Should The Ottawa Senators Tank?

I have seen people on the internet writing that the Ottawa Senators should tank in order to gain a higher draft pick. It is not possible for the Senators to drop low enough in the standings to draft a player like Connor McDavid or Jack Eichel. It is important for the Senators to make some moves before/at the trade deadline. The Senators are not really in the position to tank.

The Senators are in an interesting spot in the standings. As of January 27^th, the Sens sit 10 points out of the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference while sitting 16 points ahead of last place Buffalo in the league standings. The standings in the Eastern Conference are displayed below.

If the NHL season were to end on January 27th the Senators would have the 10^th pick of the draft. The tenth pick of the draft generally yields a fairly decent player. Would it be nice for the Senators to get McDavid? Absolutely! Will it happen? No. I researched a way to predict how a team will fare based on their goal differential and the principles of Pythagorean theorem. I found this prediction method in a great article written by Sean Wu at Two Pad Stack.

The chart above displays how I believe the teams will fare the rest of the season. To make my prediction I took all NHL teams point percentage and weighted it to represent how many games they have played, I then took their predicted point percentages and weighted it to represent how many games each team has left to play. I put the numbers together and came out with this as the prediction of team winning percentages at the end of the year.

The Senators will most likely finish as the 17-20 ranked team in the league. I do not believe it is possible for them to end up with a pick better than the eighth pick.

The Senators have not been a great team thus far, but have also not been one of the bad teams in the league. For those wishing for a higher pick you are out of luck, there are far worse teams in the NHL. Buffalo has 89 goals for and 167 goals against. The Senators have 126 goals for and 128 against. Buffalo’s has given up 78 more goals than they have scored, Arizona has given up 51 more, Edmonton has given up 49 more, Columbus has given up 29 more, New Jersey has given up 27 more. Ottawa has only given up two more goals than they have scored. Ottawa is not bad enough to get a pick in the top five.

Some people believe getting rid of Craig Anderson is the solution. I now realize it is not. If the Senators we’re to play Robin Lehner every game for the rest of the season (with his current GAA) they would gain .527 point percentage in their remaining games, putting them at .518 percent on the year. If the Senators keep playing Anderson and Lehner (with their current GAA) they would gain .548 on the rest of the year be at .527 by the end of the year. They would in theory drop from having the 13^th pick at the end of the year to having the 9^th. I do not believe the Senators should/can tank hard enough to drop a significant amount in their draft spot. Dealing Anderson only makes sense if you get pieces back that will help you win next year.

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The team should be focused on making deals that can help them for the future. Does getting rid of Craig Anderson help you next year? Not unless you are getting something very strong in return. Any players who can be moved in order to get picks or help the Senators win next year should be moved. Can the Senators resign Methot? If not trade him. Wayne Scanlan had a great article on General Manager Bryan Murray’s mindset going in regards to trades. Over the next few days I will be analyzing if it would be beneficial for the Senators to trade Marc Methot, Chris Phillips, and Chris Neil. I already discussed trading David Legwand. Trading these players won’t cause the Senators to drop much lower in the standings, but if what they get back makes them better next year it may be worth it.

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