Senators cut 23 prospects at camp
Up-and-comers Brown, Batherson gone as team pares down exhibition roster
It wasn’t exactly a quiet Sunday at the Canadian Tire Centre.
The Ottawa Senators were given the day off as training camp entered its final stages with only 10 days remaining until the National Hockey League regular-season opener against the Chicago Blackhawks.
Meanwhile, 23 players were packing their bags after general manager Pierre Dorion, head coach Guy Boucher and the rest of the staff made roster decisions.
Fifteen players, including top prospects Logan Brown and Drake Batherson, were among those sent to the American Hockey League affiliate in Belleville, while another seven have to go through the formality of clearing NHL waivers Monday before they can formally be assigned there, too.
Once those seven players pass through waivers, the Senators will have 30 players left in training camp: 18 forwards, nine defencemen and three goalies.
Forward Jack Skille, who had been here on a professional tryout agreement, was also released.
The decision to send Brown, 20, the No. 11 overall pick in the 2016 draft, to Belleville this early will raise eyebrows, but his performance so far in camp showed he wasn’t ready for full-time NHL duty. At 6-6, he needs to use his size to his advantage, and the Senators have concerns about his work ethic, but he’s young and has time to improve.
Those are areas Brown will have to work on in Belleville because he can’t complain about the opportunity he received with the Senators. He started Saturday’s 3-2 loss to the Montreal Canadiens with veteran Mark Stone and highly touted rookie Brady Tkachuk as his wingers.
Brown stuck with the NHL Senators coming out of camp last season, but was sent back to junior after the first month of the schedule. He did collect an assist in Saturday’s pre-season contest, making a perfect pass to Cody Ceci for Ottawa’s second goal of the night.
Batherson, 20, is coming off a tremendous 2017-18 junior season, and he was expected to push for a spot with the Senators committed to a youth movement, but this was the 6-2 winger’s first real
NHL training camp. If he impresses with Belleville, there’s a good chance he’ll play games with Ottawa this season.
With only two pre-season games left, Boucher wants to have close to the opening night roster ready to face the Blackhawks in Chicago on Thursday and the Canadiens at home next Saturday.
“Some guys are leaving us having left really good impressions on where they’re heading,” Boucher said Saturday night in Montreal.
“Now, we’ve got to get down to business in terms of getting our things together before it starts because we’ve got so many new people in this group that we’ve got to find chemistry fast.”
Boucher said the roster moves weren’t easy and there was no shortage of debate.
“For most of these decisions, they ’re not final decisions because, if you send a kid down, you’re sending them two hours away,” Boucher said. “The minute that he does well or the minute that somebody ’s injured and not doing the job …
“That’s the beauty of this year. There’s depth in the American league that we haven’t had definitely since I’ve been here, that’s for sure. That’s very positive and the fact those guys are all going to be playing together is also positive because they should have a very good team down there and a lot of success as a group.
“That’s going to make them develop well. We’re not afraid to send somebody down when we feel that he’s better getting the good minutes and the right minutes in the American league, rather than scraping some minutes because we’re trying to win some (NHL) games. That’s for sure.”
Among the young players still in NHL camp are forwards Alex Formenton, Filip Chlapik, Colin White and Tkachuk. Of that group, only Chlapik is in a battle for a job, while the rest can be pencilled onto the roster to start the season.
On the back end, it’s more interesting because defencemen Christian Wolanin and Ben Harpur are battling for a spot, while Maxime Lajoie and Christian Jaros are still pushing.
Only two of those four will remain when final cuts are made.
“I think we’re going to keep more defencemen than we thought because we’ve got some guys back there that have shown some real good stuff and consistency,” Boucher said before Sunday’s cuts were announced.
“Sometimes you have them on the American league board and you keep them there.
“After a while, you’ve got to be honest that they deserve to stay, so those guys will be staying because they just deserved it.”