Team: 2022-23 Ottawa Senators

Initial Creation Date: Jun. 5, 2022

Published: Jun. 9, 2022

Salary Cap Mode: Basic

All old players are gone for the purpose of this ACGM, the point is to look at where the guys we have have proven they can play and where prospects might fit, as well as the holes we have. Not bothering with contracts.

Top 6 RW: Mathieu Joseph may have filled this hole. If he can continue his chemistry with Tkachuk and Norris that would be excellent, as 3RW is an easier hole to fill (one of Boucher or Sokolov can probably fill that from within, or someone we draft this year). I do think this should be the position we draft for if we keep the 7th overall pick. My two choices would be Kemell (although I’d probably stick him with Stutzle) and Savoie (who I think could work on either top line).

Top 6 LW: This one is more up in the air, but hopefully gets filled this summer. I wouldn’t be opposed to bringing in a guy like Burakovsky or Palat in UFA or trading for Fiala. From within, Greig might fill this spot, he’s looking really good (if Pinto can’t handle 3C, which I doubt, Greig’s also a candidate to steal that job). Jarventie is another option to potentially become the 2LW but he’ll take another year or two to develop. If either of Crookshank or Lodin hit, it’s likely they fill this spot, not sure I see either as a 4th line type.

4LW: Probably just Parker Kelly, or some random veteran. Ostapchuk has thrown his hat into the ring as an intriguing option though too. He didn’t have a mind-boggling DY+1 in terms of offensive production, but he really turned it on in the playoffs. He helped lead the Giants to an upset over the Silvertips before falling to the Blazers, and finished with 23 points in only 12 games (notably he had the same number of games with 3+ points as he did with 0 points on this run, which is wild). A natural centre, he might push Kastelic for the 4C spot, but I like the sound of him at 4LW too, because he’s big, physical, and obviously has that X-factor in big situations. Depth scoring is vital in the playoffs, so if we can develop a solid 4th liner with the upside of providing a few timely goals in the spring, that will almost be worth passing on Stankoven, Raty, Chibrikov, Pinelli, etc. Hopefully he can learn to PK (not sure if he does that yet, haven’t been able to find much on the defensive side of his game from the scouting reports I’ve read). Reinhardt might also fill this role, possibly as soon as next year, iirc he had a great camp this year. Good PKer and good skater, which is what you like from your 4th line.

4RW: Watson for now, Boucher or Sokolov should be able to slide in there if they don’t end up further up the depth chart. Maybe White for the duration of his contract if we keep him around.

Top 4 RD: Big position of need here. Chabot + Sanderson (projected obviously) looks the type of 1-2 punch that lead contenders. Zub is a quality top 4 guy that can be relied on to log big defensive minutes, and particularly be a PK ace. I hope we start looking at signing him to an extension a year out, he’s the type of guy you need to win. But even if we retain Zub, we’re missing a top 4 RD. Hopefully Thomson or JBD can become that guy. Both have shown flashes of it this year, and I anticipate one of them will have a very good opportunity to make the team out of camp next season, and both should see plenty of playing time when injuries inevitably occur. This is a weird one because neither is a lock (both mid- to late-1sts, rather than a bona fide guy like Sanderson), but both look solid enough that they still project to lock down that #4 slot, yet there is still a chance that neither makes it, which would kinda leave us floundering, and having to desperately fill that hole via trade or free agency in a couple years when we’re contending. I think drafting more RD should be a priority (Max Guenette has been a nice surprise but doesn’t look like a top 4 guy, not a huge fan of Ben Roger personally), but unless we somehow get gifted the no-brainer option of Nemec or Jiricek inexplicably slipping to 7, this should be a target with our 2nd or later (which also would mean 4+ years of development most likely, so best to get on that ASAP). I’ll talk about some targets I like later.

3LD: Another weird one. Brannstrom has shown he’s more than capable of locking down this role imo, but playing him at 3LD means that both our remaining hols on the right side NEED to be effective PKers, not giving us much wiggle room in terms of stylistic mix and matching. I’ve always been a big Brannstrom fan, and think he’s an excellent PP QB, but I’m not sure Smith is the biggest fan, and he should be a decent trade piece, so he might be on the move for help up front. Conversely, if he does get moved this off-season, that opens up the need for a PP2 QB (presumably Chabot/Sanderson/Holden would be the left side and Zub/Hamonic would be on the right, possibly with Zaitsev, but hopefully with Thomson), because Chabot can’t keep playing 43 minutes a night forever. Sanderson might be the PP2 guy eventually, but that might be a lot of pressure for a rookie (and Thomson DOES have a bomb, I hope he makes the team out of camp lol, either over one of Zaitsev/Hamonic or ideally, if Zaitsev is moved). Anyway, if Brannstrom does get moved, Kleven is our only real option at 3LD, which is solid enough, but he’s minimum 2-3 years away from the NHL. Holden might be able to lock things down until then though, and luckily 3LD might just be the easiest position on the roster to find for cheap in free agency.

