With roster deadlines set for Monday, the Senators' final decisions would be fairly easy without all these injuries.
The NHL dreams of 27 hockey players at Senators camp will have to wait for another day.
The team released five players outright on Sunday, including defenseman Scott Harrington. Harrington played 68 games for Belleville last season and he's a veteran of 255 NHL games. He was on a professional tryout with the Sens, as were the other releases: Landen Hookey, Luke Mistelbacher, Cal Uens and goalie Vadim Zherenko.
Zherenko seemed to be the plan B in case the Senators lost Leevi Merilainen on waivers. They did lose Merilainen, thanks to a Vancouver Canucks' claim, but the Sens brought in outside help instead, trading for Jonas Johansson. They picked Johansson up for future considerations from Tampa after they sent him to Syracuse.
So Zherenko obviously didn't quite do enough at camp to win the Senators over.
Ten players were loaned to Belleville and everyone on this list is waivers-exempt: Djibril Toure, Oskar Pettersson, Kasper Halttunen, Tomas Hamara, Eskild Bakke Olsen, Matthew Andonovski, Gabriel Eliasson, Lucas Ellinas, Jackson Parsons and Kevin Reidler.
The other Belleville-bound players will have to clear waivers first, including Tyler Boucher, their 10th overall pick in the 2021 NHL Draft. Others include Samuel Blais and Philip Tomasino, who had excellent camps, along with Samuel Bolduc, Xavier Bourgault, Philippe Daoust, Ryan Suzuki and Christian Kyrou.
Four players will be headed back to junior for another season. That includes Jaxon Cover (London, OHL), their first round draft pick in June. Other junior players heading back are Louis-Félix Bourque (Drummondville, QMJHL), Adam Nemec (Sudbury, OHL) and Blake Vanek (Calgary, WHL).
So there are now still 29 players remaining on the roster, and the deadline for getting down to the max roster of 23 is 5 pm Monday. So assuming the Sens carry the max, a combination of six players, depending on their situations, will have to be released, placed on waivers, sent directly to Belleville, or placed on injured reserve.
The goaltending is locked in with Linus Ullmark and Samuel Ersson. Things get good and muddy after that.
The Senators' list walking wounded includes Artem Zub, Jake Sanderson, Shane Pinto, Warren Foegele, Andre Burakovsky, and Kurtis MacDermid. Sanderson and Burakovsky both left Saturday's action due to injury.
We also know that Ridly Greig will miss the first two games after being suspended for a sucker punch he threw in last spring's playoffs.
Zub is the only injured player who's officially not expected to be available to start the season. Donovan is still here because injured players can't be sent down.
Beyond that, the list below has the probable NHL roster in bold, if/once everyone gets healthy. Players in regular font are likely still here to fill in.
The only real debate in our projection is whether Carter Yakemchuk did enough to be in the top six. If he didn't, Nikolas Matinpalo would likely be the Sens' sixth D, and because you want Yakemchuk to keep playing, Ben Hutton might be a better option as the seventh defenseman.
Defensemen
Thomas Chabot
Jake Sanderson (injured)
Artem Zub (injured)
Jordan Spence
Tyler Kleven
Nikolas Matinpalo
Carter Yakemchuk
Cameron Crotty
Jorian Donovan (injured)
Ben Hutton (PTO)
Hoyt Stanley
Forwards
Michael Amadio
Drake Batherson
Andre Burakovsky (injured)
Nick Cousins
Dylan Cozens
William Eklund
Warren Foegele (injured)
Claude Giroux
Ridly Greig (suspended for first 2 games)
Shane Pinto (injured)
Tim Stützle
Fabian Zetterlund
Stephen Halliday
Kurtis MacDermid (injured)
Hayden Hodgson
Blake Montgomery
The roster deadline is here, but injuries have made the Senators’ final decisions anything but simple.
By Steve Warne
The Hockey News
