Josh’s Take: I’m already upset with the Ottawa Senators

The Ottawa Senators made a move yesterday to bring in Vladislav Namestnikov from the New York Rangers. What does this trade mean for the organization and the young players?

Pierre Dorion and the Ottawa Senators management staff has always said that this year was going to be about getting the young players inside the organization to develop. Well, following a pretty disappointing training camp for the young players, the Ottawa Senators saw only three young rookies make the team. Only one remains following the first two games of the season.

Drake Batherson, Filip Chlapik, and Erik Brannstrom were the only three young players to make the opening night roster for the Ottawa Senators following a training camp that was supposed to be highly competitive and supposed to yield results of younger players making the team. Drake Batherson had a very mediocre training camp at best but still made the team because the team needed him to.

I thought Filip Chlapik impressed during training camp, but was once again limited to fourth-line duties during the first game. He did manage to record an assist in that Toronto game, but only saw 5:05 minutes of ice time. Yeah, that’s five minutes and five seconds, and no that isn’t a typo! Then he didn’t even manage to draw into the lineup for Saturday’s game against the Rangers, with Mikkel Boedker replacing him on the fourth-line.

Following Saturday’s loss to the Rangers, both Chlapik and Batherson were sent back down to Belleville. If they can’t get enough ice time up here, they need to be down there playing according to head coach DJ Smith who ironically enough is the one that controls the ice time distribution.

Speaking of the ice time distribution, there is something not quite right with me. I don’t understand why Tyler Ennis has to be playing as much as he has in the first two games. He has been averaging over 18 minutes per game during the first two games, and I personally haven’t seen much out of his that screams top-6 forward needing almost 20 minutes of ice time per night. I mean he is currently averaging more than three minutes over his career average. How can this make any sense?

If I remember correctly, and my memory isn’t all that bad, when DJ Smith was hired to be the head coach of the Ottawa Senators he said it was going to be one of the major parts of his job to make sure that the younger players are better at the end of the season than they were at the beginning. Essentially, he said the biggest part of his job was to put the players in positions to succeed. I’m sorry, but he hasn’t shown any signs of being able to do that. I mean, are we in line for more of the same from this coach?

When Smith was hired we saw the addition of four ex-Leafs to the roster because the coach liked and valued them. I like what I have seen from Nikita Zaitsev and Connor Brown so far. In fact, those were the two players I was most excited about. Old Man Hainsey does very little to impress me. Sure, he’s got experience and is there to help the young players. He completely lacks the foot speed to keep up in a top-4 role. But yet, here he is, comfortably anchored in the top-4 of this team.

Fans of the Ottawa Senators have been fed this stuff about how young the team is and how it’s hard to have a young team be competitive on a nightly basis because young players make mistakes. Blah. Blah. Blah. This organization is once again trying to pull the veil over our eyes and get us to believe in them. Get us to believe in the plan. Get us to believe that they know what they’re doing. In fact, they haven’t got a clue! This isn’t a young team! According to CapFriendly, the average age of forwards on the Ottawa Senators is 26 years old, the average age of defencemen on the Ottawa Senators is 27.4!

There are two defencemen on the roster under the age of 25. TWO! One of those being Thomas Chabot at 22, and he’s already a premier defenceman in the NHL. I count four forwards under the age of 25 on this team. FOUR! And that is with Vitaly Abramov and who knows how long he’ll be here! So please, please do not tell me this team is young and that’s why they make mistakes and lose. MOST OF THE PLAYERS MAKING THE MISTAKES ARE THE SUPPOSED VETERANS!

All of the Ottawa Senators’ young players are in Belleville. There are so many of them that Chlapik and Josh Norris can’t get a top-6 role and Max Veronneau is struggling to get into the lineup! So if the plan is for the young kids to get playing time and develop in Belleville, something is going to have to change! There clearly isn’t enough room in Belleville for all of them, so some of them should be here. Should be.

Well, apparently the coach and general manager have different ideas. Instead, they’ve filled this roster with mediocre players that can barely keep up and lack skill. But at least they work hard! Again, I go back to Tyler Ennis. Sure, he skates pretty well and works hard, but the offensive instinct clearly isn’t there! But this coach has him playing in the top-6 and giving him regular ice time on the power play. And then we wonder why the power play is not producing! Artem Anisimov is a nice name to remember from three or four years ago, but he’s so clearly lost a step it isn’t funny!

The reality is that this team was always going to struggle this season. Everybody and their mother knew it. But this management team was clearly in denial when Pierre Dorion said at the start of training camp that the worst was behind us and finishing at the bottom of the league wasn’t going to be good enough. I never quite understood how he thought this team was going to be able to be competitive on a nightly basis. They lack so much skill and mobility at the forward position that it isn’t even funny. But yet the coach refuses to play the young kids because he’s got his players. Look, I like the Scott Sabourin story as much as the next person, but he does not belong in the NHL. But he works hard and plays physical so here he is!

