McKenzie Sits Down with Pierre Dorion (VandeVelde gets PTO)

SensChirp September 11, 2017 73
McKenzie Sits Down with Pierre Dorion (VandeVelde gets PTO)

As part of the lead up to the new season, TSN Insider Bob McKenzie has been sitting down with all the General Managers of the Canadian teams to talk about the season ahead.

McKenzie’s sit-down with Pierre Dorion was released earlier this morning. In the wide-ranging 30 minute interview, Dorion touches on a variety of topics including last year’s playoff run, the outlook for injured guys like Karlsson and Brassard, Clarke MacArthur’s status, expectations on the team for next season, the possibility of a few young players cracking the roster and even the impending Erik Karlsson contract negotiations.

Dorion is always pretty candid in these situations and this interview was no exception.

Dorion specifically talked about some upcoming free agents, mentioning that they’ve already had healthy discussion with agents for Kyle Turris and Craig Anderson, two players scheduled to be UFAs next summer.  On the RFAs (Mark Stone and Cody Ceci) it sounded like there hasn’t been much talk to this point.

Towards the end of the interview, McKenzie pushed Dorion a little bit on one area he would address if he could and the GM highlighted the need for an additional veteran forward.  While Dorion did suggest the possibility of bringing in a few guys on PTOs (they signed Chris VandeVelde to one earlier today), it does sound like they’re content to start the season with the team they have.

The interview is a must watch and touches on just about every topic that is likely to come up ahead of the start of Training Camp on Friday.

You can find the full video here.

-The Sens are bringing in centre Chris VandeVelde on a PTO.  The 30 year old VandeVelde spent last season with the Philadelphia Flyers, registering 15 points in 81 games.  He has 278 games of NHL experience.  Hard to see where he fits on paper beyond potentially providing some additional depth in Belleville.  Having a few more veteran guys around for Training Camp is never a bad thing, I suppose.

-Shean Donovan, who works with the Senators as a Player Development Consultant, was on TSN 1200 earlier today to provide his thoughts on the weekend Rookie Tournament.  Not surprisingly, Donovan was happy with the performance of a number of the team’s prospects.  He specifically talked about being impressed with Logan Brown, Max Lajoie, Filip Chlapik and Andreas Englund.

-The players have started to filter back into town in preparation for the start of Training Camp on Friday and today, most of them took part in the team’s annual golf tournament. Erik Karlsson spoke to the media ahead of the tournament and provided some additional context on where he’s at with his injury. Based on some of the tweets during the interview, Karlsson is still a couple weeks away from skating and certainly won’t be rushing back.