The Senators find themselves in 21st place in terms of goals scored per game in the early going this season. While Plan A is always to try to have someone come up from the minors and help give a team a lift when they’re struggling, there isn’t a viable player to take that role in Ottawa.
William Eklund, who was counted on to be a key offensive pickup this summer, suffered a torn tendon in his ankle in the fourth game of the season. He’s out until at least January, meaning that there isn’t much internal help coming for a while.
Accordingly, Postmedia’s Bruce Garrioch reports that GM Steve Staios has started calling around to see what options might be out there to try to add to his forward group.
It’s far from the first time that the Sens have looked to see what’s out there but most of their in-season moves in the past have been on the incremental side of things. Given that the season is still relatively young, those are realistically the only options that are available at the moment.
Teams are still assessing what they have and need, meaning that trades of significance aren’t likely on that horizon.
Garrioch suggests Chicago’s Teuvo Teravainen as someone who could be in play. He’s on an expiring $5.4MM contract and has seen his ice time cut early on this year.
Given Chicago appears to be heading for another missed postseason, he’s someone who should plausibly move at some point. That said, Ottawa already tried acquiring a veteran from them in a move that hasn’t worked out given Andre Burakovsky’s struggles.
He’s still looking for his first point and has been a healthy scratch multiple times. While Teravainen is a better player at this stage of his career, his price tag is prohibitive.
On that front, even if there were some impactful forwards available in October, affording them on the salary cap would be a challenge. The team enters today with about $2.6MM in full-season cap room, per PuckPedia.
While Cameron Crotty will come off the books tomorrow when his waiver period expires, they’re also likely going to have to recall a forward in the wake of Warren Foegele’s apparent knee injury sustained on Tuesday. Given that Crotty has the lowest cap hit of any player in the organization, those eventual roster moves will ultimately lower their cap room in the end.
That’s likely going to make affording an addition of consequence too difficult at this point, unless it’s part of a larger swap involving players going the other way to offset the cap costs. With that in mind, unless there’s a low-cost option on the table that can play in their top nine rather quickly, the more prudent approach may be to hold for now and bank cap room.
That could allow them to shop more in the higher end of the trade market when more impactful options are bound to become available closer to the trade deadline.