Ottawa Senators Should Trade Chris Neil

Chris Neil is a 1.9 million dollar cap hit. He is the sixth highest paid forward on the team and is a fourth line player. Neil is doing little to contribute to the Senators success as he’s apparently on the trading block. I believe it would be beneficial for the Ottawa Senators to trade him because the style he plays is simply not for for a team in the transitional phase the Ottawa Senators are in. Reports are now coming out that the Senators won’t trade Neil out of respect.

#sens not trading Chris Neil. Out of respect, asked him if he wanted to be dealt. He doesn't.
— Don Brennan (@SunDoniB) February 4, 2015

This is a terrible decision. We let Daniel Alfredsson go who was a far bigger contributor to the Senators than Neil. I understand that Neil has been on the Ottawa Senators for a long time. He is often maligned and criticized by opposing fans. Derek Dorsett had the following to say about Neil earlier this season.

“In the first period, he asked me to fight. I tell him, ‘No, I’ve got a bad hand.’ He keeps after me, he keeps after me and finally I fight. It was a pretty even fight and I fall down. He gets two punches in. It was uncalled for. Then he does a junior move and starts waving at the fans. It’s Chris Neil in a nutshell.”

He clearly has the ability to get under peoples skin. If you are an old school hockey fan, particularly one who roots for the Senators, you may love his gritty style of play. It is entertaining to watch players fight. A fight can be one of the most exciting parts of a game. For all these elements Neil brings to the table, I do not believe they are worth what he does not bring.

Neil is not getting any younger. He is a thirty five year old enforcer. He plays 10-12 minutes of hockey a game. The only statistical category he excels at putting up numbers in is taking penalties. Last season he managed to put up 15 major penalties, 41 minor penalties, and finished the year 2^nd in the league with 211 penalty minutes.

As of February 1^st, Neil has only played three games under Dave Cameron. The winger was injured for quite sometime. I decided to analyze Neil’s numbers on the year against other Senators players who have similar Zone Starts. Zone start stats show where players start on the ice during five on five play. These numbers are important when you analyze players. A player who spends more time with starts in the defensive zone will likely have a lower Corsi than a player who gets the majority of their starts in the offensive zone. Corsi Rel is defined by War On Ice as follows:

Corsi Rel%: The player’s on-ice Corsi% minus the player’s off-ice Corsi%; off-ice Corsi% is the percent of shot attempts taken by the player’s team when the player is not on the ice (but in games where the player is in the lineup); also known as CF Rel%

Player	Games	ZSO%	CF% REL	CF%
Milan Michalek	42	41.6	-1.3	48.2
Erik Condra	32	41.5	-3.7	48.1
Zack Smith	27	41.7	-0.5	47.4
David Legwand	45	36.8	-3.4	46.9
Chris Neil	30	43.8	-4.3	44.4

Milan Michalek, Erik Condra, Zack Smith, and David Legwand all have lower ZSO% than Neil. All those players spend more of their time in the defensive zone than the offensive. All four of those players have a superior CF% to Neil.