Marc-Andrew Bergeron would fill a second pairing role on many clubs in the league right now. At 30, the guy is right in his prime and already has a few years of NHL play under his belt (7 seasons to be exact). When you look at the teams he's played for in the past - Edmonton, NYI, Anaheim, Minnesota and Montreal, neither have been an exact power house or offensive haven outside of arguably last years Montreal team. However in 60 games last year, he was able to grab 13 goals and 21 assists for 34 points. Not too bad for a number 2 pairing. Given that if he played a full season he could potentially have hit the 40 mark for the first time in his career. His career line of 75g and 119a for 194pts in 399gp is very solid and averages to 0.5 pt/g. Again, not bad for a second line pairing or even a third line depth role/insurance for a contender. While he's averaging about even points per period for his career, he has a slightly higher chunk of the pie for the third where he's had 69pts compared to 51pts in the 2nd and 59pts in the 1st. So he can reasonably be put out at any time and find the net for you. Further, he can also perform when the game is on the line.

Now his defensive play is merely average, but his value is strictly tied to his hard shot and offensive abilities to move the puck up the ice. Pair him with a solid stay at home defender and he fits the role perfectly. His only other issue will be how he performs coming off a bad knee injury from last season which will spook teams into offering him a 1 year deal to see how he does before possibly offering something longer. Teams like Dallas, NYI, Toronto, NJ and St. Louis could all use his skills to help better the club for this season. For Dallas (especially need his skills), St. Louis, Ottawa, etc. he could be a great addition to help them get into the playoffs and perform. It won't be too surprising to see him get signed before the Christmas freeze in the next week and a half given that he'll come cheap and be effective.

In most cases I would agree with this as the devils are clearly not performing or finding any success and the players are not buying into the coaches system. However here, everything seems different. When you look at the Devils as they currently made up, there are several veterans who have been in the rumour mill constantly since the summer about being dealt or demoted in order to open up cap space. There is little doubt that if demoted, for several of these guys, it would effectively finish their NHL careers prematurely due to age, higher salary and declining skills. Zubrus comes to mind the most here. So we can assume that naturally, these guys felt threatened and a riff was created in the dressing room with much disgust and anger towards the new guy coming in who, with his high salary, is changing the atmosphere and threatening their jobs. This was only further reinforced when the Devils could not even ice a full roster to start the season. This does a couple things. First, when this happened, as the season drags on, players get fatigued and are unable to sit out a game here or there to rest up because there is no fallback. So this is where you see guys slacking off at times in order to conserve energy or avoid getting hurt. Secondly, while it shows management will do whatever is possible to keep things together, it also shows they'll do whatever it takes to stay cap compliant - including demotions and everyone is fair game. This was shown a few years back during the mid season where the team's leading scorer Alex Mogilny's NHL career came to an abrupt end when he was demoted to the minors to clear cap space. It doesn't matter where you work or what you do, but the constant stress and worry about being canned or demoted in your job would be enough for anyone to feel unhappy and unmotivated. It may not be professional, but it happens, even to NHL players. This of course causes the atmosphere to be less fun and would further push any riff or division amongst the team.

Looking on the ice, there is no chemistry with this team either and its pretty obvious when you watch the Devils play anyone. Chemistry is something you can't teach and is truly beyond the coach's ability. It's also not helping internally as it is another reason the Devil's players are not buying into any coaching strategy. This is not the team that can fall back on its strong defense and goaltending like in the past and they will have no success if they don't start playing like a team. That's something that can't be coached by John MacLean or forced, it has to come from within the players themselves. When looking at Kovalchuk himself, he has clearly done very little this season, especially points wise. Top level players are expected to lead the team through strong play and while he's being paid like a top level player, he has not performed accordingly. He often seems greedy and uninterested on the ice. I've seen him give up goals by being taken off the puck after circling around in the neutral zone instead of passing it and moving it forward. For example the Goglioski goal in the first match up against the Penguins this season (Oct 11th). That about sums his season up.
John MacLean is a young coach relatively speaking, but the players like him from all accounts. He is knowledgeable and knows his stuff. Its clear he inherited a mess and shouldn't be held responsible for his inability to clean up up when not given the tools. The devil's to me are a GM's mess/problem and if anyone should put their head in the noose it should be Lou himself.

