The Ottawa Senators wouldn’t mind bringing in some muscle on July 1.
While the focus this weekend will be on the National Hockey League draft, with Round 1 set for Friday night and Rounds 2 through 7 being held on Saturday at the Peacock Theatre in Los Angeles, the Senators also are preparing for the opening of free agency on Tuesday at noon.
Steve Staios, the club’s president of hockey operations and general manager, has been huddled with his closest advisors preparing for the draft. Still, he’s also been getting ready for the opening of the free-agent market on Canada Day.
Though much of the focus has been on the fact that the club needs to improve its 5-on-5 scoring, anybody who watched the Florida Panthers win their second straight Stanley Cup knows that they are one of the hardest teams in the league to play against.
That doesn’t mean the other 31 teams in the league can copycat Florida’s approach to win the title, but the Senators are studying the possibility of also trying to be tougher to play against next season.
The Senators are expected to show interest in rugged Los Angeles Kings winger Tanner Jeannot when the market opens.
Traded to the Kings last summer after two seasons with the Tampa Bay Lightning, Jeannot, 28, was brought in by former L.A. general manager Rob Blake to provide more of a physical presence.
Jeannot was used mostly on the fourth line with the Kings, but led the club in hits with 211 last season, which ranked him No. 24 in the NHL. He’s expected to hit the market after finishing with seven goals and 13 points last season.
Jeannot missed the playoffs because of an injury, but he can play up the lineup and will drop the gloves against anybody. He could provide a physical presence that would help take some of the pressure off captain Brady Tkachuk to play that role.
Tkachuk finished No. 16 in the NHL in hits last season with 238 in 72 games. Winger Fabian Zetterlund, acquired from the San Jose Sharks at the deadline and signed to a three-year extension, was ranked No. on the club with 154 in 82 games. A bulk of those came with San Jose.
“(Jeannot) can help them,” a league executive said Friday.
If the Senators are going to sign Jeannot, they’ll need to figure out how to fit him under the salary cap. He made $2.65 million on his expiring deal and the club went into the weekend with $10.75 million in cap space and veteran winger Claude Giroux in talks on an extension.
The club is also expected to hold conversations with representatives of Vancouver Canucks winger Brock Boeser. He would help the club improve its even-strength scoring, but the Senators may not be willing to go more than four years and he will get more term from another club.
Fans would like the Senators to make a pitch for Winnipeg Jets winger Nikolaj Ehlers. He had 24 goals and 63 points in 69 games last season. TSN’s free agent board projects he’ll make an average of $8.5 million per year on a new deal.
If that were to happen, Staios would have to move money off the roster and the club has publicly stated it won’t move winger Drake Batherson, so that’s not an option.
Staios also is studying the trade market to see if he can add more scoring and has sniffed around for a right-shot defenceman because of the hip surgery that Nick Jensen had in May, which won’t allow him to start training camp or the regular season.
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There are a lot of moving parts surrounding the club’s roster.
Coach Travis Green, who is in town for the draft, knows it may be incumbent on the answers for this group to come from within.
“We still want to be better,” Green said on Thursday. “And as coaches, it’s going to be our job to push our team to be better next year. But I also talk about our team in a way that maybe I haven’t with other teams. They’re coachable. They’re very coachable, and they respect coaching.
“You can be very honest with our players, which isn’t always the case, and they will accept constructive criticism. That’s something I haven’t had, where I’ve had a whole team this coachable. You can’t always say that about every team where we’re to man, we have buy-in from every player, which is what we’re going to need to move forward.
“The status quo isn’t going to be good enough. We’re challenging our players to improve and come back better. That’s every player on our team, and pushing them to be better. I think they’re all capable of it.”