Start Placing Bets on the Vets

There is now a grand total of 35 days until the Sens play their first (exhibition) game of the 07-08 season, in London, ON, against the completely revamped Philadelphia Flyers. I have my tickets, how about you? However, with just those 35 days left until their first game, and just under two months now until their season opener October 3rd in Toronto, we're still a ways from having a clear roster.

It takes 20 men on a sheet for Paddock to hand over a roster for a game, and up to 23 men can be on the team roster for the season, the extras of course being scratched (such as McGrattan so often was last season). To look at the online Sens roster, a little simple math and the naive would think we've got our full 23 players ready (and hopefully rarin') to go. But take a closer look. There are three goaltenders there, and in a game you will only ever ice two. Seeing as we've tied up almost 7 million in two of them, Jeff Glass is only there for show, at least for another two seasons or major trade have passed. Move on up the list and you'll count eight defensemen, two more than you'd ever tend to ice in a game (unless one of them is Schubert). At the top of the list, you'll find the bare minimum: only twelve forwards listed. However, due to some very lazy or incompetent or unwilling-to-face-the-truth types in control of the website, Saprykin is still listed on the roster, despite his long-since-reported return to the motherland. This leaves us with only 11 forwards. Coupled with Schubert's 51 games last season on left wing likely to be reprised, we've got the bare minimum.

What can we expect come the beginning of the season though? Glass will drop from the list since using one of those 23 slots on a third goalie makes absolutely no sense. Saprykin will also drop, once someone comes to his or her senses. Finally, depending on how the rest of the off-season and training camp goes, we might find that Schubert will actually get to play his position, which would see one of Nycholat or Richardson slide backwards into Binghamton, not that they aren't used to performing in the AHL.

So what does that leave as far as filling out the rest of the roster? It's not likely we'll be trading anyone else, since the big salaries can't easily be moved, or refuse to be moved, and the rest are all productive and ones we would like to keep. So either a promotion from the B-Sens will be needed, or else a new free agent face will need to be brought into the fold.

With all due respect to those itching to see a promotion from within, I implore you to realize the value in properly seasoning the green. The more time they have to prepare, the better they will be on arrival, and all the more anxious to strike out in the big leagues. Not to mention that we've got a ton of players to re-sign this season, so the fewer contracts we have to commit to for the 07-08 season, the better. Yes, we could sign a promoted player to a one-year deal, but it's far from fun to see a player reach their first full NHL season, explode onto the scene, and then have their contract die and get caught in the cap trying to keep him.

This is why I propose that, like Richardson just now, we sign ourselves another veteran or two. With the cap crunching and crutching teams, it's no easy feat to get signed in the NHL today, even as a grizzled veteran with experience. Some are heading to Europe and Russia to score a bigger payday, like Saprykin. Others are still milling about, waiting for a deal here at home. Under the many big name resume's, I think we can find some true bargains.

Take Richardson. He signed for a mere half a mil, the league minimum, and as a two-way deal that will likely see him in Binghamton. I'm sure that a huge, experienced, healthy defenseman like him wasn't someone Tampa, with only six signed defenders so far, would have wanted to wave goodbye to. It's far more likely that Richardson wanted to end his career with a team that could win the best known sports trophy in the world, and in his hometown no less.

That's the same reason that Jason York, another large, grizzled, and former Sens alum of five seasons has been practically begging Murray for a job. But after signing Richardson as the 8th potential NHL D-man, and before that Nycholat as the 7th, and with Schubert possibly moving back to defense, it's sadly unlikely that York will get a call back, despite the thrill it would be to take another run for the Cup with grizzled veterans and our energetic youth, not to mention finally with as many players from Ottawa as from Toronto on our roster.

But there's still hope. Maybe some still for York, but more still for other vets to join the team, rather than face unemployment or the need to move to the other side of the world. Maybe it won't happen for the pre-season games, when it's likely that Paddock will want to try all the different line combinations he can, and also give some of the B-Sens a chance to show some skill. Maybe not even for the season opener. But watch out, because as time wears on, and possibly with more injuries, we may yet get to sign the vets, in my hopes the Canadian ones, and what an exciting season that would truly be. 36 more days, people, just 36 more days until the puck drops on what should be the most exciting season in Senators hockey for the modern-day franchise.