COVID-19 pause pauses to think about Senator list decisions the rest of the way

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Ottawa Senators fans who complain about the injustice of it all have finally gotten their wish from the National Hockey League.

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The NHL’s decision to put senators on the ice – er, off the ice – for a week is the responsible decision, albeit a few days late. Apparently the point of no return for NHL is when the positive case count reaches double digits.

The prudent health and safety decision is not just about the home team here, but also about the New Jersey Devils, the Nashville Predators, the New York Rangers and everyone else who would have been at risk of being exposed to COVID-19 as a result. Senators traveled in and out of the United States this week.

Postponed games will have to pick up somewhere along the way on an already tight schedule; We’ll revisit the 2020-21 Vancouver Canucks nightmare in a moment, but the weekend’s situation had gotten almost ridiculous, with the American Hockey League. Senators from Belleville are about to put up Help Wanted posters for players due to the number of calls to Ottawa.

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If testing goes well from here, most of those now on the COVID-19 protocol will be cleared to take off for Denver, where the season is scheduled to start again next Monday.

On a positive note, there may be time for Senators fans to catch up on Netflix or start Christmas shopping early. The club is not scheduled to play at the Canadian Tire Center until the Vancouver visit on December 1.

However, from a broader perspective, the pause in the action also provides time to pause to think about where to go with the roster after a disappointing 4-10-1 start.

Let’s start in the middle, where the club’s number two and three centers, Shane Pinto and Colin White, will not be returning from injury any time soon. The hope that Pinto would pick up where he left off as a solid two-way pivot after four games disappeared when he injured his shoulder again in a showdown in Saturday’s win over the Pittsburgh Penguins.

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The question now is whether the senators should look for a suitable replacement, which could allow Nick Paul to return to the left wing.

Such a move would require taking on more salary, while also giving up some combination of prospects or draft picks. There’s no point giving up the future hope stemming from 19-year-old Ridly Greig, who currently plays with Brandon in the Western Hockey League, but the Senators currently own two second-round picks and three third-round picks in the 2022 Inning Draft.

What you also have to factor into the equation is what is the realistic goal at this point?

If it’s a comeback battle to challenge for a playoff spot from the Atlantic Division basement, 95 points is a reasonable target number for what will be required. In that case, the Senators would have to do something like 38-25-4, 39-26-2 or 37-24-6 in the last 67 games to reach that standard. It’s possible to regain that ground, but it’s a long shot and last time we checked, Andrew Hammond was playing for AHL’s Iowa Wild.

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Now on the defense, where the old debate begins again.

Similar to the start of the 2020-21 season, Senators coach DJ Smith has struggled to find the mix of veterans to fill deep roles.

If there has been any mixed blessing in the COVID-19 crisis, it has been the retirement of 2019 first-round pick Lassi Thomson from the AHL for the last three games. With the selection of Jake Sanderson in 2020, Thomson had been somewhat forgotten in the pipeline, but to his credit, the senators have taken their time nurturing Thomson, giving him the full 2020-21 season under the tutelage of the head coach of Belleville, Troy Mann. and assistant coach Dave Bell.

Thomson has been solid thus far, earning Smith praise for his defense skills. That has been the fight for Erik Brannstrom, whose injury woes have continued due to a broken hand.

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The Senators have also received a smaller snapshot of where 2018 first-round pick Jacob Bernard-Docker stands in development. As Mann described it a couple of weeks ago, Bernard-Docker spent the beginning of the current season going through an adjustment in the pros that was similar to what Thomson experienced last season.

So what happens if Nick Holden, Josh Brown, Viktor Mete, and Nikita Zaitsev go off their COVID-19 protocol? At this point, it makes sense to give Thomson a chance to stick around for a while, playing ahead of players who don’t have a long-term future with the Senators.

There will be difficulties for senators to find a place for make-up games in a schedule already tight by the Olympics. But in hopes of containing the outbreak now, the Senators can avoid the situation the Canucks faced last season. At one point, 20 members of the organization were sidelined and a dozen games were postponed.

In the end, the Canucks were forced to play their last 12 games in 19 days and fatigue caught up with them as they finished the season with a 6-12-0 record.

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