Järventie and Mandolese Out: Staios Contuines to Put his Stamp on the Ottawa Senators

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On Monday, Steve Staios continued his reconstruction of the Ottawa Senators' organizational depth chart by trading Roby Järventie and Kevin Mandolese in separate deals. So while Staios and co. took their time assessing personnel after first taking over last summer, let it never be said that the man was unwilling to shake things up when he deemed that the time was right. Järventie and Mandolese's departures are not by themselves earth-shattering transactions, but here is a list of players that at least at some point played NHL games for Ottawa that have departed since the conclusion of the 2023-24 season:

Jakob Chychrun, Joonas Korpisalo, Mathieu Joseph, Erik Brännström, Mark Kastelic, Parker Kelly, Egor Sokolov, Roby Järventie, Kevin Mandolese

Considering that NHL teams have a maximum of 50 pro contracts at any given time, the departures represent almost 20% of the franchise's depth chart. We have yet to see one of the really big names move (assuming you don't count Chychrun) but there have been a lot of changes. One thing that I think can fairly be said of Staios is that he, perhaps unlike his predecessor, will move on from distressed assets – even if that means taking a perhaps less-than-optimal return.

The Chychrun and Joseph trades, while certainly defensible in the broader context of the organization's structure, were both transactions where the team did not exactly maximize their return on investment. Trading Järventie and a fourth-round pick for another scuffling prospect (Xavier Bourgault) and an ECHLer (Jake Chiasson) does not scream asset maximization. Maybe Mandolese was only worth the upgrade from a 7th to a 6th round pick, but, again, this reads more like a trade that was made to help clarify the goalie depth chart more than it was to maximize Mandolese's value. I don't think it was a coincidence that Mads Sogaard was signed on the same day that Mandolese was dealt.

In the case of the Järventie trade, here's what Scott Wheeler had to say about Bourgault back in January as part of his Farm System Rankings:

Though the numbers haven’t come in the AHL yet (Bourgault was actually one of a poor Bakersfield team’s most productive players as a rookie last year but has hit a bit of a wall this season), I still believe Bourgault will figure it out. He was one of the QMJHL’s best forwards two years ago when I was consistently impressed by him in double-digit live viewings split between three Hockey Canada events and the Memorial Cup.

Though his late-October birthday was always a factor in contextualizing his three standout seasons in junior, Bourgault’s tools almost all grade out highly. He does a great job improvising under pressure to slide pucks around defenders, switch from a two-hand carry to a one-hand carry or pick up his pace. His handles and edges as he adjusts to pressure both look easy (he was one of the better stickhandlers in the QMJHL as well). He has developed into a quick skater in straight lines. I like his change of direction with the puck. And his game has deception, with little stutters in his release that force the goalie down early and fake passes that force defenders to bite. He hides the puck on his stick and sends mixed signals beautifully because his hands, feet and eyes do different things. He’s dangerous in a variety of ways, with a release that comes off his blade early in his shooting motion and stance to surprise goalies (off either foot or from awkward postures, too), a hard one-timer and smart instincts inside the offensive zone.

And though he’s neither big nor small, his detail has made him an able penalty killer at various points in his career, he holds his own defensively, and he plays through contact consistently thanks in part to good core balance over a wide skating stance.

He does have work to do to get to the middle third against pros more than he has, though. And while he, like Holloway, played some centre coming up, he projects as a winger. Still, there’s a path for him to develop into an impactful secondary playmaker as a top-nine winger with power-play upside.

Wheeler's definitely the analyst with the highest opinion of Bourgault, while some others are not quite so sure. David St-Louis of Elite Prospects was more typical of analyst reaction and posted the following in the aftermath of the trade:

Maybe Bourgault will be able to help the Sens, but you have to squint pretty hard to see enough of a gap between him and Järventie to justify a 4th round pick. Rather, this looks like a situation where Ottawa's management decided that Järventie wasn't ever going to crack the NHL on a full-time basis and wanted to move on while he still had some value. Maybe they were worried he was never going to be able to stay healthy, maybe they thought he would never round out his game; we might never know. At any rate, Ottawa clearly felt Järventie had run through all of his chances.

While Staios has been tight-lipped about specifics of any roster planning, he's been clear from the start that he wanted to run a professional organization that gets shit done. As longtime fellow blogger Graeme Nichols noted, Ottawa's very much taken care of business this off-season:

At a high level, I have no issues with Staios' goals and modus operandi. He wanted to address the team's goaltending, reconfigure the top four on the blueline, switch out the NHL team's depth, and overhaul the prospect pool. While I might not agree with each individual transaction, there are some clear winners and losers in there to my mind, it is nice to see decisive action. Things needed to change in several areas, and change they have. The difference in professionalism between this iteration of the front office and its predecessor could not be more pronounced.

Will all of the movement improve the team or is it just rearranging the deck chairs on the proverbial Titanic? Well the good news is that with almost all of the pressing questions already answered, we're going to have all summer to debate just that.