3RD: This is an interesting one. In an ideal world, both Thomson and JBD hit, one of them or Zub gets “stuck” on the 3rd pair, and we have an elite D corps for years (or, alternatively, one of them becomes expendable as a trade chip, likely Zub in this scenario, not that he should be moved in any other scenario). Guenette may also be able to fill this role in a couple years. I think RD is a very important position, so I’d advise the Sens to draft another one to develop while they still have some time to work with, and another year with four top 75 picks.

Starting Goalie: By far the biggest organizational need. Any team without a legitimate, established 1G should always be making that a very high priority, because very rarely do successful teams have average or worse goaltending. Right now I think we have a few solid candidates, but none particularly close. Gustavsson has shown flashes of the required talent throughout his career, including a solid cameo last season, but regressed a bit this year (at the NHL level at least, although our atrocious team defense + injuries could be to blame because he was still pretty good on a middling Belleville team). Hopefully he can get back on track, starting with claiming the 1B spot and ideally getting into 30 games next year. Sogaard is my favourite for this position, because I love big goalies and they don’t get much bigger than 6’8”. He was solid as an AHL rookie, but could probably use another couple years to hone his game. He’s the best shot we have at developing a high-end starting netminder in-house. Merilainen was just okay in his North American debut for Kingston. Like Gustavsson, he shows flashes of brilliance, and apparently has the competitiveness/attitude to improve, but he’ll need a lot of seasoning. Might start with a heavy workload in the ECHL for reps, although I’d hope he gets a look in Belleville next year too.

Backup/1B Goalie: I’m less worried about this position tbh. Forsberg’s floor is this for the next 5 years, and all 3 of the guys above should ideally at least reach backup capability. Plus there’s Kevin Mandolese (2020 QMJHL goalie of the year) for solid organizational depth, it wouldn’t surprise me if he “comes out of nowhere” to play backup solidly for a stretch a few years down the line. Backups also aren’t too difficult to find in UFA for an affordable price (look at guys like Raanta and Brossoit that seem to switch teams every year). But in my opinion, good teams take a goalie every year, because having your own guy taking one of those two spots on his ELC/close to league min 2nd contract is invaluable, and young backups that deserve to be there are typically the hungriest and among the most talented backups, especially for the price. So I also think we should be drafting another goalie this year, and honestly, because we’re more or less set long term in a lot of positions, we might as well just take the best goalie available (imo that’s Leinonen, who I would be fine with taking with our 63-65 or at 72, because even though this is a weak goalie year, I highly doubt he slips much further).

So now for the draft. With our 4 top 75 picks I think it’s critical that we pick up a scoring line winger with 7oa, and then with the two 2nds + early 3rd I’d take a RD, another forward, and a goalie (we didn’t take one last year and I’m a big believer in taking one every year so the pipeline is always stocked, you can never have too many good goalies).

At 7oa my ideal choice would probably be Joakim Kemell. He plays hard and has a great shot. Solid enough skater. Seems like he’d fit very well with a guy like Stutzle who can create space for him and then feed him the puck. I also wouldn’t mind Matthew Savoie, who has one of the highest skill ceilings in the draft. His only flaw is his size, but we have enough big guys. He’d be great as the driver for Norris and Tkachuk, or him and Stutzle would just dazzle. He’d be a great pick too. Other acceptable picks: Jonathan Lekkerimaki (similar to Kemell, but with a better shot and significantly worse compete level apparently, so Kemell has the edge if both are available imo), Cutter Gauthier (big, fast, great shot, he’s everything the Sens have been coveting for years, but he’s going to be developed as a centre starting next year so he’d have to shift back to the wing to crack our top 6, which is fine, although I also wouldn’t be surprised if he’s gone by 7, bonus points for an awesome name), any of the presumptive top 5 that fall (Wright, Cooley, Slafkovsky, Nemec, Jiricek).

