- Ken Warren of the Ottawa Citizen: Things aren’t going well in Ottawa so far this season. Ottawa Senators GM Bryan Murray thinks that Alexei Kovalev may be skating slower this year, possibly due to his off-season knee surgery, though Kovalev disagrees. Kovalev practiced yesterday on the 4th line with Ryan Shannon and Jesse Winchester. Jason Spezza missed yesterday’s practice, but was a ‘maintenance day’ according to Cory Clouston. Filip Kuba skated without equipment yesterday, he’s recovering from a broken leg he sustained on the first day of training camp. Pascal Leclaire could return to the ice today, but won’t see game action before next week.
- Bruce Garrioch of the Ottawa Sun: Murray hasn’t been happy with the way the team has played defensively, and called out his young guys (Erik Karlsson and Brian Lee). Chris Phillips has to be their top defender, has played well with Sergei Gonchar, but they haven’t been able to use that pairing as much as they’d like. Murray defended the play of Phillips, Spezza, Alfredsson and Fisher.
- Lisa Wallace (CP) in the Globe and Mail: Murray is looking to shake things up, and is considering making a move.
“I’ve talked to a number of people,” Murray added. “I talked to (Minnesota Wild general manager) Chuck Fletcher for a long time yesterday and said, ‘Can I help you, you help me’ type of thing, so we’re talking to management of other teams, trying to find if there is a need and a possibility of making a move.”
“We’re not moving the puck up from the back end, we’re not defending very well and we’re giving up far too many chances,” said Murray. “I just think we turn the puck over in our own end and we haven’t battled defensively the way we should and the way we’re capable of doing in my own opinion. The result is we’re scrambling for the puck too often.”
Now I don’t have a problem with Murray coming out and saying the club is struggling and he’s looking to shake things up. The thing that surprised me is that he mentions that he’s talked with Wild GM Chuck Fletcher.
If you were Fletcher, would you pissed that another GM mentioned your name in potential trade talks? I would. I’m interested to hear what you think about this, leave a comment with your thoughts on this situation.