The bottom line is this: the Ottawa Senators simply are not skilled enough to compete on a nightly basis. But instead of telling us that, this management team has once again tried to tell us that everything is okay. I MEAN THE TEAM’S SLOGAN THIS YEAR IS ‘THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT’! WHAT KIDS? Apart from Brady Tkachuk, Erik Brannstrom, and maybe Thomas Chabot, THERE ARE NO KIDS ON THIS TEAM! It is just another attempt to distract the fanbase by telling us that the kids are simply not ready yet. That’s fine! Tell us that!

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In all honesty, this team needs to finish at the bottom of the standings again this season to have another top-5 pick in the draft. The Ottawa Senators have a lot of nice prospects, but apart there are no A+ super-skilled prospects at the forward position. Brannstrom in defence still has a lot of potential. This team needs another top-level prospect and that player should be coming in the form of a top-5 pick in the upcoming NHL Entry Draft in Montreal next June.

And trust me, if I know this then Pierre Dorion and the Ottawa Senators know this. But they continue to lie to us fans and want us to believe that its a process and that the kids will be playing. From what I gather, the only way I will be able to see the young kids play this season is if I jump into my car and drive to Belleville!

I wish the organization had the courage to tell us the truth. I wish they had the courage to tell us what they’re really doing. I mean we can all see, so just come out and say it! They are trying to do their very best to finish at the bottom of the standings without actually looking like they’re trying to finish at the bottom of the standings.

So if the kids are not really ready yet to play in the NHL, like they’ve know shown us, what’s the point of watching the Ottawa Senators? I could think of so many things I would rather do on a nightly basis than watch Tyler Ennis, Artem Anisimov, and Ron Hainsey play more than they ever should. I said it earlier here that most of the players committing the mistakes that lead to goals against are the veterans that are supposed to be here to limit those mistakes.

So why is it okay for the veterans to make those mistakes but not the kids? And please don’t tell me its about ruining a player’s confidence. If the coach were able to create an environment where mistakes weren’t the only thing being talked about, then a player’s confidence would be more than fine. If a young player makes a mistake, put him right back out on the ice and show him that you as a coach has faith in him. Don’t pull him and replace him by a veteran that will make the same mistake. That accomplishes nothing. It wouldn’t be as bad if the veterans could actually skate decently, but the lack of mobility on the Ottawa Senators is astoundingly bad.

I wonder what could change that. Maybe those young kids? Nah, who needs those when we have Artem Anisimov and Tyler Ennis playing way more than they should.

Now in comes Vladislav Namestnikov to make sure that the kids can develop in Belleville and not be rushed into the NHL. I actually like this trade for the Ottawa Senators. I like the fact that he is an unrestricted free agent at the end of this season, which allows the Senators to trade him at the deadline if he produces well enough or if he doesn’t produce they walk away next summer and it only cost them a fourth-round pick. I like the speed that Namestnikov brings to the lineup. I think there is some offensive skill there that the team should be able to tap into, and he is solid defensively. So the trade is a good one. Yes, Pierre Dorion makes good trades every once and a while.

But what impact does this trade have on the young players? Well, it’s another prime example of Pierre Dorion and the Ottawa Senators saying one thing and doing another. They say they want the young kids to have a chance to play, but yet their actions say different. If they want the kids to have a chance to play, stop filling the roster with mediocre veterans! The addition of Anisimov this past summer pretty much took a spot away from Logan Brown at centre. Another ripple effect of that is if you don’t trade Zack Smith then you don’t need Scott Sabourin.

Essentially what I am saying is this: I absolutely do not have a problem with the Ottawa Senators losing a lot of games this season. I personally believe they need to lose a lot of games this season.

What I am also saying is this: some of these kids should be playing in the NHL right now but their spots are filled by slow veterans that don’t have a place on this team. If you can’t play the kids when the games don’t matter and you’re expected to lose, when can you play them?

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Now I am emotionally drained. Thanks for allowing me to turn this piece into a way for me to vent and express my frustrations! I love this team as much as the next fan, but I am just tired of being lied to by them! I just hope that the lineup after the trade deadline is going to be vastly different from the lineup we have been seeing. There won’t be any reason for ageing veterans on expiring contracts to still be here. At some point, Pierre Dorion and the Ottawa Senators are going to have to move out some of the deadwood to make room for the younger players.

The Ottawa Senators next take to the ice on Thursday as the defending Stanley Cup champion St. Louis Blues roll into town. Puck drop for that game is scheduled just after 7:30. That is going to be another difficult game for this “young” team we have!