At 39oa this is where I’d take the RD. Given how this draft lines up, I’d expect a run on RD to start somewhere in the late 20s (wouldn’t surprise me to see 3-5 LD taken in the top 25 along with plenty of forwards, but after the big two RD, I could see the next one not getting taken until ~25oa). Luckily, there are a LOT of decent RD in this range, and we should be taking one, preferably that can play defense effectively (and ideally kill penalties for us one day). I think Seamus Casey will be gone, and probably Ryan Chesley and Tristan Luneau as well, but those would probably be my top 3 RD available starting in the late 1st (although I’m not sure Luneau fits what we need as well as the other two). I would consider trading up to nab Casey or Chesley, but honestly there are so many RD options it might not be worth it. Realistically I would take one of these 4:
- Elias Salomonsson: decent frame, poor season, but oodles of talent, if we get him to NA and develop him for 4 years he could be a top 4 guy
- Sam Rinzel: big, solid skater, decent on the rush and can play both special teams. Being able to skate is so important for defensemen nowadays (I just watched Calgary get burned by Edmonton because despite having 6 guys solid defensively overall, they only have 1 that’s a high-end skater), but bringing some size to 2RD or 3RD is really nice for the ability to box guys out on the PK as well
- Maveric Lamoureux: doesn’t have the talent upside or skating of Rinzel, but he’s EVEN bigger, the dude’s like 6’7” lol. Should be a lock to at least be a 3RD PK ace, and he moves the puck decently well
- Mattias Havelid: tiny, but a great skater, great offensively, and he defends the rush well. If his defensive side translates up (which might be a struggle given his size), he has a good chance to play top 4 minutes (probably the most talented/best skater of these 4, just also by far the smallest)

Not a big fan of Miguel Tourigny or Ty Nelson personally, I’d rather take Havelid if we go for a smaller, skilled guy that has question marks around his ability to defend at the pro level. Other big guys like Noah Warren and Jack Sparkes are probably too much of a reach (Lamoureux is maybe a reach as well, but he’ll probably end up going in the 2nd because he’s the most enormous, and I think he did really well at the combine too).

The only exception I’d make to not take a RD here is if a forward that should absolutely not be there falls. I’m talking like Ivan Miroshnichenko, Jiri Kulich, or Rutger McGroarty level (guys that should be gone in the top 20-25 guaranteed).

At 63-65 (wherever it ends up) and 72, we should probably take a goalie and another forward. If we took one of the forwards at 39, I’d take a RD like Warren/Sparkes/Tourigny/Kasper Kulonummi. If not, I’d target forwards like Jani Nyman, Filip Bystedt, Gleb Trikozov, Julian Lutz, Danny Zhilkin, or Vinzenz Rohrer (Rohrer might be a guy that slips to the 4th due to his size and low production in his first NA season on a bad 67’s team, so if we don’t take him here and he falls to the Boston 3rd or our 4th, we should definitely snag him). I’m hesitant to be the first team to take a goalie in a year with not many quality goalie options, because realistically there isn’t a goalie that probably deserves to go in the first two rounds, but it’s kind of inevitable that one probably will be. If one of the goalies is gone (the best two being Topias Leinonen and Tyler Brennan) I would take the other goalie here to be safe. If neither goalie is taken at 63-65, wait until 72, and then maybe grab one of them there. If we miss both goalies, just take another forward or RD. My preferred goalie would be Leinonen, because we can leave him in Finland for 2-3 years while our current logjam of goalies works itself out (we have Forsberg, Murray, Gustavsson, Sogaard, Merilainen, and Mandolese all needing pro minutes next year).

So an ideal/realistic draft would look something like:
7oa: Kemell (RW)
39oa: Rinzel (RD)
63-65oa: Lutz (LW)
72oa: Leinonen (G)
87oa: Rohrer (RW)
104oa: Isaiah George (LD)
136oa: Jere Lassila (C)
143oa: Servac Petrovsky (C)
151oa: Michael Fisher (RD)
168oa: Liam Steele (RD)
206oa: Florian Elias (C)

Haven’t fully scouted the lower end of the draft yet though, so the later picks are just some guys I’ve heard about one way or another that seem to be ranked outside the top 100. I might have some new favourites in a couple weeks.

Some other sleepers: Jordan Dumais is a must select at any point after the start of the 3rd imo. I think it's kinda crazy that some mocks have him slipping to the 4th or 5th. Jagger Firkus is a guy I'd keep my eye on, if he falls to our late 2nd I'd snap him up hella fast. If we miss out on Leinonen and Brennan, I’d keep picking forwards and defensemen for the first few rounds, and just pick a goalie with one of our 5ths or later. There are a lot of decently skilled, but tiny goalies, like Brett Brochu, Florian Bugl, Hugo Havelid, and Sergei Ivanov. One of them will almost certainly be available in the 7th. There’s probably a goalie that’s like 6’5”+ but unpolished that we could snag in the 5th (this year’s Talyn Boyko), which are usually my favourites, because you can teach positioning, but you can't teach size. Maybe Mason Beaupit or Maxim Arefyev? Haven’t done much research into goalies outside of Brennan/Leinonen yet, and I only know Brochu and Bugl from the WJC.