Dorion may be ready to shake up roster
Sens GM might not be promoting a sale, but it’s increasingly clear he’s open for business
There is no “for sale” sign outside Canadian Tire Centre.
But that doesn’t mean changes won’t be made in the new year.
The Ottawa Senators will close out 2017 with home games against the Columbus Blue Jackets on Friday night and Boston Bruins on Saturday night. After that, general manager Pierre Dorion can draw up his list of new year’s resolutions to improve his National Hockey League hockey club.
While the word in NHL circles is that Dorion isn’t ready to sell off all of the club’s assets, he’s willing to discuss nearly every player on his roster except captain Erik Karlsson and winger Mark Stone with the Senators 14 points out of the final wildcard playoff spot in the Eastern Conference with 47 games left to play.
League sources indicated Wednesday the most popular Senators players if Dorion wanted to trade remained the likes of winger Mike Hoffman, centres Derick Brassard and JeanGabriel Pageau and defenceman Cody Ceci.
Of course, nothing can happen until Dorion pulls the trigger.
League executives also believe several teams have spoken to Dorion about Hoffman, who has a salary-cap hit of $5.1 million through 2019-20. It’s believed the St. Louis Blues are among the front-runners, with GM Doug Armstrong willing to part with the necessary assets in exchange for Hoffman.
The Senators don’t want to do a total rebuild, but, if they’re going to make changes, they want to get younger and Hoffman could net the pieces the organization wants. He is a proven goal scorer.
But, breaking up is hard to do and you can’t fault the Senators for having a difficult time stomaching how sideways this season has gone. The players know Dorion can’t afford to sit still much longer, and many have been around long enough to know moves aren’t far away.
“(Changes) are part of the business, and, when you don’t have success, changes happen, and, when you don’t play well, changes happen,” alternate captain Dion Phaneuf said following Thursday’s 37-minute skate. “We’re all big boys. We know this business. We’ve been around it and we’ve seen it.
“It’s on us. It’s not on anyone else. As players, we haven’t got the job done.”
The players don’t have a sense of the timetable, though.
“You almost don’t want to comment on it because I don’t know where they’re at with it and I’d be speaking out of turn if I really did and commented on it, but I think we all understand it’s coming because of where we’re at,” winger Bobby Ryan said.
Phaneuf said he believed Senators management had been tolerant with this group.
“I think they’ve shown great patience and they’ve given us lots of opportunity to come together and we’re going to try to continue to try to work out way out of it,” Phaneuf said. “We’re not going to sit here and feel sorry for ourselves because that doesn’t do anybody any good.”
The Senators head into the matchup with the Blue Jackets with only three wins in their past 19 games. They’ve allowed four goals or more 15 times this season, including Tuesday’s 5-1 loss in Boston, and they have only two victories in those 15 games.
“It’s been frustrating in all aspects,” Phaneuf said. “The whole slide, or the whole (six weeks), however you want to say it, we just haven’t been able to grab traction. If we knew and it was that easy of a fix we’d do it.
“Whenever you have this type of adversity and whenever you go through this, there’s only one way to get out of it, and that’s to come together, and you’ve got to work your way out. Maybe in a couple of weeks we’ll be standing here and saying we’re playing much better. But we’ve got to find a way to work to deserve it.
"Right now, we’re in the position we’re at because we deserve to be where we’re at and we haven’t played well enough.”
It’s hard to believe it has to come to this for a team that got within a goal of the 2017 Stanley Cup final. Head coach Guy Boucher will argue this isn’t the same team, but the Senators made minimal roster changes over the off-season, so the reality is that this group, including coaches, has underachieved.
Boucher opted to try to keep the message positive on Thursday and, really, what other choice did he have? Nobody is going to throw in the towel because there’s too much hockey left to be played this season.
“I’m looking forward to (Friday’s) game, I really am,” Boucher said. “Every moment of the day is a chance where we can do so something good, whether to change, keep or grow something.
“I want to have a hard game against a hard team and I’m expecting a hard fight.”
If some of these Senators don’t put up a fight they’ll be packing their bags.