Brightest Timeline, Darkest Timeline: Ottawa Senators

To say the Ottawa Senators are skating into the 2018-19 NHL season with low expectations is one hell of an understatement.

The organization has suffered a free-fall from grace since it found itself one goal away from reaching the Stanley Cup final just over a year ago. In the 16 short months since, bad trades, iffy signings, arena and attendance issues, tensions between ownership and fans, the loss of a franchise legend and a blatant lack of direction have marred the club.

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Now at the beginning of a self-proclaimed rebuild and with some of the team’s most contentious decisions in the rearview (while other important ones remain), Ottawa will look to carry on with its young core while trying to convince a few key veterans to stick around.

Let’s examine the best- and worst-case scenarios for the Erik Karlsson-less Senators in 2017-18.

Brightest Timeline

Through all the confusion and mayhem in Ottawa the past few months, general manager Pierre Dorion has made at least one thing abundantly clear: the kids will have every chance in the world to form the foundation of the new-look Sens.

The team decided to keep the No. 4 overall selection in this year’s draft rather than closing the book on the Matt Duchene deal, and now risk the loss of an even more valuable selection in the process.

Making that decision, the Senators stated just how high they are on Brady Tkachuk, who will get the opportunity to make his mark in the team’s top-six forward group — at least to start the year — after an exceptional preseason. Highly rated blue-liner Thomas Chabot, just 21, now sees himself anchoring the team’s top pairing and PP1, and will be granted oodles of ice-time after the departure of the team’s minutes-eating captain.

With high-ceiling youngsters like Alex Formenton, Logan Brown, Colin White and Christian Wolanin in the mix too, a perfect scenario for the Senators would be to have each and every one of its prospects take a huge step forward this season and produce just enough to vault the team out of the league’s basement.

And hey, if the young core can provide enough promise and management and ownership can stop shooting itself in the foot, maybe Mark Stone and Matt Duchene will consider sticking around for the foreseeable future, too.

Darkest Timeline

There is at least one key ingredient missing from the team’s newly-boiled rebuild stew, however.

The first-round pick set to head to the Avalanche at season’s end will be lingering over the team all season long, and the pressure on the franchise — and Tkachuk — will only intensify the more the Senators struggle.

Year 1 of a full-blown re-construction is literally the least ideal time to not have a first-round pick, especially with arguably the most highly-hyped prospect since Connor McDavid, Jack Hughes, up for grabs. The closer Ottawa’s on-ice play resembles its on-paper lineup this season — or the closer the Senators play to the level of their league-low expectations — the worse the Duchene deal will look.

Tempering backlash from that polarizing deal isn’t the only factor that will define a successful rebuild year for the Senators. The centrepiece of that trade, Matt Duchene, and the team’s best player, Mark Stone, are both heading for unrestricted free agency at season’s end. Locking up at least one of these assets will be priority No. 1 for Dorion and Melnyk, but that may only be possible if the Senators are able to demonstrate some stability — beginning at the very top of the organization’s hierarchy.

Even with all the tension between Melnyk, Dorion, fans and players, there is a chance to salvage some hope. But if both stars depart without fetching something in return and the team’s prospects don’t take a step forward, Rock Bottom Avenue is where the team will reside for the foreseeable future.

If the team ends up having to part with the No. 1 pick and Duchene doesn’t even stick around, well, that is what we call literal hell, Ottawa.

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