The Ottawa Senators training camp is about shift into high gear as they open the pre-season Tuesday night in Lucan, Ont.
No, the Senators won’t be able to replace Erik Karlsson after he was dealt to the San Jose Sharks Thursday, but they have to go on without him and the first task is to find people to fill the holes left by his absence as this back-to-back series against the Toronto Maple Leafs beings in Kraft Hockeyville.
General manager Pierre Dorion stated in an interview last week the club isn’t going to have a captain to start the season and coach Guy Boucher told this newspaper the organizations needs to sit down in the coming days to determine which players will play a leadership role.
Boucher isn’t sure if the club will have three or four alternates to start.
“(Dorion) just wants to be patient from what I understand,” said Boucher. “We have to sit down. Obviously, guys like (Matt) Duchene and (Mark) Stone are top guys and they’re good leaders so that’s a no-brainer.
“But, we’ve got other guys on the team. It’s too bad with a guy like (Jean-Gabriel) Pageau because he was one of those guys. A guy like (Mark) Borowiecki, it’s pretty clear he’s got some leadership and there’s other guys in there to that we definitely want involved and groom.
“We’ll have to sit down and decide how we want to do it.”
On the ice, a big decision to be made is on the power play and there’s no question Thomas Chabot will likely be the quarterback of the first unit while Chris Wideman plays an expanded role as well.
“(Chabot) has that look and Wideman was here last year and he was doing terrific on it before he got hurt (in November),” Boucher said. “You have to look at guys like (Christian) Wolanin and I’m not sure how much time (Cody) Ceci is going to get on it.
“I think those four guys have the possibility on the power play. I have nothing set stone but who’s making our team? Right now, we’ve got three different options on our power play but I can’t tell you which one we’re going to play because it depends on who makes our team.”