No tanks, Anderson says of quitting on season

Ottawa Senators goaltender Craig Anderson is certainly not embracing any fallin’ for Dahlin movement.

The worse the Senators finish, the better their odds are of securing Rasmus Dahlin, the Swedish defenceman who will be the first overall selection in June’s NHL draft.

While many Senators fans have their fingers crossed, dreaming of Dahlin, Anderson insists his focus is solely on finishing out the current season as strongly as possible.

“We’ve got good players here,” Anderson said Thursday before facing the Buffalo Sabres.

“We’ve got Karl (Erik Karlsson), (Cody) Ceci and (Thomas) Chabot, we’ve got plenty of offence there. We have that game-breaker defenceman already. To go piss away the last 20 games to try and get another game-breaking defenceman — and it’s all by chance, anyway — it just doesn’t make any sense for me.”

The Senators, with the thirdworst record in the NHL before Thursday’s game, would have had a 10.5-per-cent chance of winning the draft lottery if the season ended Wednesday. The Arizona Coyotes and the Sabres, who were tied for last, would have had better odds.

Anderson says the current Senators won’t embrace any idea of tanking to improve those percentages, owing it to themselves, their teammates and ownership to play out the season as competitively as possible.

“As proud players, as competitors, our job is to go out there and compete,” he said. “Nobody goes out there and throws in their sticks and says, ‘Let’s get this over with.’”

Anderson, who says the Senators essentially lost their season during a horrible stretch in November and December, says there is no excuse for players not to be pushing to their limits.