Five Thoughts for a Friday - T25U25 Miscellanea Continues

I apologize up front to anyone who has grown tired of all our Top 25 Under 25 coverage and who had hoped for a break with this week's instalment of our Five Thoughts. As one of the writers who covers the Ottawa Senators' prospect pool on a regular basis, I tend to have a lot to say about this group so bear with me as I stick to what I know instead of venturing into new and scary territory. For a lot of us, this comes as a highlight on the writing (and reading) calendar, even if the Sens don't have the same calibre of farm system they did five years ago when the rebuild really went into effect. With all of that said, I have some stray thoughts about the list so far (and I'll try really hard here not to spoil the remainder of the list for the readers).

Remember Team North America?

As I recall it, coming off the heels of the Brassard for Zibanejad trade, the Ottawa Senators rolled into the 2016-17 season with exactly one European player on their roster (spoiler alert: it was Erik Karlsson). At the deadline, the Sens acquired Viktor Stalberg and Jyrki Jokipakka; and Andreas Englund and Frederik Claesson did get called up eventually. All told though, those players combined for 59 games played in the regular season (Karlsson played 77). I would love to know where that ranks among single season records in the expansion era for least European representation on an NHL team.

By my count, this year's ballot included players from eight different countries and only ten Canadian players finished in the top 25 (and six US-born players if you trust my arithmetic). For all the heat this team has taken in recent years for failure to scout internationally, the distribution turned out a lot better than I excepted. Of note, all of Ottawa's goaltenders hail from Europe (central Asia, technically, in the case of Vladimir Nikitin).

Water, Water Everywhere

It seems like we remark on this fairly regularly but it still seems kinda funny that a franchise with exactly one reliable goaltender in its modern history always seems to have so many tantalizing goaltending prospects in the system. I have more bias than anyone when it comes to overestimating Ottawa's prospects but I mean sooner or later one of these picks has to pan out in Ottawa (and stay in Ottawa). I'd love to know just how many fanbases routinely have three or four goalies ranked in their systems with nothing to show for it year-in and year-out. Where is the law of averages when you need it.

You can apply the same line of thought to defence in Ottawa too. Considering last year (on paper) the Sens had their first NHL-level set of six defenders in two decades, you would never know how regularly we have internal discussions about all the potential blueline options in the Senators' farm system. Draft picks and prospects don't amount to much more than lottery tickets at the end of the day but just like the goaltending, you feel like the broken clock is just about due to tell the accurate time.

Where Will the Goals Come from?

Naturally when a team has a plethora of goaltenders and defenders in their system, they won't have quite as many forwards and even without getting into the top-ten of this year's rankings, we can appreciate the dearth of bona fide NHL goal-scorers in the Senators' system. Unlike the situation with goalies and defenders and my hope against hope that something will work out there, we could always tell the Sens would need to solicit outside help for goal-scoring. The previous regime put a lot of faith in the likes of Tyler Boucher, Egor Sokolov, and Roby Järventie--yikes. This team does have some top-six talent currently in the NHL and the Alex DeBrincat trade seemed like the perfect solution but now the Sens once again will have to rely on depth players to generate offence above expectation.

Deep Picks (Better than no picks at all)

Speaking of the previous regime (and I apologize for always bringing up my ex but everything I know about sports writing leads me back to the zany years of Ottawa Senators hockey), I look forward to seeing whether the new scouting staff have drafting results with a more linear trajectory (i.e. hitting on top picks with less success in later rounds). We already know that the Sens have swung and missed on about at least a half a dozen first rounders in the past 20 years while finding several long-term contributors later in the drat. I would love to see players like Maxence Guenette, Jorian Donovan, or Matthew Andonovski outperform their draft selections. I would also love to see this team consistently connect on can't-miss picks. Given the desperate need to generate goals, and soon, I may sacrifice the former for the latter.

Belleville in Transition

It also bears mentioning as the Senators organization moves away from having a stocked prospect cupboard that the staff in Belleville will once again have their work cut out for them. The front office stayed pretty busy in terms of finding veteran AHLers to round out Ottawa's fourth line and replenish a thin Belleville roster (one that also looks pretty thin in terms of pure goal-scoring). In the absence of Järventie and Sokolov, and with no idea what we can expect from Boucher, I really have no idea who will score the goals in Belleville. Angus Crookshank has a good shot at making the NHL roster, leaving Stephen Halliday to pick up where the former left off. Xavier Bourgault couldn't have asked for a better opportunity after getting a raw deal in Bakersfield.

In terms of goaltending, even without Kevin Mandolese, Belleville should fair just fine as long as the injury bug doesn't pester the organization too much. Considering Belleville has already lost Lassi Thomson, on the blueline, the graduations of Kleven and Guenette would put a lot of weight on the shoulders of Donovan and Tomas Hamara. It won't break the organization if Belleville has an off year so I won't overthink it. I still look forward to seeing a lot of these players getting professional games under their belts. And if the BSens can maybe find a way to score by committee then I don't see any reason why the parent club can't figure it out. Just keep waiting for time to catch up with that broken clock.