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

The Luke Richardson signing (a two-way deal, at the league minimum) may not seem like a big deal, but to me it reveals a much bigger problem with the way Senators management and coaching view the defensive corps of the Ottawa Senators.

No one, myself included, thought Richardson had much of a chance to make the team, especially when you consider he was a healthy scratch during the playoffs and he enters the league this year as one of the older players at age 39. Yes, he provides veteran leadership and can be a great mentor for the younger players on the team, but he can provide all those intangibles in some form of coaching or front office capacity.

What this signing means to me, is that it illustrates the lack of faith the Senators have in their young defensemen they have either drafted or acquired via trade, or perhaps even with the more veteran guys they have now like Christoph Schubert.

The home-and-home games they played against the Montreal Canadiens over the weekend were eye opening. Losing 5-0 is never a good thing, while the headline I did not want to see in today's paper, "Pizza Line Reunited", well, was the headline I read regarding their 3-1 win Saturday night against a depleted Canadiens lineup. There was much talk before training camp started about how they needed to get their scoring from different lines to have a better chance at winning, and already they have to reunite Spezza, Heatley and Alfie in the pre-season? This isn't a good thing.

On a positive note, the Ruutu-Bass-Neil line has the potential to be the best energy line in the NHL. They won't put up a lot of points, but their crash-and-bang style can wear out their opposition and they might be able to lure opponents into taking more penalties than they'd like.

We shouldn't look too much into the pre-season, after all, Ottawa finished 7-0 last year and that didn't mean a whole lot after getting swept in the first round of the playoffs. The real season gets started after one more pre-season game on Thursday, and they'll follow that up with back-to-back matches against the Pittsburgh Penguins to start the regular season. With anticipation, and some trepidation, I look forward to tuning in this Saturday for their first game and of course seeing who will make the final roster cut leading up to it.