Play the kids.
After the last five days, the words have lost all meaning. Although it’s not entirely clear what the meaning was in the first place.
Okay that’s not true. The basic premise is clear.
The rebuilding Ottawa Senators are in a transition year of sorts and one where they need to start clearly identifying the young core that will lead this team to unparalleled success. Winning games is important but real progress at this stage in the 112-page Master Plan boils down to the development of the team’s top prospects.
When the Ottawa Senators take to the ice tonight in sunny Winnipeg, Manitoba, they will do so with three players under the age of 22 among their top six forwards. It will be four when Stützle returns. Their most important defenceman, and team leader in ice time, will be a 23-year old.
Kids. They are playing.
But in the last few days, fans and local media have made it clear that there should be more young guys playing. And at all costs. See, apparently with so many kids completely boxed out of the lineup by DJ Smith, discontent is growing. So if the 25-year old Christian Wolanin and the 23-year old fifth year pro Filip Chlapik don’t get into the game tonight over the 27-year old Mike Reilly and the 27-year old Cedric Paquette, things may boil over.
Here’s the thing.
I understand the concern. The scars left over from Guy Boucher’s time in Ottawa are still healing. And because of that, we all have our guard up a little bit.
And yea, there are some pretty ineffective veterans in the lineup right now at least in terms of strictly on-ice performance metrics. DJ Smith and Pierre Dorion aren’t dumb- they see it too. Believe it or not, they look at the same stats and colorful graphs that you do.
The difference is, they aren’t willing to let the week-long struggles of those two or three veteran players drastically alter their longer-term development goals for individual players and for the team. Guys like Braydon Coburn, Cedric Paquette and Austin Watson (and to a lesser extent Derek Stepan and Erik Gudbranson) are there for a few reasons. First, they think the younger players in the lineup can learn something from those guys about how to be a pro,. Second, they can (and are willing to) play tough and generally unrewarding minutes (including penalty kill). Lastly, they are there because the handful of kids that didn’t crack the roster (thinking of guys like Logan Brown, Alex Formenton, Vitaly Abramov and Erik Brannstrom) either aren’t quite ready by the management group’s assessment or don’t necessarily project into those “roles”.
See, the reality of player development is that there isn’t one.
There is no right and wrong way. Hockey is filled with examples of kids who were thrown into the fire at a young age (before they were ready) that never amounted to anything. And there are probably just as many examples of prospects that got that opportunity at a young age and never looked back. At the same time, recent NHL history is littered with sputtering rebuilds where teams gave too much responsibility to too many prospects too soon.
The one thing we should feel pretty confident in as fans even when we don’t agree about the day-to-day decisions is the fact that Pierre Dorion and DJ Smith have the same goals that we do. They want that young core of Tkachuk, Chabot, Norris, Batherson and Stützle to continue to develop into stars and they want that younger supporting cast, including guys like Colin White and Christian Wolanin for example, to ultimately reach their potential.
There will never be consensus on the best way to do that but if you accept that we all want the same thing, the micro-level decisions within a shortened season will become a little less worrisome.
All that said, play the damn kids!
After Thursday night’s debacle, the Senators will have to be a whole lot better if they want to hang with the Winnipeg Jets tonight.
Tonight kicks off a seven-game, thirteen day road trip for the Senators.
DJ Smith had his team on the ice for a 38-minute practice yesterday at the CTC and while he wouldn’t confirm any possible changes, it does seem like there could be some shuffling ahead of this one.
Worth pointing out that while that rules Stützle out for tonight, he is still eligible to return as early as Monday in Vancouver.
Here’s how they are lined up at the Game Day skate.
Tkachuk-Norris-Batherson
Paul-Anisimov-Dadonov
Tierney-Stepan-Brown
Haley-Paquette-Watson
Chabot-Zaitsev
Reilly-J. Brown
Wolanin-Gudbranson
No word on a starting goalie. Matt Murray had the day off yesterday and DJ did say Marcus Hogberg will get into a game soon but he wouldn’t confirm tonight’s starter.
Puck drop is scheduled for 10:00 PM so adjust your game day drinking accordingly. The game is available on Sportsnet, CBC, TSN1200 and thanks to the initiative of Al Gore, on shady websites across the internet.
As these teams play each other for a third straight game, you may think you know everything there is to know about this match-up.
The Head2Head Table says otherwise.
| HEAD2HEAD |  |
 |
|---|---|---|
| Record | 1-2-1 (3 pts) | 3-1-0 (6 pts) |
| Goals For | 2.75 (T-19th) | 3.25 (11th) |
| Goals Against | 3.50 (25th) | 2.50 (10th) |
| Power Play | 16.7% (20th) | 10% (24th) |
| Penalty Kill | 81.0% (16th) | 66.7% (27th) |
| Shots For | 28.3 (23rd) | 29.8 (T-18th) |
| Shots Against | 30.0 (15th) | 33.5 (26th) |
| Leading Scorers | Zaitsev- 5pts Tierney- 3 pts Norris- 3 pts Tkachuk- 3 pts |
Connor- 7 pts Scheifele- 5 pts Wheeler- 4 pts Ehlers- 4 pts |
| Starting Goalie | TBD | TBD |
