It’s official.
The Senators did not finish in last place.
With Calgary beating Vancouver yesterday just before the playoffs started, the final North Division standings (quite possibly ever) look like this:
1. Toronto: 77 points
2. Edmonton: 72 points
3. Winnipeg: 63 points
4. Montreal: 59 points
5. Calgary: 55 points
6. YOUR BELOVED OTTAWA SENATORS: 51 points
7. Vancouver: 50 points
The over/under, according to my records, was at 46.5 points. Well done, friends.
In other news since we last talked Sens…
Artem Zub has been extended.
No word yet on Drake Batherson and Brady Tkachuk extensions, but everyone’s saying the Tkachuk extension will happen, so it does seem to be just a matter of waiting (and no one seems worried about Batherson).
Wildcard owner Eugene Melnyk has beef both with a yacht company (unrelated to the Senators, but fun read) and the city of Ottawa. Melnyk said on a podcast this week that the Senators will need a new rink in the next few years, and that it’ll probably still be out in the suburbs, with a possibility it’ll be across the river from Ottawa in Gatineau but no chance it’ll be in Ottawa. He specifically called out the city for giving tax breaks to a Porsche dealership but not helping him build a downtown rink, and you know what, I’m going to stay out of that one (after reading the yacht article).
Marcus Högberg won’t be returning, but plenty of goalie options remain, with Matt Murray, Anton Forsberg, Filip Gustavsson, and Joey Daccord all still in the fold at the moment (I don’t know a lot about the NHL offseason and this one’s particularly weird with the expansion draft, in which it sounds like the Sens could lose somebody from this position group).
Arten Anisimov is likewise moving on, and it sounds like Ryan Dzingel, Micheal Haley, and Derek Stepan will do the same.
The expectation is that a captain will be named within the next season between Brady Tkachuk and Thomas Chabot, but there’s no news there yet.
