After making it to the Eastern Conference Final just one season ago, the Ottawa Senators are on the outside looking in to the NHL playoffs. Going down with the ship is captain Erik Karlsson who hasn’t had the greatest season statistically, but that’s not to take away from the fact that he is still undoubtedly one of the best blueliners in the league.
He’s also been the centre of lots of franchise drama when it was heavily rumoured that he may be on the move leading up to February’s deadline. This clearly was cause for quite a bit of unrest in Canada’s capital city. With the rumours swirling ever since then, Pierre Dorion tried to offer a little bit of solace to the loyal Sens’ faithful.
Dorion went into further depth with Bruce Garrioch of the Ottawa Citizen, the following is an excerpt:
“Erik is a fantastic player,” Dorion said. “The relationship between he, (owner) Eugene (Melnyk) and myself is strong, and I want all of you to know that. I think there is one thing I need to clarify, given the difficulty of this week, but I’m told there are a number of questions submitted about Erik and I feel it might be best to address it off the top.
“When we can offer Erik a contract on July first, we will do so. I hope this clarifies things. We don’t want to get into specifics on too many players, but we think it’s important that we need to mention that.”
Senators fans will be happy to hear this, as Karlsson has been a staple on their blueline for almost a decade. It’s difficult to imagine the Swedish defender in a different uniform, but you can bet that other teams are going to be chomping at the bit if a contract extension doesn’t get done.
This may shape up to be a tough run for Senators management if they are not able to sign me back to O-town, in fact its already been a bit of a tough run…
