(UPDATE 2:22 PM)- Pierre Dorion made an appearance on TSN1200 this afternoon and confirmed that Guy Boucher and his entire staff will be back behind the bench for the Ottawa Senators next season. Dorion mentioned that Boucher will take over full responsibility for the power play, Martin Raymond will take on the eye in the sky role and Rob Cookson will be behind the bench. They also indicated that Kurt Kleinendorst will not have his contract renewed in Belleville.
The NHL regular season has been wrapped up for a few weeks but a handful of Senators will hit the ice again beginning this Friday.
A total of seven Ottawa Senators will represent their country at the upcoming 2018 World Championships held in Denmark.
Jean Gabriel Pageau and Thomas Chabot will suit up for Team Canada. Filip Gustavsson and Magnus Paajarvi will play for Team Sweden. Colin White has accepted an invitation to play for Team USA. Christian Jaros will represent Team Slovakia and Ville Pokka cracked the roster for Team Finland.
The two-week 16 team tournament will be split between Copenhagen and Herning.
Based on the first couple practices, it looks like both Pageau and Chabot could see limited ice time. Pageau was occupying a spot on the fourth line with Pierre-Luc Dubois and Bo Horvat while Chabot was skating as the team’s seventh defenceman. Although it looks he is in the line up for their pre-tournament game today.
Same thing for Filip Gustavsson who is expected to be the third goalie for Team Sweden.
Team Canada opens up the tournament on Friday against the Americans.
-With the Senators now locked into fourth overall in next month’s Entry Draft, the debate on who they should target with that pick is well underway. One of the unique things about that fourth overall spot is in some ways, the decision will be made for them. Scouts seem to mostly agree that this draft has a “Big Four” (Dahlin/Svechnikov/Zadina/Tkachuk) then a group of four defenceman that are pretty similar (Boqvist/Hughes/Bouchard/Dobson). Pierre Dorion and his staff will likely be in a position where they have two options- take the remaining option from the Big Four or roll the dice on one of those defenceman. He’s sort of the forgotten guy right now but Oliver Wahlstrom is an interesting option too and he probably has a higher ceiling than Brady Tkachuk.
-After a lengthy playoff run, Logan Brown and his Kitchener Rangers saw their season end in heartbreaking fashion last night. They lost in double overtime of Game 7 at the hands of the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds. While the series didn’t end well, Brown should be thrilled with his performance during the OHL playoffs. He finished with an impressive 27 points in 19 games including 21 of those coming at even-strength. That’s good enough for second in OHL playoff scoring. One thing that’s clear watching Brown’s development over the last year of Junior is that he is ready to make the jump to the next level. Safe to say he’ll get another long look in Camp with the Senators this Fall.
