Here's the Deal on that Shocking Deal

I will start by saying one thing.

As much as we bleed red, black and gold and love our team, none of us has been in the NHL in SOME capacity for the better part of 3 decades.

Bryan Murray has.

The fact is, in a league with such short attention spans, and such changeover in management and coaching personnel, that is quite a feat. This leads me to believe he knows more about running an NHL team than I, or any person who frequents blogs and/or writes blogs does.

So let's look at this.

From his comments, The Bryan probably wanted Jaden Schwartz. The young talented USHL'er went much higher in the draft than many thought that he would go, but is the young forward that the Sens could very well have been targeting. Ironically the Blues picked him at the 14th spot, so Murray was Shit-Outta-Luck.

Now, with the prospects Murray has picked (trading up to get Karlsson when he was relatively unknown, getting Lehner and Weircoch second round, getting Hoffman 5th round) I tend to trust him and his scouting staff.

It is possible he saw Emmerson Etem and Austin Watson as nothing more than future third line NHL'ers, and while I love the Senators from the bottom of my heart, the Senators have more "bottom six" players than any team in the league, so picking another does not make sense.

It is also true that he was wary of taking Russians after the Sens have been royally screwed by Russian prospects in our recent history (Zubov, Kaigorodov, Nikulin etc, etc)

So he gets a call from the Blues. They have Pietrangelo, and a need for forwards. They already have a good, safe pick in Schwartz, but they are feeling risky and want to use another first round choice on Tarasenko (easily the best player still available, but one Murray is afraid of). So what does Murray do? He gets another FANTASTIC Swedish defenceman (and you know how much we liked the first one) who is one year farther in his development, has size and would have gone before the likes of Dylan McILRATH and Derek Forbert.

So what is everyone up in arms about?

I believe in Bryan Murray, and I believe that in a few years I will be looking at a top four D of:

Cowen (6'6) - Karlsson (5'11)

Weircoch (6'5) - Runblad (6'2)

That has great mobility, great offence from the back end and good size. I also believe that this means

Bryan thinks that Butler, Wick, Hoffman and Petersson are good offensive prospects or that

he has his eye on somebody later in the draft that nobody else has seen.

Either way, we look strong on D and in nets (Lehner) for the foreseeable future. With Jason Spezza,

Milan Michalek and Mike Fisher leading the next group of Sens forwards, I for one, am excited.

Aren't you?

Drafty Time-Emerson Etem

Well after weeks of mourning the loss of the Senators Season, I, like many of my blogosphere brethren, have come out of hibernation to start talking about the most exciting day in hockey (for me at least).

The Draft.

Now I say its the most exciting day in hockey because the playoffs are not just a day, they are months long, deadline day is always kind of disappointing, as is July 1st.

For me the draft is the most exciting because I love young players. I think they are exciting, I think they provide hope. Not to mention plenty of deals go down at draft day itself.

Thanks to the ridiculous run of the Jaro Halak's (might as well call them that), the Senators will in fact be picking 16th overall and the consensus is they will be looking for a forward.

Now, we could pretend that all GM's are idiots and that Nino Niederreiter or Mikael Granlund will still be around 6-8 spots AFTER they are projected to go, or we can start looking at some real possibilities. One that intrigues me is Emerson Etem.

Emerson is a 6'0 190lbs natural centre that can play the wing. He was born in SoCal, but played junior hockey in Medicine Hat. The Hockey News has him projected to go 17th overall.

According to their draft preview, Emerson has all world speed, and has offensive tools, he just needs to refine them. However, he DID score 37 goals as a rookie in the WHL this year. The hockey news says that he will translate into a good two-way forward in the future, but I think he has the capability to be a good offensive prospect for the Senators.

The Senators website has an excellent article you can find here that talks about him, and I will leave you with the Top Ten Goals scored by the medicine hat tigers this year, and keep an eye out for Etem in a few of them.

So, what do you think? Is he a good fit? I will be looking at other players, but he has caught my eye first.