Looking Ahead For The Ottawa Senators
My previous post about the Ottawa Senators got me thinking about the team going forward.
It seems all but certain that one (at least) of head coach Bryan Murray and General Manager John Muckler will be losing their jobs if the Senators fail to go deep in the playoffs this year. The Senators have changed goaltenders, changed players, changed coaches but success in the post-season has eluded them for many years. This has been true even following wildly successful regular seasons. So who’s to blame, per say?
GM Muckler has done very well on some fronts and not so well on others. Jason Spezza and Danny Heatley make a combined $9 million - not too bad for 163 points in 125 games. Daniel Alfredsson’s 75 points in 65 games is a pretty decent bargain at $4.339 million, either.
Muckler has managed to deal with several star players insisting on such high salaries they’ve been moved, and you rarely hear complaints about the loss of Martin Havlat, Marian Hossa or Zdeno Chara (of course there are some complaints, but Muckler has done pretty well all things considered).
On the other hand…
As things stand, the Senators have a little over $34 million dedicated to 13 players for next season. Up front there doesn’t seem to be much reason to worry, with Alfredsson, Heatley, Spezza, Peter Schaefer, Mike Fisher, Chris Neil, Antoine Vermette, Patrick Eaves and Brian McGrattan all returning. Only Mike Comrie (acquired for Alexei Kaigorodov earlier this year), Chris Kelly (RFA), Dean McAmmond and Oleg Saprykin (RFA) remain unsigned.
The blueline and goal are more worrisome. Wade Redden ($6.5 million), Joe Corvo ($2.625 million) and Andrej Meszaros ($0.984 million) are signed, but Chris Phillips (UFA), Anton Volchenkov (RFA), Tom Preissing (UFA) and Christoph Schubert (RFA) are not. Martin Gerber is signed for 2 more seasons, though he has yet to show more than flashes of being worth his $3.7 million. Perhaps the biggest worry has to be pending Restricted Free Agent Ray Emery, who has outplayed supposed starter Gerber from the first game of the season.
Redden is the highest paid Senator but plays only 2 minutes per game more than Phillips, Meszaros or Volchenkov. Phillips is expected to take a home-town discount to remain in Ottawa, but even that will likely see him make $3 to 4 million. Emery could demand $3.5 million or higher, given the success he has had over the past two seasons (his save percentage and GAA have been consistently near the top of the league since last year). This will all work together to put Ottawa in quite the salary cap squeeze.
The GM’s role won’t get any easier the following summer, either, with Redden, Heatley and Fisher all slated to become Unrestricted Free Agents and joined by RFA’s Spezza, Vermette, Eaves, McGratton and Meszaros.
So despite a number of smart moves, maybe Mucker is the one who needs to go. He’s been consistently criticized for not bringing in the character players his team has never really had, and this may finally outweigh his excellent handling of the likes of Havlat and Hossa.
Murray, after all, can only work with what he’s given.