Earlier this week the Ottawa Senators made a bit of a surprise move, announcing they were calling up forward Colin Greening from Binghamton of the American Hockey League.
Many had sort of assumed that at this point we had seen the last of the Newfoundland native. Even Greening himself admitted that the call up was a bit of a surprise and that he expected to be in Bingo for the rest of the season. Yet as the Senators hit the road for a trip through Dallas, Colorado and Arizona, they decided to bring Colin along for the ride.
It’s partly about giving Matt Puempel a chance to play a little bit more in Binghamton but it also gives Greening a chance to join the team in the middle of what is going to be a pretty long season.
But still, the call up was a little strange.
Greening has 9 points in 16 games and while he’s been a useful player for Binghamton, there were definitely guys assumed to be ahead of him on the depth chart.
Here’s the Greening goal, nice end-to-end zone entry too. Brennan backed in. pic.twitter.com/XwbLQLwSjT
— Scott Wheeler (@scottcwheeler) November 22, 2015
Which is why it wasn’t entirely surprising when on Tuesday of this week, we again heard Greening’s name come up in the rumour mill for the one millionth time in the last couple years.
Except this time it was with an additional twist where the Senators might be willing to consider throwing in a prospect in order to rid themselves of the bad contract. Not exactly the conventional approach to doing business but not all that surprising considering we are talking about the budget conscious Senators.
To Bryan Murray’s credit, he has officially tried everything to move Greening- league-wide emails to other General Managers, regular reminders to hockey insiders, letting the agent try to find a deal and now even suggesting that he’d be willing to throw in an extra asset to a team willing to take the contract off his hands.
Obviously moving Greening would give the Senators a little additional flexibility to add a piece this season and extra room under next year’s budget too.
It’s that latest wrinkle that Ottawa may be willing to add a piece that may actually draw some interest from other teams especially if the prospect is of any value. There are a few teams out there with cap and budget space that would be willing to take Greening on just to gain an additional asset. Teams like Carolina and Arizona certainly have the flexibility to make such a move.
The Senators tried to include Greening in a deal this summer but ended up moving Legwand’s contract instead. And in just about every trade conversation Murray has had since then, you can be sure he’s trying to work Greening’s name into the discussion.
Greening has one year left on his deal after this season. His contract comes with a cap hit of $2.65 million a season including $3.2 million in real dollars next season. It’s a tough sell but if a decent prospect is thrown in there, some team may bite.
In the meantime, and to his credit, Greening seems to be making the best of his situation. Even at his lowest point, Greening was a guy capable of playing fourth line minutes. It’s not that he’s terrible but his contract certainly is and the Senators could not have him regularly eating up a spot among their twelve forwards.
But should an injury strike in the next couple weeks, Colin Greening may actually suit up again for the Ottawa Senators.
Which is something I think we had all assumed was out of the question when the season started.
