sens at Land's End

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.