GARRIOCH: Pierre Dorion and the Ottawa Senators turn their sights towards next season


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The Ottawa Senators rolled up their sleeves and started to put plans in place for next season Monday at the Canadian Tire Centre.

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While 2021-22 only wrapped up Friday night with a 4-2 victory over the Philadelphia Flyers at the Wells Fargo Center, the Senators can’t change what’s happened in the past and it’s time to turn the page to prepare for training camp in September .

General manager Pierre Dorion sat down with the club’s management staff at the rink — including assistant GM Peter MacTavish and senior VP Pierre McGuire — to start planning ahead for what’s going to be a busy off-season.

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Though the Senators will be keeping a close eye on their AHL affiliate in Belleville when it opens the playoffs Wednesday against the Rochester Americans on the road, Dorion and his staff will also be focused on watching the Stanley Cup playoffs that started Monday night.

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Dorion stated in his end-of-season press conference Sunday he’s determined to find the right fit to help the core of this team get to the next level.

The club will have a 6.5% chance of winning the No. 1 overall pick in the draft lottery that will be held May 10 at the NHL Network studios in Secaucus, NJ That’s the seventh-best odds and if the club doesn’t win then Dorion may be open for business with that pick.

Under the rules of the lottery, the Senators can’t fall any lower than No. 9 in the draft.

Though Dorion doesn’t want to tip his hand publicly, it’s no secret the Senators would like to add a top-six winger to play on the right side of skilled center Tim Stuetzle. That will either come through a trade or when free agency opens on July 13.

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The club may also want to add another defenseman. Those who have seen prospect defenseman Jake Sanderson play swear he’s going to be an impact player once he’s healthy next season, but the club may want a little more support around him.

But patience may be a virtue for the Senators on this front and Dorion will head overseas next week to the IIHF world championship in Helsinki to see some players there.

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Though there has been no shortage of speculation, the club will be interested in Florida Panthers’ winger Claude Giroux if he wins a Stanley Cup and then wants to play at home as a UFA. But the 34-year-old Giroux won’t be the only player the Senators will look at if he becomes available.

The Senators have also been linked to Minnesota Wild forward Kevin Fiala, but you have to think GM Bill Guerin will try to find a way to keep him. The indication is Guerin told teams interested in Fiala at the deadline he wouldn’t do anything until after the season.

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What we’re trying to get at here is Dorion and his staff will have plenty of options to try to find free players for the core.

By the time the first-round of the playoffs have ended, there will be eight teams that will be packing their bags.

The Eastern Conference will be the most intriguing because the Tampa Bay Lightning, Pittsburgh Penguins, Boston Bruins, Carolina Hurricanes, Toronto Maple Leafs and Washington Capitals won’t be the least bit pleased if they’re among the teams headed home early.

For different reasons, you could see shakeups taking place in those markets if they don’t have playoff success. Some teams are just happy to make the post-season, but that’s not the case for these teams and they want to make changes.

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That’s where Dorion and the Senators could be able to strike to get help for the club.

With five picks in the first three rounds of the NHL draft and a lot of prospects, the Senators could easily package something up to improve. Everybody agrees it’s time for this club to take the next step and the right move could push Ottawa over the top.

If that means packaging up a draft pick and a high-end prospect to get the help the Senators immediately then Dorion is open to going that route. It’s all about finding the right for both teams to make a deal work.

If you think about where the Senators the heavy lifting has been done. The club has stockpiled its core pieces with captain Brady Tkachuk, Josh Norris, Drake Batherson, Thomas Chabot, Alex Formenton, Sanderson and Stuetzle.

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Now, it’s about putting the right pieces around them to help lift their games even higher. Naturally, this team will be better next season because the expectation is the core will take another step in its growth and its development.

“When we started this rebuild we knew what needed to be done and we’ve probably followed the plan pretty much to the letter,” Dorion said Sunday. “At some point in time, the plan was probably to bring more character guys than top-end players through trades or free agents.”

That thinking has changed and the Senators want people who will help get this club to the playoffs. Stuetzle has emerged as one of Ottawa’s best players and the Senators know they need better support on his right side.

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