Welcome to Puck Drop Preview 2015-16, where our hockey department gives you a detailed look at each team from around the NHL leading to the start of this hockey season and offers our insight and analysis. Makes sure to stick around until the end of the series, where we’ll offer our full predictions for the standings in each division, and eventually our collective LWOS 2015-16 Stanley Cup pick. You can check out all our articles on our Puck Drop Page. Today we continue the series with the Ottawa Senators.
Puck Drop Preview: 2015-16 Ottawa Senators
LAST SEASON
Despite heading into the offseason rather abruptly by losing in the first round of the 2015 NHL playoffs to the Montreal Canadiens, the Ottawa Senators came off of a historic season. It began when, now former, Head Coach Paul MacLean was fired back in December and was replaced with Dave Cameron. In 29 games, MacLean had brought the team to an 11-11-7 record before he packed his bags and said his goodbyes to the Senators organization.
At first Cameron was tinkering around trying to figure out what can make this Senators team click again like they had in the previous season. Unfortunately a dark cloud came about in the form of an injury plague, wiping out some of Ottawa’s top 6 forwards and both their starting and backup goaltenders, Craig Anderson and Robin Lehner. Around this time, Ottawa was also out of the playoff race by 14 points. With no other option left, Ottawa had to rely on a young minor league goaltender who had no NHL experience. His name was Andrew Hammond.
With much surprise to everyone in Ottawa, Hammond started off with with a couple of shutouts, and continued to string wins together. Hammond would play so well that he became just the second goaltender to record his first 12 starts with two or fewer goals in NHL history. As Hammond was shocking the hockey world, the young rookie forwards of Ottawa in Mike Hoffman and Mark Stone caught on fire and offense was starting to spill out in their favour. By season’s end, Hammond finished with a 20-1-2 record, Hoffman with 26 goals and 48 points, and Stone with 27 goals and 64 points. Ottawa had battled themselves all the way back up from the bottom of the conference, to taking seventh in the Eastern Conference to face off with the Montreal Canadiens in round one of the 2015 NHL playoffs. Ottawa would go on to lose to the Habs four games to two, however it was still a memorable and historic season for the Ottawa Senators.
OFFSEASON
After coming off a terrific season, the Ottawa Senators management had a long and quiet offseason by mostly keeping to themselves. Senators General Manager Bryan Murray and company made their first move when they signed the sought-after undrafted college free agent goaltender, Matt O’Connor, to a two-year entry level contract. Shortly afterwards, Murray was able to re-sign Andrew Hammond to a three year contract extension worth $4.05 million (AAV of $1.35 million) before he became a free agent on July 1st. After inking these new deals, Ottawa’s crease was now overloaded with talent and playing time would eventually become an issue.
During the month of June, Ottawa was able to re-sign and extend the contracts of forwards Jean-Gabriel Pageau and Mika Zibanejad at two years and Mark Stone at three years.
It was until the first day of the 2015 NHL entry draft that Ottawa decided to make their next move, when they decided to trade their backup goaltender Robin Lehner and veteran forward, David Legwand, who’d only spent one season in Ottawa, to the Buffalo Sabres for the 21st overall pick. With O’Connor likely to start for Ottawa’s AHL affiliate and Lehner off to Buffalo, the crease was clear again for Anderson to be once again the Senators starting goaltender and for Hammond to officially start as his backup.
During the draft, Ottawa selected defenseman Thomas Chabot, with their own 18th overall pick, and center Colin White, with the 21st pick they acquired from Buffalo. They also traded out defenseman Eric Gryba, to the Edmonton Oilers for Travis Ewanyk and the 107th pick (fourth round).
Free agency is where the Senators mostly remained quiet and made no real significant moves. They were unable to come to an agreement with forward, Erik Condra, who left for the Tampa Bay Lightning as a free agent when signing a three-year contract with an annual average of $1.25 million. They did however sign Eric O’Dell, Zack Stortini, and Michael Kostka all on two-way contracts with Stortini having the lengthiest term at two years.
Ottawa finished off by mid-summer, by getting both forwards Alex Chiasson and Mike Hoffman signed when they were both awarded contracts by arbitration. Chiasson was inked for one-year at $1.2 million and Hoffman, one-year at $2 million.
