There is nothing quite like preseason hockey.
You spend the better part of five months desperately waiting for hockey to come back and then about a period into it, you remember preseason hockey kind of sucks. And then, it goes on for what feels like an eternity.
The Ottawa Senators mercifully wrapped up their seven-game preseason schedule with another underwhelming performance against the Toronto Maple Leafs.
With the start of the regular season now just four days away, some final thoughts on what we’ve seen from the Senators to this point and what we might except in the days ahead.
-DJ Smith had hoped to have something close to his full lineup for the preseason finale in Toronto but uhh not so much. With Josh Norris, Shane Pinto and Thomas Chabot all nursing minor injuries and Brady Tkachuk still MIA, the Senators had some fairly significant holes in the lineup. It did provide some insight on who the Senators view as the first wave of call-ups though and apparently, that list includes Lassi Thomson. Dillon Heatherington, Egor Sokolov and Mark Kastelic. We’ll likely see more of those four should injuries strike again early in the season.
-It’s strange to make such declarations before he has even played a single real game in a Sens uniform but it appears that Michael Del Zotto is going to be this season’s new whipping boy. His underwhelming preseason performance drew the ire of Sens fans with many already declaring the two-year contract a mistake. We’ll see. Realistically, a veteran like Del Zotto should be given a little bit of a slack as he tries to get up to speed and adjust to a new team. It’s true though- he wasn’t great in the preseason and with both Erik Brannstrom and Victor Mete outplaying him over the last few weeks, he’s already approaching healthy scratch territory. Will be interesting to see which six guys dress on Thursday.
-The defence in general is going to be a big talking point this season. There is a lot of uncertainty back there and outside of the top pairing of Thomas Chabot and Artem Zub, there are some fairly significant question marks. It sounds like the plan is to carry eight defenceman to start the season which means, everyone is going to get a chance. The Senators had hoped to ease the workload of Thomas Chabot this season but right now, it seems like they’ll have to lean heavily on that top pairing. We’ll see how long Chabot and Zub stick together because they may need to share the wealth a bit.
-Maybe one of the most encouraging signs from the preseason is the play of Matt Murray. He ended last season on a high note and it certainly seems like he’s ready to pick up where he left off. When Murray is at his best, everything looks kind of easy in net- good reads, limited movement in the crease and mostly just relying on his size to make saves. We saw a lot of that from Murray in his preseason starts. If the Senators are going to push for a playoff spot this season, it’s going to take an outstanding year from Matt Murray to make it happen. With the aforementioned uncertainty on defence, there are going to be a lot of nights where the Senators lean on Murray.
-When the preseason started a few weeks back, it wasn’t entirely clear what would happen with Shane Pinto. The organization had been talking up the idea of starting Chris Tierney on the second line and with Pinto starting Camp on what seemed like a fifth line, it seemed like Pinto had some work to do. Realistically, DJ Smith just wanted Pinto to earn it a little bit although I suspect they expected it to take longer than two weeks. Pinto knew he was going to have to stand out in Camp and to his credit, he may have been the team’s best player throughout the preseason. Pretty tough to start him in Belleville in that instance. Not only has Pinto earned a spot on this team, he is pretty clearly their second best centre. If Josh Norris and Shane Pinto string together efforts like they had against the Habs the other night, this Sens team could surprise some people early in the year.
-With the preseason now wrapped up, the Senators have done some additional tinkering with their roster. Dillon Heatherington, Mark Kastelic, Egor Sokolov, Lassi Thomson and Filip Gustavsson are all headed back to Belleville, joining Parker Kelly and Mads Soogard who went down yesterday. Andrew Agozzino was placed on waivers and likely to be sent down tomorrow. No big surprises there but what it means is both Logan Shaw and Scott Sabourin are hanging around for now. With Austin Watson expected to miss up to four weeks, they obviously felt like it would be a good idea to have a bit of toughness in the lineup. It could also mean the Senators make a trade or waiver claim in the lead up to Thursday’s opener.
