More of the Ottawa Senators prospects will get their chance when the time is right.
Speaking in a wide-ranging mid-season interview with Postmedia Monday afternoon from Edmonton, Ottawa general manager Pierre Dorion touched on a number of topics.
Here’s what he had to say when asked about the following subjects:
ON BELLEVILLE C LOGAN BROWN: “No one wants Logan Brown to succeed more than we do. He’s got lots of skill, an offensive upside that’s really high and, at a certain point in time, he’ll get his chance.”
ON BELLEVILLE F ALEX FORMENTON: “He’s played a year of pro, he had a taste of the NHL early, based on his skating ability. In watching Belleville, he’s one of our hardest workers and one of our more consistent players. We don’t want to develop him into a fourth-line player. We want him to have the highest offensive upside and the more touches he gets at the pro level, the better it will be for his development. We’ve got a plan for him. When he can be an NHL player that can contribute offensively, is probably when you will see him in Ottawa. Everyone is happy with how we developed Drake Batherson and we’re trying to do the same with Alex Formenton. We love him as a prospect. There’s so many things to like about this guy.”
ON THE CANADIAN DIVISION: “Everything is amplified. We have some the NHL’s best players, in their prime, in the Canadian division right now. Every night you have to bring your ‘A game. There’s no easy games in the NHL but it’s even more difficult in the North division.”
ON FILIP CHLAPIK GOING TO FINLAND: “You have to listen to players, or through their agents, and hockey is about people. On this one, Filip asked to go back to Europe and we felt it was the right thing to do.”
ON THE VETERAN PLAYERS: “What has helped through this stretch is the character and leadership by (Evgenii) Dadonov, (Erik) Gudbranson, (Austin) Watson and Connor Brown. They’re good character people.”
ON THE TRADE DEADLINE: “Who knows what can happen because things change quickly in this world but I don’t think it’s going as an active deadline as we’ve seen in the past. There’s no wild card teams, it’s all within the division so that’s a situation that’s going to create multiple scenarios.”
PLAYING YOUNG PLAYERS: “ First of all, not all young players are ready to play in the NHL and have prime time duty. You have put to them in situations where they can succeed. If you don’t, it hampers their development and you’ve got to think big picture. We’re the team that put in the most young players in the NHL this year.”
ON DEALING FOR RYAN DZINGEL: “ Some of our most talented players are our younger players. But, a lot of times, what was happening, we were getting a lot of chances and not scoring. We were out-skating, out-shooting and out-chancing teams but we couldn’t finish. We just felt we needed a different type of secondary scoring and that’s why we got Ryan Dzingel.”
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