After nine months without Sens hockey, it’s safe to say we were all getting pretty desperate.
And that probably explains why the first three games of North Dakota’s season have basically been treated like playoff games by hockey-starved fans. The comment section and Sens Twitter have both been buzzing through three games with instant analysis, videos and declarations of impending unparalleled success.
Overkill, you say? Mind your own business, I say.
How about a little Monday News and Notes to start the week off right?
-At this point, it’s basically Tyler Kleven’s world- the rest of us are just living in it. After making a big impression in his UND debut, it was more of the same in Game 2 and 3. And yesterday, he showed there may be a little untapped offensive potential in there too. USA Hockey took notice apparently. Down a few players due to COVID-19 related issues, Team USA announced yesterday that Kleven has been added to the roster for this year’s World Juniors. Not a bad start to the season for such a TERRIBLE pick.
-Speaking of TERRIBLE picks, Shane Pinto looks pretty incredible through three NCAA games too. His 18 for 18 performance in the circle turned heads over the weekend but in all three games, he’s looked like a dominant two-way centre. While he probably slots in as a third liner at the NHL level, there is no doubt that Pinto has all the tools to make an impact with the Ottawa Senators in the next couple years. Pinto may not attract the same level of hype as some of Ottawa’s other forward prospects but he is exactly the type of player you need come playoff time.
-Jake Sanderson is going to be very, very good. We talked about him at length yesterday but through three games, I am blown away by just how easy the game looks for him as a freshman playing in the NCAA. He’s going to absolutely dominate at the World Juniors.
-Late last week, it started to sound like there was some real progress being made towards the start of the NHL season. While those pesky CBA-related issues still need to be sorted it out it does sound like both sides have decided to focus their efforts on other parts of a potential Return to Play with eyes on a mid-January start. At this point, a 52 or 56-game season are the options being considered along with realignment in the divisions, which would include an all-Canadian division.
-Here’s an interesting story– according to Bruce Garrioch, both Thomas Chabot and Brady Tkachuk showed an interest in joining the Belleville Senators for their playoff run last season. First of all, that just wouldn’t have been fair. That Belleville team was stacked to begin with and adding two high-end NHL players would have been downright excessive. While there were logistical challenges that made it tough and COVID-19 ultimately made it impossible, it’s pretty amazing that two established players and key figures in this rebuild wanted to play a part in that playoff run. Frig that would have been fun to watch.
-Speaking of Bruce Garrioch, he’s been churning out a whole lot of content over the last few days, which comes at a perfect time for his upcoming appearance on Episode 10 of The SensChirp Podcast. Got a question for Bruce? Feel free to add it in the comment section below and we’ll try to get to it on the show.
-One thing that caught the eye of Sens fans in Garrioch’s 30th Anniversary series was a quote from Owner Eugene Melnyk. Go figure. Talking about his plans for future spending, Melnyk suggested that the budget will be set around the $70 million mark which seemed to contradict his promise to spend to the cap during the run of unparalleled success. While it wouldn’t be unusual for Melnyk to stretch the truth a tad, I do think that particular figure is almost meaningless at this point. The economics of the NHL have been turned on their head the last nine months and it seems likely we are headed towards a significant shift in the salary cap anyway. At the same time, I don’t think it would be entirely unreasonable for the Senators to shift their plans a little bit on the spending side, especially with full rinks still a long ways off.
