What Would You Do With Defender Jared Cowen?

Jared Cowen is an interesting case. He’s a former top 10 pick and a 24-year-old who hasn’t progressed in the right direction over the past 3 seasons.

With Ottawa currently succeeding, and Cowen failing to claim a spot in the Senators’ lineup, what are the options ahead for Cowen as he carries an AAV over 3 000 000 until 2017?

Cowen will be an RFA at 26-years-old when that deal expires, and it’s hard to believe Ottawa has any interest in giving Cowen any sort of pay raise after looking at his current body of work.

Cowen’s season has been completely up and down as he has really failed to make a dramatic impact in helping this Ottawa team.

We’ve seen stretches, sure. But nothing consistent. There were a few nice games around the time Cowen scored this goal vs Nashville where Cowen seemed cool in his positioning and had taken a small step in the right direction.

But nothing since..

This came back when Paul MacLean was behind the Senators bench, and after Jared had sat 5 games consecutively following a poor stretch early on.

Around this time, Cowen had seemed to bounce back. He was the emphasis of our November recap piece as he had begun to finally bounce-back in the right direction. I’d also recommend this read from Silver Seven, as Mrs. O discussed Cowen’s improvement at that time.

Now, as Cowen has found his way into healthy scratch territory under Dave Cameron‘s system while earning 3.3 million dollars, things aren’t looking up.

THE UPSIDE

I heard an interesting quote somewhere a while back, perhaps it was when describing Kingston Frontenacs forward, Lawson Crouse, or some other big, overrated NHL player.

It went like this..

"In the NHL, small players need to prove they can play, big players need to prove they can’t"

I use to be under the impression that the physical presence of a player was one of the most important evaluators when looking at a player in the NHL. This coming from a fan of the Ottawa Senators, one of the league’s biggest teams.

However, with players like Johnny Gaudreau tearing up the NHL and with speed and skill becoming more and more a factor of success, size is great, but other factors cannot be ignored.

Now, on to Cowen.

He’s a big guy. He’s 6foot5 and that was a big factor when the Senators drafted him in 2009. Size may be a big thing, I’m not denying that.. but with Cowen, we see a big player whose positioning and “Hockey IQ” just aren’t there.

He’s often found out of position and despite his size, doesn’t use it to the capacity he can to “control” the ice. He’s an OK skater, but not a good one, leaving the positioning and hockey understanding the biggest factor for Cowen to have success in the league.

We haven’t seen it consistently through 200 career NHL games and for that, Cowen finds himself in a weird spot come the off-season.

WHAT TO DO?

A trade is certainly a possibility.

Cowen isn’t a large piece on the Senators blueline, and although we talk about “potential” and “upside” at some point you need to ask when you move away from the player.

More from SenShot

If the Senators, a cap team, can move away from Cowen and bring in a decent asset in the off-season, I think you have to do it. He’s generated interest in the past, and Ottawa may be able to get a favourable piece back for him this off-season.

For Ottawa, this off-season is shaping up to be one of the biggest in recent memory in terms of importance.

They still have a few troublesome contracts on the books in Milan Michalek (maybe), Clarke MacArthur (maybe), Colin Greening (for sure), Cowen (for sure), and David Legwand.

.. and with the pending RFA’s shaping up for huge deals you have to consider where the team stands in terms of cap space under the internal budget with (more than) a few players due for raises.

So, when it comes to Cowen, you’d have to gauge the interest around the league. However, young defenders, with size and supposed “up-size” still hold quite some value around the NHL.

The return might not be grand, but might come as Ottawa’s only choice unless they decide to roll with him for another two seasons. In which case, he’ll be an RFA in 2017 and Ottawa can decide what they wish to do with him at that point.

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