Five Thoughts for Friday:

Welcome one, welcome all. You surely know the drill by now: Five Thoughts, for your reading pleasure, on a Friday. Enjoy!

Three Team Trade?

If Bruce Garrioch is to be believed, and he often is on these things, then the Ottawa Senators will be trying their absolute darndest to trade Alex DeBrincat before the start of free agency. To maximize the return on a potential DeBrincat trade, Pierre Dorion apparently asked for a list of teams where DeBrincat would consider signing an extension; a list that, accoring to Garrioch, includes: the Dallas Stars, Nashville Predators, Florida Panthers, Vegas Golden Knights, and Detroit Red Wings. By Garrioch's own accounting that means there are four teams that are unknown at this time, though the Carolina Hurricanes have been also been bandied about at various points in time.

The trouble with any hypothetical DeBrincat trade, and particularly with any of the teams on this list, is a mismatch in terms of what the Sens want vs. what the team trading for DeBrincat can provide. Generally speaking, teams aren't in the business of trading a top flight, young player unless they are going into a rebuild or something similar. The Sens, however, are clearly not interested in another season outside of the play-offs (nor should they be), and so the typical package of picks and prospects doesn't quite work here. Now, the Sens' farm system is pretty thin right now (which I touch on later in this piece) but Ottawa's forward group isn't good enough to lose DeBrincat without some half-decent replacement and hope to move up the standings. This is why I think Pierre Dorion might find himself in the situation of needing to facilitate a three-team trade.

A popular hypothetical trading partner among Sens fans has been the Philadelphia Flyers, with eyes towards Travis Konecny in particular. Konecny is a (maybe small) step down from DeBrincat, but he's a good player on a good contract and he'd contribute to a play-off team. The problem is that I cannot envision a situation where the Flyers want DeBrincat right now – he just doesn't fit what they're trying to do. Now, if say the Carolina Hurricanes wanted to offer up their first round pick and a top prospect for DeBrincat, which the Sens could in turn flip to the Flyers, then I see how all parties' needs can be met.

Maybe there's a simple verion of a DeBrincat trade that gets both parties what they want, but scanning the landscape I wonder if making this deal might be a bit more complicated than your usual fare.

Oskar Pettersson Signs

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you are probably at least passingly familiar with the Sens' prospect pool. Even for the diehards, though, Pettersson might be a bit of an unknown quantity. The 2022 third round selection signed his entry-level contract yesterday, and is expected to attend development camp before heading back to play for Rogle BK in the Swedish Hockey League.

Pettersson performed well in the first part of last season, tallying 23 goals and 10 assists for 33 points in only 24 games while suiting up for Rogle BK-Jr. In the second part of the year, however, Pettersson played his hockey with the Rogle senior team in the Swedish Hockey League, and the results were, uh, not quite as impressive: a meagre goal and an assists in 29 games.

As is typical of Pierre Dorion, his quote in the presser announcing Pettersson's signing was effusive:

Oskar has quickly become one of the organization's top prospects. He had a strong first pro season and showcases a similar maturity level to players who are much older than he. A north/south winger who has demonstrated that he's capable of playing in all situations, he routinely utilizes his speed to effectively cycle the puck. He's a smart player with good habits; his work ethic alone is certain to be of considerable value to him as he strives to take the next step.

Either Dorion has a much broader definition of the term "top" than I do, or Pettersson was a lot more impressive in his time in the SHL than his numbers might suggest. It is worth noting that it is very rare for teenagers to produce very much offensively in the top European leagues unless they are absolute game-breaking talents; European pro leagues aren't development leagues, and the Sens can't exactly tell the team to play Pettersson on the top line. Daniel Alfredsson, for example, only scored 6 points in 21 games as a 20 year old in the top Swedish league.

All that being said, Dorion's comments do inadvertently highlight the fact there is a weakness at the top of the Sens' current prospect pool. The reasons why the pool is depleted are well known, and not worth re-visiting here, but the facts are the facts, and it will behoove Dorion (or whoever replaces him) to replenish the cupboards in order to keep the current Sens' core competitive for as long as possible.

Depth, Depth, Depth

One of the things that struck me as I watched what turned out to be a fairly lopsided Stanley Cup final, was the relentlessness of the Vegas Golden Knights. Vegas simply did not have a single scrub in their line-up. You cannot win without top-end talent, and the presence of Jack Eichel, Mark Stone and Alex Pietrangelo gave them that, but life is a lot easier when you know that every player on the ice can pull their weight. Friend of the blog Travis Yost took a stab at quantifying the Golden Knights' triumphant run through the play-offs and the results were staggering: not a single skater was out-scored at 5v5. This was a continuation of the regular season, when only two skaters (Paul Cotter and Phil Kessel) had negative goal differentials at 5v5.

How does this relate to the Sens? Well, in my estimation the team dressed four, sometimes as many as five, forwards who wouldn't have sniffed the ice for Vegas. If the Sens are looking for a blueprint for what a true, four line team looks like, Dorion and co. can start with the Golden Knights

The State of Local Sports Media

There were lay-offs at TSN1200 earlier this week, part of Bell's larger shrinking of their labour force by 1,300 jobs. An evaluation of the soundness of the reasoning for Bell undertaking this type of action is beyond the scope of this blog, but combined with the Athletic announcing a re-orienting of their coverage away from local beat writers, and cutting some jobs in the process, it's been a tough week for local sports media.

Sports talk radio is not really my cup of tea, but a lot of Sens fans are avid listeners of TSN1200. The hosts are locals with deep knowledge and a passion for the local team – losing some of that, with the threat of a more permanent closure looming, is a blow to the overall Sens fan experience. I've used the world "local" a lot in the last few sentences and that choice is deliberate: coverage of professional sports is experiencing a pull towards the centre, that is the biggest teams and the juiciest storylines get all of the attention while local coverage slowly withers. I can't say that I'm particularly enthused about the prospect of this evolution.

In Sens-media, we're blessed with a number of non-traditional media coverage of the team, and I can only hope that continues to prosper in the face of the shrinking of the more conventional coverage.

Moving Forward

A lot of digital ink has already been spilled on the subject of Michael Andlauer buying the team (if you haven't read Spencer's write-up yet, then I strongly suggest that you do!) so I won't belabour the specifics  but I did want to touch on the feeling of relief that I've been experiencing since the deal was announced on Tuesday. Although much of the shroud of the prior ownership's time had lifted, the uncertainty of a sale had made my celebration muted; it's hard to get too excited about the future when you don't know what that future looks like.

Well, now we know. And all I can say is that it feels really good. I'm sure as time passes I'll eventually have a more nuanced take about new ownership but that's about all I can muster right now; a general feeling of contentedness. That's not such a bad thing considering where we've come from.