Sens at Land's End

Woo hoo!

I’m extremely happy to report that Hockey Canada just announced the addition of Jason Spezza to the roster for the Canadian Olympic team’s development camp, which takes place in Calgary from August 24th to 27th. He is the Senators’ lone likeable, non-douchey representative at the camp. I think he completely deserves this invitation and I wish him the best of luck. GO SPEZZA GO!

Happy Jason Spezza Wedding Day, now with 100% less Heatley!

Alas, the Senators still have the same amount of Heatley. Will anyone ever take this guy off our hands? I’m starting to think the answer is no. Let’s all give a big thanks to Heatley for being such a ginormous douchebag that no one will now touch him.

There’s nothing I can do about this in the real world, unless I somehow brainwash an NHL GM, or take over one’s life. I actually have done this to Bryan Murray in the virtual world, where I am playing the role of GM for your Ottawa Senators in the Re-Draft the League project over at Cycle Like the Sedins. My task is to build a new Sens team using current NHL players, within the constraints of the NHL salary cap. I have been given the 24th overall pick to work with, which unfortunately means that a lot of the really super high class talent in the league will be gone by the time I get up to the (metaphorical) podium with my jersey and hat for my pick to proudly put on before he poses for a photo op with me and my staff.

Here’s how the picking has gone so far:

1. Calgary Flames – Alexander Ovechkin
2. Vancouver Canucks – Sidney Crosby
3. Tampa Bay Lightning – Henrik Lundqvist
4. Dallas Stars – Evgeni Malkin
5. Chicago Blackhawks – Jonathan Toews
6. New York Islanders – Nicklas Lidstrom
7. Philadelphia Flyers – Pavel Datsyuk
8. Edmonton Oilers – Zach Parise
9. Nashville Predators – Ryan Getzlaf
10. Atlanta Thrashers – Vincent Lecavalier
11. St. Louis Blues – Roberto Luongo
12. Phoenix Coyotes – Mike Green
13. Pittsburgh Penguins – Ilya Kovalchuk

Still to pick before me: the Caps, Blue Jackets, Red Wings, Kings, Wild, Hurricanes, Rangers, Devils, Leafs and Sharks.

So what do you think, Sens fans? What direction should I take in re-building our team? Build from the goal crease out? Pick a franchise forward? A superstar defenceman? It’s a lot to consider.

Much will depend, of course, on who’s left by the time I pick. The only thing I can confirm at this point is that the Ottawa Senators will not be taking Dany Heatley with their first round pick.

So let’s see. First Dany Heatley demanded a trade out of Ottawa because he didn’t like his boss. Then he refused to leave when he didn’t like the destination offered to him. Through all this, he hasn’t spoken a word to the media. And now it appears he’s dodging Daniel Alfredsson’s calls. (To be fair, I guess if I were as much of a sucky baby as Heatley is, I’m not sure I could face talking to Alfie either.)

In the spirit of maturity and respectful communication Heatley has fostered throughout this whole situation, here is an open letter, to which he will never respond.

Dear Douchebag,

Grow a pair.

Sincerely,

Sens at Land’s End

Apologies for the lack of posting lately. I find myself having a much busier summer than I’d like.

Although the biggest move that will (hopefully) take place this offseason has yet to occur and the Sens are still in possession of one stupid grumpy sniper, they have made a couple of moves lately. Most notably, they’ve signed Alex Kovalev, recently of the Montreal Canadiens, to a two-year, $10 million deal ($5 million cap hit). I’m not wild about this signing for a few reasons.

1. That’s a lot of money.
2. Kovalev is 36 years old, which makes it seem like an especially high amount of money.
3. Kovalev has a reputation as an inconsistent player who takes frequent nights off. Not to beat a dead horse, but again: that’s a lot of money to pay someone who might spend a third of his time floating.

I also just plain don’t like Kovalev. Granted, my dislike may be less related to Kovalev himself than to the fact that I find almost anything in a Montreal jersey completely obnoxious. When I see him in Sens colours I might well become his biggest fan. I hope so.

