Ottawa's Woes

Boy, have they fallen. The Ottawa Senators now dwell alongside the Thrashers and Islanders at the bottom of the standings. There was at a time the Sens looked like a juggernaut of a team, but people shouldn't be so surprised at their sudden struggles. It wasn't a sudden fall from grace. This team has slowly been picked away to it's current state. In the last 3 years, they've lost the likes of Chara, Havlat, Hasek, Pothier, Redden, and Meszaros. They've locked up their top line to huge contracts, while players like Fisher and Gerber recieved inflated contracts that somewhat forced a few free agent departures.

So why aren't the Sens as good anymore? I don't think the forwards have gotten worse, I'd blame it on the defense.

With the loss of Redden and Meszaros in the off-season, Ottawa basically lost all of it's offensive defensemen. Filip Kuba has stepped in and played admirably, but has done little to replace the firepower of the departed players. Right now, the Sens are rolling with Philips, Volchenkov, Bell, Lee, Smith, and Kuba. None of these guys can be counted upon to carry, move, and distribute the puck.

People may be getting on the forwards for their lack of production, but it really is hard to produce when you're not getting the puck at full speed up the ice. You're seeing a lack of production throughout the roster, and it's something that can be fixed with the acquisition of a legit puck-moving defenseman: not exactly something that's easy to acquire in today's NHL.

There's a lot of talk about moving Jason Spezza, which would be a pretty drastic step for Brian Murray to take. They're in quite a conundrum, none of their players carry too much value due to the lack of output, so teams are going to be asking for a lot in any deal.

If the Sens are in fact looking to deal one of the big-3, then they're going to have to ensure they get help on the back-end in return. I know they have goaltending problems, but that's nothing compared to the sorry stats their skaters are putting up. Compare it to Edmonton in 2006-2007, without any puck movement from the backend, scoring went down monumentally for that team.

Here are, in my mind, potential takers for Spezza in such a deal:

Edmonton: Visnovsky, Nilsson, pick
Islanders: Streit, Okposo, pick
Columbus: Leclaire, Voracek, pick
Florida: Bouwmeester, Campbell
Thrashers: Enstrom, Little, pick
Predators: Suter, Legwand, pick
Wild: Zidlicky, Miettinen, pick