The Sports Beat
Andrew Seymour
The big question surrounding the 1998 Ottawa Senators is a crucial one. Just who exactly is going to score the goals?
Two weeks into their seventh NHL season, the Senators have found a way to put the puck in the net — so far. One can’t help but wonder if they’ll be able to keep up the pace after taking a quick glance up and down the roster.
The Senators haven’t changed much from the team that scored 196 goals last season, earning them last place among the playoff bound teams. New general manager Rick Dudley made few changes to an anemic bunch of forwards, adding only four cast-offs from other teams to bolster scoring. He picked up Andreas Johansson and veteran winger Steve Leach from Pittsburgh and Carolina. David Oliver, a former Edmonton Oiler and New York Ranger, and farmhand tough-guy Phil Crowe join the team from the International Hockey League. These four guys accounted for a paltry 12 NHL goals last season, not exactly an eye-popping number.
In fact, the GM’s biggest acquisition wasn’t a player. It was an assistant coach, namely Mike Murphy, the former Leafs bench boss.
The Senators have few players who can be counted on to fill the opposition’s net. New captain Alexei Yashin is the only consistent scorer the team has until the injury-prone Daniel Alfredsson returns in mid-November. Injured first-round pick Marian Hossa, who should be ready by December, could help alleviate the problem while guys like Vaclav Prospal, Radek Bonk, Shawn McEachern, and Andreas Dackell have to step it up and find the goal a little more often.
The Sens defence, however, is top-notch. Anchored by perennial all-stars Chris Phillips and Wade Redden, it also features the solid Igor Kravchuk, Janne Laukkanen, Jason York, Stan Neckar, and Lance Pitlick, as well as a couple of other young prospects. It’s a defence that makes other team’s GMs salivate, which only makes you wonder why Dudley hasn’t made a deal for a player who can score some goals up front. Coach Jacques Martin says he wants the defence to score more this season, but realistically he shouldn’t expect any of these players to score more than 10 goals.
If the Senators hope to improve on last year’s dream season, where they set new highs in wins and points and eliminated the Stanley Cup favorite New Jersey Devils before losing in the second round to Washington, they need to score. More.