This is a signing that, in theory, helps the Sens by adding some offense. That’s always a good thing. It’s not that elusive secondary scoring we’ve been hearing about for years — recent events should soon rob us of a third of our primary scoring — but it’s still good. It’s also great to have that top six forward we needed — except that, due to recent events, we actually needed two. But I guess we can’t have everything.

The other recent player move is the trade of Alex Auld to the Dallas Stars for a sixth round draft pick. This is something I’m not on board with. Auld was one of the few bright spots in the 2007-2008 season and I liked him. I also liked the team’s goaltending depth with Pascal Leclaire and Auld on the big team, and Brian Elliott starting another season in Binghamton. Now it looks as though we have Leclaire starting, Elliott backing up, and the recently-signed Mike Brodeur next in line for a spot on the NHL roster in the unlikely event *cough* that something should happen to one of them. Greeeeeaaaaaat. I know, in the big picture this isn’t something that’s going to have a gigantic impact on the team next season. Still, I don’t really see the point.

In other news, the Sens have announced their 2009-2010 preseason schedule. It features games in Halifax (against the Panthers) and Regina (against the Lightning). My mother lives in Regina and she tells me that game has already sold out. Here is the full schedule:

Sept. 15: Ottawa vs. Florida, 6 p.m. (Halifax)
Sept. 16: Ottawa vs. Florida, 7 p.m.
Sept. 18: Ottawa at Montreal, 7:30 p.m.
Sept. 19: Ottawa vs. Montreal, 7 p.m.
Sept. 21: Ottawa  vs. Tampa Bay, 9 p.m. (Regina)
Sept. 25: Ottawa vs. Boston, 7 p.m.

According to various sources, the NHL is likely to announce its full schedul for 2009-2010 on Wednesday afternoon. I hope to make a post about that once I’ve finished adding all the games to my Google Calendar. Woo hoo!

This morning when I checked in at the Ottawa airport before catching my flight back to Vancouver, WestJet offered me a free copy of the Ottawa Citizen. I wasn’t going to take it until I saw the headline “Heatley Hurting” at the top of the front page, and then I changed my mind because that was just too good to resist.

A couple my fellow Sens bloggers have already commented on the article in question, entitled ‘Everybody is crucifying Dany,’ and I don’t have much to add, really. But it made me mad again, so I’m commenting anyway.

• “Nobody mentions that this is a guy who gives up a month of his summer every year to play for Team Canada.” Right. Because I’m sure that’s a major chore for him and not something that he does because he loves it or anything.
• “Molloy wrote a letter to The Citizen sports department because the Heatleys told him they didn’t have ‘a forum’ to express the other side of the story.” The 6th Sens pretty much covered my feelings on this nugget in their post, but really. If you want to talk, try talking?
• I shall paraphrase the next bit. Heatley doesn’t think the Sens believe in him (even though they signed him to a long-term contract and gave him an A) and doesn’t like seeing his minutes reduced and being put on the second power play unit (despite the fact that the Sens were desperately trying to find secondary scoring), blah blah, blahblahblah. I ran this portion of the article through my douchebag to English translator and here’s what came out: ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME.
• “The Senators’ decline since ‘07 was a factor in Heatley wanting out. ‘Two years ago, they looked like the old Montreal Canadiens,’ Molloy said, ‘but they haven’t been able to right the ship since.’” Interestingly, that same decline is what has allowed our selfless hero to devote himself to Team Canada for a month every summer. I guess maybe playing in the Worlds really is a big chore for him. Strangely, that doesn’t make me like him more.

This article has to be one of the worst attempts to garner sympathy in the history of the world. James Gordon gets it exactly right: if Heatley doesn’t want to be hated, he’s going to have to speak up at some point and offer more of an explanation for all this. The more time goes by, the less anyone is going to care what he has to say. Take me, for example: I already don’t give a crap.

Draft 2009

I did make some notes on this year’s Draft (the first round, anyway) but I haven’t had a chance to make them into an actual post yet. I might still do it, but for now I will just welcome giant Jared Cowen and all the other draft picks, especially that goalie whose dad is Henrik Lundqvist’s goalie coach (awesome!), to the team. They’re our hope for a douchebag-free future.