Ottawa Busy On Deadline Day

The trade deadline has come and gone and the Ottawa Senators have achieved what they have tried to do since the team was granted a franchise...get a number 1 goalie...we hope. Pascal Leclaire and a 2nd round pick has been acquired for Antoine Vermette. Right now I see this as good deal, that being said I thought that the Gerber deal was good at the time so I am going to let some time pass before passing judgement. I like the idea for a french Canadian goalie with a Hockey Canada background. My only concern is that he was very good in Columbus and posted many shutouts, then got hurt....then Steve Mason came in and started posting shutouts. I just hope he is not just a beneficiary of being in a good system. Vermette always seems to have been on the block at the deadline and this year the shoe finally dropped. I like the fact that there was a draft pick involved as well which is always good.

The Filip Kuba 3 year contract extension came as a big surprise and I don’t think that that is a great deal. Seems like an awful lot to be giving a player of his ability, both in dollars and in term. $3.7M is ok but 3 years may be too long and I wonder how much money is left going forward. I was expecting that his signing was going to be part of another deal but apparently that is not the case. With a defence corps that is basically the same that is was with only the addition of Campoli I question. I saw that former Sen Tom Preissing was on waivers and would have probably taken him on as a waiver pickup and flipped Filip for youth or picks.

The fact that Ottawa didn’t deal Chris Neil was also a shocker. I was all for shipping him out and getting anything possible for him, even if it ended in a 6th round pick. I don’t think that he is as valuable as people think he is and perhaps the Senators have over valued him.

I was also a little surprised that Christoph Schubert or Jason Smith wern't on the move. There are a lot of bodies on the blue line but none that can be considered a number 1 or 2 offensive guy.

With what happened today it could make this years draft day a little more interesting, especially if Murray wants to change the culture a bit within the team. We will all keep an eye a see what happens.