Your username is Ragsandbluesfan. Are you also a Sens fan? Because you're saying "we"... Not that it matters but just curious because the title says "we need youth" but that's actually what was already happening. Towards the end the line-up was getting pretty young.
Stone (25) : was injured for a while though
Hoffman (28)
Duchene (26)
Dzingel (26)
Pageau (25)
Chlapik (20)
White (21)
Pääjärvi (26) : UFA, might not be back
McCormick (25) : only 1 year left on his deal, might be just a placeholder for that year.
Karlsson (27)
Chabot (21)
Ceci (24)
Wolanin (23)
Harpur (23)
Claesson (25)
Borowiecki (28)
Condon (27)
The older guys" are :
Ryan (30) : 4 years left, how long until he is traded?
Smith (30) : 3 years left, will probably get traded for a pick
Gaborik (36) : 3 years left, could be LTIRed, or even bought out but will most likely finish his contract with Ottawa.
Pyatt (31) : 1 year left, should play it with the team as he is a good & cheap reliable 4th liner
Burrows (36) : 1 year left, might be buried or waived or even traded with retention
Anderson (36) : 2 years left, will he be there all the way?
Then you have a lot of prospects approaching the NHL : Brown (20), Formenton (18), Batherson (19), Paul (23), Gagné (21), Perron (21), Luchuk (21), Sturtz (23), Jaros (22), Lajoie (20), Englund (22), Pokka (23), Summers (21, Gustavsson (19), Hogberg (23), Driedger (23) and some of those picked in the upcoming draft (two 1st round picks)
Quoting: BigBeardBurns
Agree with most there, and also I wouldnt trade a big prospect in Bellows for Ceci. I think he should go to LA and play with Phaneuf again. They were awesome together.
Mark Stone will prob get 7-7.5M cause he’s deserved it.
Phaneuf was really not the ideal partner for Ceci. They were good in 2016-17 because Boucher's system worked out and everybody was committed to team defense but as soon as it wasn't the case, it was all broken down. Phaneuf was actually holding Ceci back. Ceci had much better underlying stats playing with Chabot but Boucher didn't keep them together for some reason (and understandably Karlsson had nobody else to play on the 1st pair with him)
Ceci is not a shutdown D-man, he needs to be played as a 2-way guy with another very mobile D-man. Boucher tried to make Ceci into a shutdown D-man, it somewhat worked last year but not this year, that's not his game.
Quoting: BigBeardBurns
Idk I remember people saying in the 2017 playoffs than Phaneuf and Ceci did well together.
It did as all team was comitted to Boucher's system. This year, everything broke down. Apparently, it's not very easy and enjoyable playing for Guy Boucher so if things go south, it goes bad pretty fast.
Note that many think that Ceci is just "terrible" because of poor underlying stats but very few people are actually able to assess those stats under the context. Hockey is a very complex TEAM sports, it's not like Baseball where advanced stats are easier to analyze. Shutdown D-men pretty much always have terrible advanced stats. So Ceci has been out in a terrible position under Boucher.
Quoting: BigBeardBurns
U can get a 2nd and another little piece. I just dont think Ceci’s that valuable.
That might not be accurate in NHL GMs world though.