Five Thoughts for a Friday - It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Blurst of Times

Friends, thank you all, once again for joining me this Friday on our mutual quest of consciousness-expansion. Like every week before this one, I tried looking at your Ottawa Senators roster from every conceivable angle in an effort to establish a thesis I haven't already exploited a thousand times before. And, in looking at said roster, it dawned on me that I really haven't given any thought to the professional players that Steve Staios and company acquired this off-season. To that effect, I figured I would look at the new guys, stack them up against their predecessors, and using a completely unscientific and untested methodology, determine the possible outcomes, be they good or bad. Enjoy!

David Perron

Last year the Ottawa Senators got 17 goals and 24 assists from a 32-year-old Vladimir Tarasenko (before logically cutting bait at the deadline) at a $5M cap hit (eventually 50% retained). Of note, Tarasenko also played some atrocious defence with the Sens giving up almost eight more shot attempts per 60 with Tank on the ice at five-on-five. This year Tarasenko will play for Detroit--go figure! Last year, David Perron at age-35 had 17 goals and 30 assists in Detroit at a cap hit of $4.75M (so Ottawa got a bit of an age and commitment discount at $4Mx2). Perron also played perfectly cromulent defence for Detroit giving up about four fewer shot attempts per 60 when on the ice at five-on-five (these numbers courtesy of natural stat trick).

Perron's individual production has slowed down predictably relative to the aging curve since his best years in St. Louis and I think we could realistically expect 15 goals over a full season. Defensively, he plays as well as he ever has and he draws a lot of penalties so I can see the value there.

Best case scenario: Perron approaches 20 goals including some much-needed five-on-five production and offers defensive insulation for Ottawa's younger top-six forwards.

Worst case scenario: Perron barely scores ten goals and his play away from the puck finally falls apart. Tarasenko has a 30-goal season for Detroit who overtake Ottawa in the standings.

Linus Ullmark

Last year the Senators got a slapstick -21 goals saved above average (all situations) from 29-year-old Joonas Korpisalo at a now-comical $4M cap hit (they'll pay part of it for the next four years, too). Korpisalo had a forgivable -0.26 GSAA/60 at five-on-five and ranked bottom-five in the league on the penalty kill at -2.34 GSAA/60. Meanwhile, in Boston, Linus Ullmark saved 13.8 goals above expected in all situations at age-30 at a cap-hit of $5M (he will hit free agency after this season). Ullmark's all situation save percentage has only dipped below 91 once in his career (2018-19 in Buffalo). His absurd save percentage of almost 94 in 2022-23 certainly seems like an outlier and 91.5 represents about the average you would expect based on his performance to date. Even during an "average" season last year, Ullmark ranked top-ten in five-on-five GSAA/60 at 0.50 and he fared perfectly well with a GSAA/60 of 0.15 on the penalty kill.

With goalies aging completely differently from forwards and defenders, I don't see why Ullmark's numbers should suddenly fall off a cliff now.

Best case scenario: Ullmark saves 20 goals above average and gets the Sens a winning record.

Worst case scenario: Ullmark regresses to his rookie numbers and the Sens find themselves in the same place they did a year ago. Korpisalo wins the Vezina for Boston who go on to the Stanley Cup finals.

Nick Jensen

Last year the Senators got a respectable 14 goals and 27 assists from 25-year-old Jakob Chychrun at $4.6M as the team frantically tried to get all of their puck-moving, left-handed defenders into the mix on a regular basis. In the process, Ottawa gave up about four more shot attempts per 60 at five-on-five. It seems like across the board, Chychrun regressed from his best seasons with the Coyotes. In DC, Nick Jensen had a very modest one goal and 13 assists at age-33 making just over $4M against the cap. The Capitals gave up about one less shot attempt against per 60 at five-on-five with Jensen on the ice (and about broke even in terms of expected goals against with or without him).

Last year marked a drastic downturn for Jensen in terms of individual production, whether age-related or not, we can speculate (his on-ice shooting percentage did not plummet (on another note, his on-ice save percentage has always held pretty steady)). Like Perron, Jensen draws a good number of penalties (and takes few for a defender).

Best case scenario: Jensen contributes 15-20 points and becomes the shutdown partner Thomas Chabot has needed since Dylan DeMelo left town.

Worst case scenario: Jensen produces nothing, defends below replacement level, and becomes another Travis Hamonic. Chychrun gets Norris votes for Washington who overtake Ottawa in the standings.

Michael Amadio

Last year the Sens got 11 goals and 24 assists from Mathieu Joseph in his age-26 season at a controversial cap hit of just under $3M before fulfilling the years-long contract-dump prophecy (with a suitor I never saw coming tee bee aitch). Joseph also held up his end of the defensive bargain with the Sens surrendering about 0.6 fewer shot attempts per 60 at five-on-five with Joseph on the ice, and with Joseph effectively killing penalties and providing a short-handed threat for good measure. Joseph also played a pretty disciplined game, drawing more penalties than he took. Michael Amadio in his age-27 season has 14 goals and 13 assists for the Knights at a cap hit under $1M and the Knights gave up about 0.4 fewer shot attempts per 60 at five-on-five with Amadio on the ice.

At this point, a 30-point campaign seems like Amadio's ceiling depending on deployment. He has consistently kept his head above water in terms of on-ice stats and played a pretty average, disciplined game. Given the guaranteed money the Sens offered Amadio, the staff see these skills as repeatable.

Best case scenario: Amadio approaches 20 goals and plays sound defence to round out Ottawa's third line.

Worst case scenario: Amadio languishes as a fourth-liner and his contract becomes a burden. Joseph finally has a 20-goal season and the Blues flip him for a second-rounder or a B-prospect at the deadline.

Senateurs d'Ottawa

It occurs to me now that I only had four thoughts planned out and that the title of the article is, in fact, Five Thoughts--how embarrassing! Other than the acquisition of Ullmark, I see a lot of lateral (at best) moves. This organization moved a lot of furniture as we all would have expected. Even the Bonestorm-Kleven paradigm seems like a pretty innocuous shift (imagine me saying that four years ago!). Given the age of this team's core and its cap situation, I don't know that I expected much else. I like the changes to the bottom-six (improved even further by yesterday's addition of Nick Cousins), and I can forgive the Chychrun trade considering this team improved its goaltending considerably.

Best case scenario: Ottawa gets some lucky bounces this time around and makes the postseason.

Worst case scenario: the peripheral tinkering amounts to nothing and the brass decides to blow up the core (selfishly as a writer I can think of even worse outcomes like missing the playoffs again and rolling out the same roster again again).