Ottawa Senators Need to Find the Right Roster Mix To Make the Playoffs
TSN: Hockey Analyst Frankie Corrado joined Jay Onrait last week on SportsCenter, and he broke down the biggest question facing the seven Canadian teams. When looking at the Ottawa Senators and Travis Green, Corrado feels the biggest question is whether the Senators can find the right balance between their young core and the veterans on the team to compete for a playoff spot.
** NHLRumors.com transcriptions
Jay Onrait: “The other Ontario team in Ottawa, you bring in Linus Ullamrk to solidify things in the net, and their new head coach is Travis Green. They have missed the playoffs for seven straight years, Frankie; what is Green’s biggest question if he gets set to take over behind the Sens bench?”
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Frankie: Corrado: “Is there enough of a veteran presence around this young group? That’s something that’s been lacking in Ottawa for a little while now, and they’ve taken some swings at some veteran guys, and there’s been some misses. The one that hit was Claude Giroux.
Now there was too much for Claude Giroux to have to take care of as a veteran guy. And now they’ve added David Perron. So you know, there’s two guys that are very highly regarded around the league. That should be able to help insulate the young core forward group in Ottawa.
So that’ll be a question for them as far as how do you mesh the two. How do you mesh the young guys, the Stutzle’s, the Norris’s, when he’s healthy, Shane Pinto, Brady Tkachuk with Claude Giroux and David Perron?
And is there enough of that to kind of ease the burden on those young guys who you know, have been paid. There’s a lot of responsibility on their shoulders, but we’ve watched them play over the last couple of years; they do need a little help as they try and inch things along in Ottawa.”
Onrait: “You touched on it Frankie you bring in Perron, you bring in Ullmark. Jake Chychrun leaves. In your mind looking at the roster as it is right now. Are they clearly a better team than they were last season in your eyes?”
Corrado: “It should be but they’re still not like a playoff team or they should be in the vicinity of maybe trying to be. I don’t know, they’re trying to try to be a playoff team, if that makes sense Jay. Like two spots from being two spots away from being a playoff team when it comes to the Eastern Conference. And that’s a reasonable expectation for this group.
You know, this is not an offseason where they went out and tried to make the big splash. Everything that they did had a purpose, made sense, and now we’re gonna see if everything can kind of work together here with a new head coach who’s going to preach accountability, defensive structure, a goalie that has won Vezina that you think you can believe in and you know, a little more of a veteran presence around this group.
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So it wasn’t exactly super flashy, but it didn’t have to be it just had to be purposeful and it was now we wait and see if they can execute on the ice.”