News and Notes: Weekend Round-up

The Ottawa Senators didn’t get up to too much of anything this weekend, but there’s always news to share from the hockey world:

• Russia beat Canada 3-2 on Saturday in the final of Hlinka Gretzky U18 Men’s tournament. Canada seems to have been the better of the two teams, out-shooting the Russians 37-13, but Yaroslav Askarov turned aside 35 shots. Hendrix Lapierre led Team Canada with 10 points in five games. Lapierre and Askarov are a couple of names you might remember from Colin’s (way too early) look at the top 20 of 2020 (1-10 and 11-20); I can’t say I normally pay too much attention to non-IIHF sanctioned summer tournaments, but getting really familiar with the top prospects of the 2020 draft might be one of the best parts of being a Sens fan this year.
• It’s always a bit dicey to read too much into interviews European players give to newspapers in their native language, but this report sure does make it seem like Rasmus Ristolainen wants out of Buffalo. Ristolainen had another good year scoring-wise with 43 points in 78 games last season, but his team has always struggled to outshoot the opponent when he’s on the ice and he was a ghastly -41 last season if you care about that sort of thing. His value can’t be all that high, and he’s got three years left on a contract that carries a cap hit of $5.4M. Nonetheless, there seems to be an overhaul underway in Buffalo: will the Sabres move on from someone they not that long ago considered to be their defenseman of the future?
• Lastly, the Sens Foundation on Friday announced a $95,000 donation to cover the day camp fees of 850 children in the Lowertown area. The Lowertown Community Resource Centre services one of the lowest income neigbourhoods in the city, so it’s great to hear the summer of so many children will be improved by being able to attend day camps./