The SBP Archives - Your less than frequent dose of SBP!

Saying goodbye to Bryan Smolinski meant a new 2nd line centre for the Ottawa Senators had to be found for the 2006-07 season. Not being a big fan of Smolinski, anyone else would be pretty much an upgrade, but it looked like Ottawa didn't have much to choose from. Before camp started, it looked like it was going to be one of two players: Antoine Vermette or rookie Alexei Kaigorodov. Why didn't anyone think centre Mike Fisher would have a shot at such a position?

It seems Fisher's defensive assignments hasn't given him a lot of chances to show his offensive upside. Fisher continues to improve year after year, and it wasn't perhaps until last season where he was consistently assigned to play with quality linemates: in this case Peter Schaefer and Martin Havlat. A lot of the time he would play with the "pluggers" of the squad so his chances of putting up points were minimal, but he was presented with a situation where he can show what he can do at both ends of the ice.

The end result was his best season: putting 22 goals & 22 assists in 66 games. A solid +23, he was also nominated for the Selke award for best defensive forward. He finally got noticed around the league what he can do.

Coach Bryan Murray decided to give him a chance to play this pre-season with the team's best player, Daniel Alfredsson, and the results have been staggering. He's in the top 5 for pre-season scoring, and the words "Kaigorodov" and "Binghamton" have now become synonymous.

This isn't to say I expect Fisher to score 50 goals and put up 100 points. But I do expect him to be a much bigger contributer to the club and I expect him to succeed. With Jason Spezza expected to put in 100+ points for the season and Fisher a contender for the Selke trophy, that's not such a bad 1-2 punch down the middle. We'll see this season how it pans out.