Murray’s Grade on D-day

Hours after the signing of Chris Phillips, Sens nation expected a couple more moves on this seemingly event full day. Turns out this NHL trade deadline was the least event full in 11 years, mostly because of all the trades that happened during the month. There were 42 trades in total in February and the Ottawa Senators were the most active of the bunch. The Senators made 6 trades, 2 waiver pick up’s and put Pascal Leclaire on waivers. So I spent this deadline day like every other and watched 10 hours of coverage on TSN... I could have done something productive but hey.

The day started at noon for the sens when they claimed goaltender CurtisMcElhinney (6W 3.43GA .890 SV%). The acquisition of a goaltender was expected when it was discovered that Pascal Leclaire was injured once again (shocker right?) and because Bryan wanted to send Lehner down to get some playoff experience with the B sens.

McElhinney, Anderson and Leclaire are all UFA’s at the end of the season, so it will be interesting who they keep or who they sign. Here’s a hint: it’s not going to be Pascal. I’m afraid his career might just be over with all the injuries he’s sustained over the past few seasons. With Ottawa being a bottom tier team I can’t see free agents like Vokoun signing here, unless Murray or his possible future replacement are willing to dish out the bucks. Hopefully they learn by their mistakes with Gerber/Emery.

Ottawa also made a trade today that saw Chris Campoli getting shipped to Chicago with a conditional 7^th round pick for Ryan Potulny who currently plays in the minors and a 2^nd round pick. All I got to say is wow, I’m utterly shocked Murray pulled it off (Chris has 3 goals and 11 assist for 14 points in 58 games).

With the way 2^nd round picks are such hot commodities these days, I would have thought this deal would be impossible with it being rumoured that Chris Phillips himself would only be worth a 2^nd but sure enough Bryan got it done. It was widely known that Chicago was looking for a defensemen but I didn’t believe they were that desperate to give up a 2^nd and a prospect. The prospect is Ryan Potulny, he has 18 goals and 21 assists in 56 games with the Rockford Icehogs. I really like this deal for a couple reasons: the first being we have another draft pick which makes 11 so far and also I like it because we get a player that can really help our AHL affiliate the Binghamton Senators with their upcoming playoff push.

Murray has exceeded my expectations and he may have saved his job with all the deals he did this month. It’s really too early to see if we were one of the losers or winners of the deadline but judging it early, I would give Murray a B- for the deadline day itself and an A for the whole month of February. He really did the impossible. The only thing that disappointed me is that he wasn’t able to trade Fillip Kuba but hey his contact is unmovable so can’t blame him there. So with the NHL trade deadline frenzy done the next thing we sens fans have to look forward to is the draft where hopefully we get a good position to draft an impact player. But until then I will keep b*tching and complaining about how we don’t play the full 60 minutes and making dumb mistakes. I’m looking forward to it.

-CHB-