Five Thoughts For Friday: Greig extension, Meriläinen's excellence, and more!

Four more years of Greig

Our murderous son is sticking around for another four years, on a contract that people seem pretty divided on.

Greig has shown a lot of promise at various points in his young career. Despite early concerns about discipline - and a memorable suspension before he even played his first NHL game - he seems to have figured out where the line is pretty early on, and kept his game clean enough that we haven’t have to worry about him getting himself suspended or taking too many penalties. Last season, he thrived in brief stints on Claude Giroux’s line, proving that he can play up in the lineup if he needs to. He seemed like the ideal 4th liner - a tough, defensive presence who could fill in in the top six as needed. A year ago, I’d have said $3.25M per year sounded like fair value, and maybe even a steal. 

Now? I’m not quite as convinced.

Greig has struggled a lot this season. His point production has been decent for a bottom-six forward, but Natural Stat Trick says that his possession numbers have all declined relative to last season. The eye test supports this: he just hasn’t stood out on the ice, despite his usage being pretty similar to last year’s. He’s also been taking a lot of dumb, ill-timed penalties. His hockeyviz chart has a bit too much blue in the offensive zone.

I still have hope for Greig as a high-energy third liner, but I’d like to see a bit more proof that he can thrive in a bottom-six role. In a way, he almost reminds me of Mathieu Joseph, in that he has moments where he seems like he’d be a steal at just over $3M per year, but he isn’t that impressive when he’s playing down in the lineup. Not quite good enough to stick it out in the top-six, but not quite able to thrive lower in the lineup. Hopefully, that comes with practice.

Winning when it matters

This iteration of the Ottawa Senators has been remarkably consistent, year after year, in their ability to win games once they’re firmly out of the playoffs, and their total inability to win the moment the playoffs are within reach. Watching Chychrun return to the CTC last night brought back memories of his first home game as a Senator, when the crowd chanted “we want playoffs” and the Sens immediately went on a losing streak. It’s infuriating.

Thankfully, the last month has given me a lot of hope. There have been ups and downs, but they’ve stuck with it, and they’ve managed to hover around the playoff race despite losing their spot. Honestly, before this season, I wasn’t very confident in the sens’ ability to win any games if they did somehow make the postseason, but I now have some hope that they could figure it out.

It might be coaching, or it might just be age and experience that’s made the difference, but either way, I’m glad the team seems to have gotten over that particular hurdle.

Meriläinen

The story of the last week has been young goaltender Leevi Meriläinen, who has managed to step up and fill Ullmark’s shoes during the #1 goaltender’s absence. With neither Soogard nor Forsberg playing especially well, it’s been great to see one of our goaltenders step up.

With 7 games under his belt, the rookie goaltender has a staggering .925 save percentage, including 2 shutouts. That puts him ninth in the league by save percentage if you don’t filter out goalies who have only played 1 or 2 games, and third among rookies. It’s still a very small sample size, but it’s such a good story, and so badly needed at this point in the Sens’ season. Can you imagine how cooked this team would be if our goaltending was as bad as it was last year?

I really, really hope he keeps this up, and sticks around as a backup.

Chychrun’s return

Last night was Jakob Chychrun’s grand return to the Canadian Tire Centre after the offseason trade that sent him to Washington, which makes this a good time to revisit the trade.

Chychrun’s time in Ottawa was weird. He came in with a lot of hype, in part because of all the draft picks the Sens parted with in the trade, but in the end concerns about him not being a good fit for the team proved to be true. 

A bit over halfway through the season, Chychrun is on an absolute tear, already nearing last year’s goal total with 12. It seems like obvious fodder for making fun of the Sens and yet… I don’t really care?

Nick Jensen hasn’t been particularly noticeable in Ottawa, but Chabot’s improvement has been extremely noticeable, and it’s probably thanks to him finally having a reliable defense partner. The picks the Sens gave up in the initial trade hurt, but so far this second Chychrun trade looks like a true win-win situation. 

With that said: we should have booed him even more.

A moment of appreciation for Donovan Sebrango

Since the rebuild is “over” (Dorion, 2021) and the prospect cupboards are mostly bare, we don’t get as many heartwarming stories of young players playing their first NHL games as we used to. That’s why it was extra special to see lifelong Sens fan (!!) Donovan Sebrango make his NHL debut for his favourite team. Look at his mom's reaction!

"To think that that moment happened here is one of the greatest moments of my life."

Kim Sebrango's the proudest hockey mom on the planet experiencing her son's NHL debut for his childhood team tonight. 👏 https://t.co/jfnOp4262b pic.twitter.com/CzOFxBM3PG

— NHL (@NHL) January 17, 2025

The Sens are so niche that it’s always shocking when an NHL player says they grew up cheering for them. Sebrango is now my favourite part of the DeBrincat trade. He is the most Go Sens Go player on the team. We’re winning the cup, and we need to acquire every Sens fan in the league. Oliver Bonk, you’re next.