Now I’ve been hearing Regin and Foligno are in the rumour mill a lot lately which is sort of sad since they are the only two young guys with talent and promise on the team currently. To me, that completely makes no sense to look at moving these guys (unless you can get much greater back in return of course ie: prospects, draft picks, young NHL ready players) as its only mortgaging your future for some success right now. And let’s face it, the Sens will be lucky to make the playoffs much less really contend this year. Hell even next year. The best bet for this team is a mini blow up or a realignment. Basically it means to get the house back in order for once. I would start by trying to move Kovalev and Leclaire at the deadline to a contender for draft picks. Kovalev can be a huge liability, but someone may want to take a chance on his ability to take over and change a game which he still has - when he wants to. For this to work you may have to take another big salary (example Gomez in Montreal with the $7.46 ml a season - not that he'll be going back to Montreal anytime soon). Sure talent wise Pascale Leclaire is a number one in the NHL. Hell he’s the best talented goalie Ottawa has ever had. But he’s simply too injury prone. He’s probably sat more games than he’s been available to start since moving to the Sens (or atleast close enough). There was a reason Columbus felt he was expendible and not just because Mason was going to be big. Number 1′s don’t grow on trees, but they shouldn’t be hurt all the time either. His $3.8 mll salary won't make it an easy sell though and like Kovalev you may need to take on a salary as well. I would consider guys who are in the last year or 2nd last year of the contract as they're easier to buy out or let walk.
If it was me, I’d probably try moving LeClaire to someone like the Flyers who will contend and need/looking for an upgrade in goal. That opens the door to bring up Robin Lehner to play with Bryan Elliot and let the two kids run the clock the rest of the season to pick up experience. Elliot would be tradable as well, but I would rather keep him more because he’s been fairly decent all things considered by stepping into the starter job when asked and performing and is very cap friendly at 850k. However, given that he's an RFA this summer, if you could get a 2nd rounder or better, I’d take it, trade a 6-8th for a veteran goalie to finish the season out and run.
Then move Lee for whatever you can get (7th round if that's all) since his stock probably won't go higher in Ottawa given the relationship with management and their relentless shopping of him. He may have a career yet in the NHL but it won't be surfacing anytime in Ottawa outside of the visitors bench. I'd also check to see if there is still interest in Alfredsson (He may still pull in a good young top 6 or top tier draft pick). Sure this is unspeakable around here to suggest moving Alfie, but this is a business folks and a 38 year old is not going to help long term or be around when the team finally gets back on track. Look for Detroit to be interested if Murray gets the balls and brains to look into it. I'd also consider Jarkkp Ruutu to be dealt. He's in the last year of a $1.3 mill contract and would be a nice addition to a contender needing a pest. He'll only grab you a 6th rounder, but that's another cookie in the jar.

Much has been said about moving Mike Fisher and I would agree that at 30, this would be selling high. Despite this, he has a no-trade clause in place and he in many ways, is the heart and guts of this team. Moving him would leave a hole too far big in this lineup and his leadership and mentoring skills could be very useful to the young guys coming in. This would be similar to the Pens post lockout when they had guys like Recchi, Palfy and LeClair who mentored the future stars of the team.

Take your cap space and this summer make some savvy Free agent pickups to help round out the team for next year. Won;t be a great season, but the objective is to get on a 3 year plan where you improve a little bit more every year.

Ultimately, the objective here folks is as follows. Spezza is said to be a top tier, number 1 centre. If that's a serious statement, then shouldn't the Sens be trying to give Spezza someone to play with? To go further, why couldn't they do a mini-rebuild of the team by restocking the farm team with prospects and making smart F/A additions to round out the roster with reasonable success? If Murray doesn’t plan to do that, then he might as well start shopping Spezza too, since he’s just wasting talent and everyone's time here. as seen above however, running the show in Ottawa would have allowed me to potentially trim several million in cap space and bring in a bunch of prospects and draft picks, not to mention putting the team in the running for a high pick in the draft lottery. As much as Sens fans won't like it, in order for a contender to be iced, this unfortunately what needs to be done.

Since this is my inaugural post, I felt it made sense to bring up something that's been bothering me for awhile about the hometown Sens - Bryan Murray.

I have never seen someone make such rash desperation moves to keep their job than I have in the last 2 years of his management. It became especially apparent in the Danny Heatley debacle where clearly, someone in his front office leaked this story to the press, causing the whole to-do around here in the first place.
That said, I think this has been a sinking ship since the 07 cup run and it will only be getting worse as time moves forward. Murray has done clearly little to reverse the teams fortunes with the exception being promoting coach Cory Clouston.
Take for example how Murray has been doing everything short of literally getting down on his knees and begging his counterpart Scott Howson in Columbus to make a deal for Bryan Lee. Lee of course has done little to help raise his stock value in the last year playing very mediocre when he is in the lineup. Unfortunately for Bryan Murray is that he's the only one who hasn't yet figured out that no one wants Bryan Lee. Mr. Hoswon of course is probably still laughing after ripping off the Sens for the Vermette/Leclaire trade a couple years back where despite Leclaire's superior talent level, Columbus got the better player at the end of the day. Murray's next laughing point is his insistance to replace players that either were traded away or walked during the free agent period with overpriced veterans. Guys like Kovalev (who was signed to a $5 mill deal literally 2 months after his public benching in Montreal), Sergei Gonchar ($5 mll)who at 36 is not going to be getting any better (especially not his piss poor defence which is why the Pens took a pass on him) and even the lovable Daniel Alfredsson ($4.87 mll) who again at 38 on the 11th, is pretty much at the end of his rope. If I was in charge when he signed his last 4 year extension, I would have simply moved the guy to someone like the Red Wings (Reportedly were every interested at the time) for a couple draft picks since that was the highest his stock would have gotten, but I digress. Combined this group of 35+ makes just under $15 million or around a quarter of the overall cap hit this season. And considering that if anyone of these 3 were to retire randomly, the cap hits would continue for the duration of the contracts as they were over that magical age of 36 when they signed up. Sure that is likely not going to happen, but its a hell of a liability to have sitting around as a possible, much less than at least two of the three are arguably drastically overpaid.
That leads me into the next point in part 2 - what does Bryan do from here?