FIVE QUICK THOUGHTS
-With another one-sided loss in the books, their fate is finally sealed. For months we’ve known this was a terrible hockey team and now we finally know just how terrible they really are. 30th overall. The second worst team in the National Hockey League. Only the Buffalo Sabres are worse. The Senators went from one goal away from a spot in the Stanley Cup finals to 30th in the league. Huh.
-So just how bad were the Ottawa Senators this season? They head into tonight’s season finale in Boston with just 67 points. That’s their lowest point total since the 1995-1996 season and basically the worst year they’ve had since the expansion years. The first four seasons were worse but no other season comes particularly close to this one. Pretty incredible and entirely unpleasant. While many experts and even some Sens fans thought expectations were a tad high coming into this season, nobody had them “expansion team” bad.
-So now we can finally talk about the situation the Senators will be in when the lottery bills start flying on April 28th. We’ll start with the obvious- the Ottawa Senators will have a 13.5% chance at the first overall pick. All that losing and it’s still basically a 1 in 10 chance they grab the top spot. And it’s not like they are locked into the 2nd spot either. They have about a 26.5% chance of landing one of the top two picks, 38.8% at a top three selection and basically a 72% chance at one of the top four spots. 28% of the time the lottery will determine the Senators have the 5th overall pick. The good news with a 30th place finish is they can’t fall further than 5th overall.
-And as comforting as that is, the way the top end of the draft breaks down this year, there does appear to be a bit of a drop off after the top four of Dahlin, Svechnikov, Zadina and Tkachuk. While it’s possible a team could have a player like Boqvist in the top four, it seems unlikely. Dropping out of the top four spots would be pretty disappointing. There are still some great prospects available from 5th and beyond but those first four guys appear to be on another level.
-Lastly, like everyone across the hockey world, my thoughts are with the town of Humboldt, Saskatchewan and the Humboldt Broncos. Hockey is a part of the fabric of this nation and yesterday’s horrific accident is unlike anything our game or our country has ever seen. Words will be of no comfort to those involved but the hockey community will do what it always does and rally around these people as they cope with unimaginable loss. Sincere condolences to everyone impacted by this tragedy.
Boucher’s Post-Game Comments
Mock Draft
Lottery Simulator
Boxscore
