Love For Jacques Martin

Jacques Martin got the bums rush out of Ottawa, and I didn't think that it was deserved at the time.

Head honcho Muckler let Martin(*) go, after yet another team which excelled during the regular season was shown the door early in the post season, with comments along the lines of "the room needs shaking up and I can't fire all the players". Which is perhaps simplistic, but on the other hand fundamentally true.

Now back from the dead Florida, Martin is once again running his system of defensive discipline with the Montreal Canadiens. Backed by a resurgent Carey Price, the Canadians are playing simple, tight hockey in their own end, waiting patiently for opportunities granted through the opposition's errors.

And it was this system which stymied the Ottawa Senators back on Tuesday(**).

What I saw on Tuesday was the Senators doing their best to create offensive chances, but the Canadiens' discipline and patient play meant that few chances came together.

Ottawa's lone goal from Foligno resulted from a power play rush that the Canadiens' mis-read, leaving Foligno alone with the puck long enough to get a shot off that snuck through Price. It was a lucky goal, sure, but if you give enough chances to a team, even Ottawa is going to get lucky occasionally.

Yes, Ottawa stopped trying in the third more than a little. But I think the first parts of the game were not entirely all bad, and if the team keeps playing together the way they played parts of the Montreal game, then good things will start to happen.

Maybe this is just diminished expectations brought on by the team's performance this year... but once you figure that playoffs are not really going to feature this spring, you'll settle for pretty much anything.(***)

But really, I thought Martin was made the scapegoat for the team at the time, and I'm more than a little pleased to see that he is once again enjoying some success.

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(*) = Muckler, Murray, Martin, Melnyk -- The Ottawa Senators ownership and senior executives are brought to you by the letter M.

(**) == Yes, Tuesday. Life: I has one.

(***) = <include mandatory Leafs joke.>

Love for Coach Clouston

Houses Of The Hockey gives up some love for Coach Clouston.

At the end of the day, you can’t fault Clouston for where the Senators are in the standings. If Clouston, a winning coach and the best coach the Senators have had in years, can’t win with this roster, I’m not sure any other coach would fair much better.

And the fact of the matter is, other coaches have not fared better.

I said at the time that Hartsburg left that I didn't think the team's poor results were entirely his fault. The problem was that the guys on the ice were not putting in the consistent effort every night. My view was I'd like to see what Hartsburg could do with a real team before we decided if he was to be fired.

And the same problem is happening here. I've said before, I thought the problem was that 2007 happened a year too early. 2007 happened because Ray Emery played way, way over his head for the entire playoff series, and that inspired the rest of the team to increase their level of play. As a result, everyone thought that the construction of the team was complete, and we would challenge in 2008.

Reality was somewhat different, and since then we've been slowly tweaking ourselves into the current situation. While I think the guys on the ice are not playing to their capabilities, they are definitely not playing over their heads in the way required to succeed with this roster.

The other problem that GMs face is that they generally can't fire the entire roster due to contract limitations. If the GM thinks a change has to be made, the coach is the at-will employee closest to the players that can be fired.

We are still coming to grips with this cap-centric world, so while Murray has to take some of the blame for the current situation, the fact is that none of his colleagues have really shown they understand how to work the cap-centric world either. Until that happens, look for trades to be both infrequent and one-sided. Infrequent because the cap will govern any moves made, and one-sided because one side of the trade will inevitably be forced to accept less than one might otherwise consider fair. (See also Dany Heatley.)

The bottom line is that Murray has to be better about assembling the pieces. If we have to go through a dry spell, then I for one would like to see emphasis on picks and prospects, trying to trade intelligently for a future more than just 10 games away.

Until then, Clouston is a perfectly adequate coach and I don't see a reason to fire him.

Slim Down, Not Bulk Up

Silver Seven Sens wants to know who you would trade for Ilya Kovalchuk from the Atlanta Thrashers.

My answer? No one.

Look, Kovalchuk is a talented player, of that there is no doubt. He even isn't "enigmatic" like Alex Kovalev is.

There are three problems with this idea. The first problem is he is in a contract year and he is going UFA over the summer. He is the very definition of the word "rental". In the unlikely event he does sign with Ottawa, it will be for big bucks, which will come at the cost of someone else.

The second is that right now Atlanta is very much the definition of the term "blow up your team" and so won't be looking for short-term skilled acquisitions -- they want more picks and prospects, something to rebuild around for longer term success.

The third is that such a trade does absolutely nothing to solve the issues in the defense corps.

The real question is: why are you considering this? Do you seriously think that adding Kovalchuk to the team, with the resulting immediate team loss of some kind of talent going the other way plus the inevitable combination of picks and prospects, is going to make this team go deep this post season? Because if you are not, you are wasting your time.

The time to sell your long term future to rent some additional skill is when you are making a run.

The Citizen has an article detailing an allegedly sorry state of Ottawa's farm system, dumping responsibility for the whole mess on previous GM John Muckler. Basically the conclusion is the larder is bare. If the future of the hockey club is in the farm team, then the Senators are still looking down, not up.

The Senators are still struggling a bit with high-priced talent that they can't use. This is the same generalized argument I made when I first proposed trading Dany Heatly. These players -- I am thinking of Kovalev, Spezza, Fisher, Michalek, and yes even his amazingness Daniel Alfredsson -- are assets that we can't leverage properly. As amazing as all these guys can be are can be, the Senators are not in a position to challenge this year.

I know I've been beating the drum about this less this year. That's been a deliberate choice. I've decided that even if Brian Murray doesn't know what he's doing, he's the man in charge and we should let him do his job.

Look at the state of the league right now. It is rare to see repeat contenders. (OK, last year was a bad example.) The consensus is that there are two teams which have to succeed this year if they are going to -- I am thinking of Chicago and San Jose here.

Chicago especially is going to be in a bad way because they have been blessed with three highly talented players all at the same time, all of which will be expecting big bucks next year at contract time. Once they lose some of these guys, and/or have to gut the rest of the team to keep these three guys, they are going to be rebuilding, no question about it.

See also Montreal, which was set up to peak last year for their centennial. This year, where are they? Nowhere. OK Montreal blew up prematurely for reasons nobody really understands, but this team now is going back to basics, back to rebuilding.

This I think is the reality that Senators fans have to face. Unless you can find a lot of guys who will play over their pay grades, or a lot of fresh young (cheap) talent, you won't have a solid chance because there will always some other team which either does have a lot of guys who play over their pay grades or a lot of fresh young (cheap) talent.

Our eyes should be on eventual success, not just passing some arbitrary bar this year. Trading for Kovalchuk now would give us a definite edge while chasing a playoff spot this year. However, it would cost us even more from our already depleted future.