Traik-eotomy
After the infamous Uber video was leaked, the Senators must trade Matt Duchene sooner rather than later ... It isn’t just Elias Pettersson looking good, players from his draft class are, too ... Leafs goalie Frederik Andersen can’t keep playing this much
One year later, it’s time to trade Matt Duchene again.
As a pending unrestricted free agent, he was always going to be traded some time this season. But after a nowinfamous video surfaced of Duchene and several Ottawa players trashing their assistant coach during an Uber ride, the Senators can no longer wait until the Feb. 25 trade deadline.
Duchene, who was traded to Ottawa at this time last season, needs to go. The same applies to Chris Wideman ,who is also in the final year of his contract and was one of the more vocal players in the Uber video.
Yes, it’s normal for a group of players to bad-mouth the coaching staff when they think no one is actually listening. It happens. And it’s healthy.
But the difference here is that this was made public. Everyone saw it.
The most troubling aspect of the video had nothing to do with what Duchene or Wideman said. It was that second-year defenceman Thomas Chabot was sitting in the middle listening to all of it and chiming in with his own comments.
Ch a bot, who is off to an Erik Karlsson-like start to the season with 20 points in 15 games, is only 21 years old. That’s far too young to be jaded. And yet, after living through last year’s mess, it’s difficult to blame him for feeling any other way.
Which is why the Senators need to get rid of the players who could be spoiling things for the players who are going to be with the team for the long run.
This is a lost season for the Senators, who after trading away Karlsson and Mike
Hoffman are in rebuild mode without their first-round draft pick in 2019. That means the team is relying on their current youngsters more than ever.
Brady Tkachuk ,who could be a future captain, is 18 years old. Max Lajoie ,who has five goals, is 20. Colin White, who has five goals, is 21. These are your building blocks for the future. You don’t want them developing in a poisonous environment.
That’s what the Maple
Leafs did, when they parted ways with Phil Kessel, Joffrey Lupul and David Clarkson in order to make room for Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner and William Nylander.
Now it’s time for the Senators to do the same.
TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT
Canucks rookie Elias Pettersson has scored 10 goals and 16 points in his first 10 games. To put that into perspective, Matthews scored
six goals and 10 points in his first 10 games, while Connor McDavid had five goals and 10 points and Sidney Crosby had two goals and 14 points … All summer all we heard about was how much depth Toronto had down the middle. Then Matthews got hurt and now the Leafs don’t look so deep anymore, especially with Par Lindholm and Frederik Gauthier combining for just one goal and two assists … How much do the Sabres wish they could have Ryan O’Reilly back? He’s got 19 points in 13 games with the Blues. That’s 12 more than the three players he was traded for (Patrik Berglund, Vladimir Sobotka and Tage Thompson) have combined for … If I’m filling out my awards ballot today, I’ve got Canadian teams winning the Hart (McDavid), Norris
(Morgan Rielly), Vezina
(Frederik Andersen), Calder (Pettersson) and Jack Adams
(Claude Julien).
’17 CLASS LOOKING GOOD
All this talk of Vancouver’s Pettersson has caused people to forget that the players who actually went before him in the 2017 draft are also off to great starts to the season. First-overall pick Nico Hischier has 12 points in 13 games for the Devils, while Nolan Patrick, the No. 2 pick, has four goals and eight points in 12 games with the Flyers.
And then there’s Miro Heiskanen.
Dallas GM Jim Nill valued the third-overall pick so much that he refused to include the Finnish defenceman in a potential trade for Erik Karlsson last summer. With six points in 15 games and more than 22 minutes in average ice time, it’s not hard to see why.
ANDERSEN NEEDS TO REST
One month into the season, Andersen is at the top of my early Vezina Trophy ballot. That’s the good news for Maple Leafs fans.
The bad news is he’s had only two nights off so far this season. Part of this is because Toronto has
played on back-to-back nights only once so far. Yet Andersen’s heavy workload could be something to watch for this year.
After losing in Game 7 to the Bruins in last year’s playoffs, it’s clear that the Leafs see value in trying to win the division, so that Toronto can avoid facing Boston again or Tampa Bay in the first round. It’s also clear that head coach Mike Babcock has less trust in Garret Sparks than he did with Curtis McElhinney.
As Babcock has said countless times, he’s coaching for today, not tomorrow. At the same time, one of the reasons why the Leafs lost in the first round
wasn’t the lack of home-ice advantage — it was that Andersen had little left in the tank after playing 66 games.
HERE’S ONE FOR YOU
The Flyers, who have a league-worst .873 save percentage, have already dressed four goalies this season. The only reason Carter Hart is not No. 5 on that list is because the world junior championshipwinning goalie is also struggling with an .882 save percentage in the minors … Alexis Lafreniere is not draft-eligible for another two years, but after scoring 42 goals and 80 points in 60 games as a 15-year-old in the Quebec junior league, the
early pick to go No. 1 overall in 2020 has begun this season with 12 goals and 34 points in 19 games with Rimouski Oceanic. Remember the name, especially if you’re a Senators fan … Biggest obstacle in the Hurricanes potentially trading for William Nylander? Sebastian Aho. The 21-yearold winger is in the final year of his entry-level contract and already has 17 points in 15 games, following a 29-goal and 65-point season. In other words, whatever Nylander is worth, Aho is worth a heck of a lot more … Welcome to the NHL, Vegas. Last year wasn’t normal. This one is.