KARLSSON COULD BE TRADED DUE TO LACK OF DOUGH, DEPTH
There is a strong belief there’s going to be some big news involving the Ottawa Senators, either on the draft floor or in the hours leading up to Friday’s first round.
The sale of the team? You wish, perhaps, but that’s unlikely this month.
They are going to move their best scoring winger for peanuts because accusations levelled against his fiancée devalued his worth to the extent they were lucky they didn’t just wind up with the shells? No, that was a couple of days ago.
The once unthinkable trading of the best player in franchise history? Bingo.
It’s not 150 per cent certain to happen, but we are braced for the likelihood. And we are prepared to cover the that story.
I even got my haircut for the videos coming to a Postmedia website near you.
It’s true, if Wayne Gretzky can be traded, anyone can be traded. But the Great One was only moved after winning four Cups in Edmonton and because the Oilers needed cash.
Nobody ever sent Mario Lemieux packing and Sidney Crosby is not going anywhere.
Erik Karlsson is to Ottawa what the above were, and are, to the teams with which they started their Hall of Fame NHL careers.
And with the Senators studying the options of moving the most electrifying defenceman since Paul Coffey, the citizens of Canada’s capital are asking “why can’t we have nice things?”
It’s partly because of a cash shortage, but here is our latest theory, and it’s a decent one:
The Senators are trading Karlsson because they are in dire need of some depth. They want to be more like the one-year old Vegas Golden Knights when they grow up.
The Golden Knights rolled four lines all the way to a 51-win season, posting the second best record in the league (14-4-3) in games that were tied after two periods.
They used their fresh legs to run through the Western Conference playoffs and right into the Stanley Cup Final.
They had four lines so solid that Tomas Tatar — their one significant trade deadline acquisition and the highest paid skater on the roster — could only get into eight of their 20 post-season games.
David Perron, who had 66 points during the campaign, was also made a healthy scratch in the playoffs, suiting up for 15 of the games.
Perron was so insulted that, as an unrestricted free agent, he wants to re-sign in Vegas. As Dale Tallon would say, winning makes everything better.
The Senators, who had everything go right in 2016-17, had everything go wrong this past season. It was complete turmoil, from the top of the organization on down.
Not only did they lack the depth to faithfully give all four lines the appropriate ice time, they had nobody to fill the shoes when Clarke MacArthur failed to pass his training camp physical and key players like Karlsson, Mark Stone, Bobby Ryan, Derick Brassard, Zack Smith and Mark Borowiecki were injured.
They had guys who tried, but they weren’t ready for the roles.
Trading Karlsson, in theory, would improve their depth. Maybe not immediately, but certainly down the road.
The Golden Knights didn’t need a $10 million player to be successful. They had two skaters at $5 million — Jonathan Marchessault and Rielly Smith — and all the rest following, trying to prove they deserved to be protected by their former team and that they deserved to be making more. The formula worked.
The Senators should not be giving Colorado their first-round pick, fourth overall, this year to improve their chances of landing Jack Hughes, the consensus first overall selection of the 2019 draft.
There’s no way they’ll be as bad next season as they were this season. Even by trading Karlsson, and without Mike Hoffman.
They still have some talent, and there’s too much parity in the league. Teams can climb from the basement into the playoffs. Look at the Avalanche, who improved by 21 wins in 2017-18.
What the Senators really need is a couple of capable top-four defencemen to replace Dion Phaneuf and Karlsson, and we’re assuming they’ll try to get one in dealing the latter. They also very much need some stability, in goal from Craig Anderson and all things off ice.
If they had the dough and the depth, they wouldn’t need to trade the captain. In a perfect world, they would build around Karlsson. But theirs, you may have noticed, is far from a perfect world.
Meanwhile, the Golden Knights were able to get to the door, but couldn’t knock it down to win the Cup. Maybe that’s why rumours persist that they’re after Karlsson, who could put them over the top.
It would be interesting to see how he and his next big contract affects their winning formula.
As for the Senators, GM Pierre Dorion and his scouts have congregated here and were joined on Wednesday by coach Guy Boucher. Dorion is scheduled for a Thursday afternoon session with the media, including two representatives from Postmedia.
Questions about the actual draft will be secondary.