LIGHTING THE LAMP: A Mesz on their hands?

The Hockey News broke the story late last night that Andrej Meszaros, Ottawa's 22 year old defenseman, has possibly been signed to an offer sheet by another NHL team. The identity of the team and the details of the offer sheet are being kept quiet but it is looking like its a 3 year deal worth 5 million per season. If you want speculation on the team any number of websites will give you their guesses. The popular opinion seems to be New Jersey, Columbus, Atlanta or Vancouver. I don't think any of those teams make sense (much as I'd want him as a Devils fan) for various reasons that I won't get into. For now I want to focus on what this means for Ottawa.

Meszaros was a first round pick for Ottawa, drafted 23rd overall in 2004, and was almost certainly a large part of the reason Ottawa has been allowing themselves to shed offensive defensemen like prom dresses. In 2006-2007 this team had Tom Preissing, Joe Corvo, Wade Redden AND Meszaros. That is a team that understood the value of transition, puck-moving defensemen. When the season starts this year it appears that all of those defensemen will be gone.

I don't blame Meszaros for abandoning ship particularly after this quote from Bryan Murray, "I think Mez is a potentially good young defenseman who had a bit of an off-year this past year, and we've asked their camp to entertain that in what we're trying to do with him." OK. Meszaros is 22. Can you tell me how many other 22 year old defensemen there are in the league that already have three 30+ point campaigns under their belt, no less 30+ point campaigns where they were competing with Chara, Redden, Pressing and Corvo for ice time? Yea I didn't think you could. That line reeks of damage control.

Someone will still be running the powerplay with the Sens All-Star line of Heatley, Spezza and Alfredsson. If Meszaros is really gone I would expect the Senators to give looks to Cristoph Schubert (8 goals and 16 assists last season) Anton Volchenkov (former 21st overall pick, 1 goal and 14 assists last season) and Brian Lee (the 9th overall pick from 05 who hasn't shown a whole lot of shake and bake in the minors but who is highly regarded as a defensive prospect). One of those will be a nice sleeper because, whatever else this team is going to be it should still be a good powerplay team.

I'll keep you informed as this story develops.