Brown and Zaitsev are thriving with Ottawa
Leafs got cap space from 2019 trade, but Senators picked up two key pieces
OTTAWA—If the Ottawa Senators have truly turned the corner on their rebuild — bolstered Thursday when Brady Tkachuk signed a seven-year contract — they’ll have the Maple Leafs to thank.
It was July 1, 2019, when the two teams made a trade that, in retrospect, favoured the Senators mightily.
As things stands today, two of the players Ottawa got — Connor Brown and Nikita Zaitsev — are alternate captains, part of a core of Senators leaders that includes Tkachuk, Thomas Chabot and Nick Paul.
The Leafs? Well, outside of a season of Cody Ceci, they primarily got salary-cap space.
With a solid second half last year, and now Tkachuk inked to a seven-year, $57.5-million (U.S.) deal, Ottawa has declared its rebuild over and intend to be taken as a serious competitor for a playoff spot this year.
“Just a great positive day, another big piece in the puzzle of us trying to build a winner,” Ottawa GM Pierre Dorion said. “Words can’t describe the impact Brady has on the game. I think it gives credibility to the organization. The word credibility is a big word, but it speaks to what we’re trying to do.”
It’s hard to imagine the Senators could see themselves in this light without Brown and Zaitsev, said D.J. Smith, who left the Leafs bench as an assistant that same off-season to take on the head coaching job in Ottawa.
Brown was popular in Toronto, both with players and fans. He was a Toronto kid, a lateblooming sixth-round pick in 2012 who would lead the OHL in scoring in 2013-14, then pay his dues with the Marlies before finally getting his break, along with rookies Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner, in 2016-17.
He scored 20 goals in his rookie campaign but lost minutes when the Leafs, perhaps rushing their program, signed Patrick Marleau. Brown got bounced down the lineup, getting 14 goals in 2017-18, then eight in 2018-19.
“He was a fourth-line player in Toronto,” Smith said. “They deemed that he wasn’t going to be this offensive guy, this complete player, I know that he envisioned for himself to be.
“Coming here, he had that opportunity with us not being as top-heavy, and he’s proven that he can play on both sides of the puck. He can play on the power play and play on the penalty kill. He understands the league and how hard it is. He’s just an easy guy to coach and an easy guy to be around.”
Zaitsev provided the impetus for the 2019 trade. The fan base had turned on him, to be sure. A seven-year deal signed with an average annual value of $4.5 million was deemed terrific in 2017-18 but the vociferous analytics community didn’t like his numbers and the average fans started fretting about the length of the deal.
Though the Leafs professed to be happy with Zaitsev, the player requested a trade and found a home for himself in Ottawa. He is paired with Chabot on the team’s top defence pairing.
The criticism of Zaitsev was that he was not a positive possession player, meaning more shots and shot attempts are made toward his net than toward the opponent’s net when he’s on the ice. But Smith ran the blue line in Toronto and trusted Zaitsev. The defender typically starts more often in the defensive zone than most defencemen, an inherent disadvantage from a possession numbers standpoint.
“He doesn’t have the fancy stats, he gets all the defensive zone starts,” Smith said. “So people that run the numbers don’t like his numbers, but they don’t see he gets almost no offensive zone starts.
“When the game’s on the line, he’s playing against the other team’s best players, who we all know have the most goals, assists, shot attempts and everything, in the league. So his numbers are never fancy. But if you ask guys on the other team who they want to play against and who they don’t want to play against, they don’t want to play against him.”
Smith says he has seen tremendous growth in Zaitsev.
“He just understands the game more. From Z, you want a guy that can move the puck a little better, you want a little more offence.
“But at the same time, (you have to consider) what he brings defensively and around the net … his braveness. He continues to be one of the better defenders in the league.”