2015-16 OPENING DAY LINEUP
Forwards
Clarke MacArthur – Kyle Turris – Mark Stone
Mike Hoffman – Mika Zibanejad – Bobby Ryan
Milan Michalek – Jean-Gabriel Pageau – Curtis Lazar
Chris Neil – Zack Smith – Alex Chiasson
Matt Puempel
Defensemen
Marc Methot – Erik Karlsson
Patrick Wiercioch – Cody Ceci
Mark Borowiecki – Jared Cowen
Chris Phillips
Goaltenders
Craig Anderson
Andrew Hammond
PLAYERS TO WATCH
Bobby Ryan
Although Bobby hasn’t demonstrated it quite yet in Ottawa, he has nearly all the gifts to help make him a 30 goal scorer and a near point per game player. Unfortunately due to his injury in his first season in the nation’s capital and the horrid cold streak he ended the last season with, he hasn’t been able to hit the same mark of scoring as he did when he played with the Anaheim Ducks just three years ago. He’s the highest paid player in Ottawa at $7.25 million which means the pressure is on for him to start producing. Last season’s statistics of 18 goals and 54 points is rather underwhelming in comparison to his four seasons of being a 30 goal scorer with the Ducks. It’s a new season with a fresh start and another chance to hopefully impress and please the fans of Ottawa. Perhaps an increase of powerplay minutes is needed so he can at least go from scoring just four goals, to back to the double digits on the man advantage. Regardless, you can bet he’s on head coach Dave Cameron’s radar.
Mark Stone and Mike Hoffman
Both of these players had a fantastic rookie campaigns combining for 53 goals last season. Their next challenge is to take that same level of production and apply it again in their sophomore years. They were a significant reason to why Ottawa was able to make it to the post-season last year and if the Senators want to do it again this year, they’ll have to rely on more of the same offensive production from both of these players.
ON THE RISE
Patrick Wiercioch
Although Patrick Wiercioch isn’t a top pairing defenseman, he is however continuing to progress. He’s great at handling the puck and limiting mistakes. His skating is slow but he continues to grow at the considerably young age of 25. In the last quarter of the last season Wiercioch was playing a more defensively acceptable and physical game and was starting to finally show promise. Being at 6’5″ one of the key things for him had to be to bulk up. If he continues to play the same smart game as he did last season, you can bet his next contract that expires at the end of the 2015-16 season will be worth more than the $2 million that he is currently making.
ON THE DECLINE
Chris Phillips
When starting last season, Chris Phillips was off to a good pace. However the wear and tear broke Phillips down considerably, as from the beginning of February and on he wasn’t able to play. Chris has played nearly 1,200 games in the NHL and each season is being more difficult for the 37-year old veteran, even to the point where he isn’t sure if he can start camp at the same time as everyone else on the team. With an aging body and his best years behind him, it’s safe to say Phillips will probably find himself in the press box more often than not in the twilight of his career.
2015-16 PREDICTIONS
This young Senators squad should very well be competitive once again. Now mind you, they can’t end a season hoping to expect another performance from Andrew Hammond like last year because realistically that isn’t going to happen. Craig Anderson needs to be a solid goaltender this year. He has had some problems being shaky at the beginning of the season, so if he can clear out the jitters and get the wins early in the year, it’ll benefit Ottawa tremendously.
They have a fairly strong core of forwards in Kyle Turris, Clarke MacArthur, and Bobby Ryan along with their youngsters of Mika Zibanejad and the already aforementioned Mark Stone and Mike Hoffman, to help continue their fantastic outcome of offense like last season where they were ranked in the top 10 of goals for at 2.83 per game.
Their defense beyond their first pairing isn’t anything to brag about, but if young Cody Ceci and Patrick Wiercioch can raise the bar on their game, they’ll have their definite second pairing marked ready to go without having to make an acquisition.
Ultimately with a steady and strong performance by Anderson, a repeated performance of last year in offense, and an improvement in defense, there is no reason why the Ottawa Senators can’t make it to the ball known as the playoffs.
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