UPHEAVAL IN CAPITAL Senators' talented roster in need of major overhaul CHRIS WATTIE/REUTERS Ottawa Senators' new head coach Cory Clouston and general manager Bryan Murray (background) leave a news conference in Ottawa February 2, 2009. Clouston replaced Craig Hartsburg, who was fired after less than eight months in the job. It's going to be fascinating to watch the two stumbling combatants in the Battle of Ontario in the coming years as they both seek to restructure and reorganize. Those who support the Ottawa Senators, of course, couldn't have imagined that they'd not only be trailing the Maple Leafs in the Eastern Conference standings at this point in the season, but that both teams would be among the worst in hockey. All that money lavished on all those star players, yet the Sens find themselves truly lost these days, barely a shadow of the 2007 Stanley Cup finalists. Two very good hockey men in John Paddock and Craig Hartsburg, who was fired yesterday as head coach, have failed to get this oddly built team to play at a competitive level over the past year. You could argue one or the other was a bad coach. But not both. Instead, you have to look a little deeper in Ottawa, at ownership, management and the playing roster, to try to understand what has gone so horribly wrong. Funny, but suddenly it's the Leafs, really, that appear to be the NHL team in Ontario with stability and a plan. The MLSE suits have been shamed into silence, and new president and GM Brian Burke, armed with a lucrative six-year contract, essentially represents a firewall between the erstwhile meddlers and hockey office. Head coach Ron Wilson, meanwhile, is also in the first year of a multi-year deal. Like Burke, Wilson isn't universally adored but has a strong record of success. The good news, of course, pretty much ends there. Luke Schenn is a building block, and otherwise every other player on the roster is effectively for sale heading towards the March 4 trade deadline. This team looks nothing like Burke wants it to look like, and the process of transforming it into a big, mean hockey club will begin this summer. By comparison, the Sens have far more talented individual players. But coaching is now in the hands of an untested rookie, GM Bryan Murray is being pilloried in the nation's capital for his decisions over the past two years and owner Eugene Melnyk's proprietorship suddenly seems less sure-handed. Where are the Sens headed? Nobody seems quite sure, only that getting rid of several supposed malcontents came too late and has done nothing, and that what appears to be left is a clutch of very rich stars surrounded by disconnected support players. Ottawa does have more assets at this particular time than the Leafs, but that will only mean something if Murray is prepared to make some hard decisions. The Sens, to put it mildly, are a strange looking team. If they were a football team, they'd be all running backs, wide receivers and cornerbacks, with no offensive line, an erratic kicker and uncertainty behind centre. The time has come, quite clearly, to break up the Big Three comprised of Daniel Alfredsson, Dany Heatley and Jason Spezza. All the firepower represented by these fellows has become meaningless because of the team's lack of mobility and talent on the blue line and the black hole in net that, really, has been there for a decade now. Ray Emery filled that void for a while, but he's busy punching out trainers in the KHL right now and isn't expected back any time soon. The idea, of course, was to win with the Big Three, not to turn them into the Big Two. Moving one, then, will require a bold, new and proactive action plan from Murray and Melnyk, and there's been little evidence so far that they're ready to blame anybody but coaches. So who would you rather be today, the Leafs or the Senators? The Sens, surely, but only if those in charge of running that squad are prepared to make the assets they possess work for them to aggressively restructure the team.
