Senators can reign this season
Next week brings us the start of yet another major sports season, this time those big guys with sticks and pucks, so who is going to be the sleeper pick for 2009-10 in the National Hockey League?
There are a few candidates to pick from, but the team I fancy to make a massive improvement this coming season is the Ottawa Senators, a franchise that will look very different and could just even be a division winner.
As ever, the Senators should have two excellent scoring lines, although there is different personnel in place after the trade which sent the troublesome Dany Heatley to the San Jose Sharks earlier this month.
Heatley had become something of a cancer in the Ottawa dressing room and had oft said he wanted out of the Canadian capital, so the trade bringing in Jonathan Cheechoo and Milan Michalek from San Jose looks a good one.
Michalek is expected to join Jason Spezza and Daniel Alfredsson on the top line, one which has a nice mix of offense and defense and should be a little better than Heatley’s line last year.
Cheechoo and Alexei Kovalev may team up on the second line, although one of them will have to swap wings, centered by Mike Fisher, while the grinders Chris Kelly, Chris Neil and Jarkko Ruutu give Ottawa a bite which should hurt more than many teams.
The blueline is not as deep, but the expected addition of young phenom Erik Karlsson might, according to hockey betting, bring a scoring edge that was lacking last season when only Filip Kuba managed 40 points.
Pascal Leclaire joins Brian Elliott in goal, with the former expected to start and needing a big injury-free season to make his signing worthwhile.
And there is also the impact expected by new coach Cory Clouston, of whom plenty is expected after a grounding in the WHL with Kootenay and then Ottawa’s AHL affiliate in Binghamton.
With Toronto, Montreal and Buffalo also in a state of flux, Ottawa should at the very least be in the battle for second place in the Northeast Division, and getting that far should be enough to earn them a place in the playoffs, a massive improvement on last season’s complete disappointment of 11th place in the Conference.
