The Ottawa Senators have brought in some help up front, announcing the signing of winger Vladimir Tarasenko. The veteran receives a one-year, $5M contract. Tarasenko also receives a full no-trade clause. GM Pierre Dorion released the following statement about the signing:
Vladimir’s a natural goal scorer. He’s a dynamic player who can score from anywhere in the offensive zone, as well as an underrated playmaker who’s made a career out of driving offence for he and his linemates. An established performer in the regular season and in the playoffs, we’re thrilled to add a player of his calibre to our lineup.
The 31-year-old was the top free-agent forward left on the open market despite coming off what would be considered a down year by his standards. Tarasenko started the season with St. Louis, picking up 10 goals and 19 assists in 38 games before the Blues moved him to the New York Rangers a little while before the trade deadline. He wasn’t able to maintain that level of production, however, notching eight goals with 13 helpers in 31 regular season contests while adding three goals and an assist in the Rangers' first-round loss to New Jersey.
Despite the quieter year, Tarasenko is still viewed as a strong scoring threat, as alluded to by Dorion. He has surpassed the 30-goal mark six times since 2013-14 while dealing with considerable injury trouble in two of the years that he didn’t get to that level. That helped slot him in third in our annual Top-50 UFA list.
While Tarasenko might not be a full-time top-liner anymore, the Senators don’t necessarily need him to fill that role, as they’ll count on Brady Tkachuk, Tim Stutzle and Josh Norris to carry the bulk of the scoring load. Instead, they’ll be turning to him to help replace Alex DeBrincat, who was moved to Detroit earlier this month. Tarasenko and veteran Claude Giroux will likely fill in some of the gaps in the top six, giving the Sens a group that appears relatively deep on paper as they look to get to the playoffs for the first time since 2016-17.
However, it’s also a group that is fairly expensive on paper, as this basically puts Ottawa at the $83.5M Upper Limit of the salary cap based on CapFriendly’s projections. That’s particularly notable, as the team still needs to re-sign center Shane Pinto this summer. It also seems likely that they’d prefer to carry 13 forwards on the active roster, so they’ll need to create some cap room in the coming weeks to do so while their preference now might be to do a one-year deal to help keep his cap hit as low as possible. While Toronto will be able to get cap relief from placing Matt Murray on LTIR when the season begins, the Senators will not receive any cap relief for the portion of Murray’s contract that they’re carrying on their books after trading him last summer.
Meanwhile, it’s an interesting end to a contract saga that has been a bit odd for Tarasenko. He had strong interest early in free agency, but wasn’t able to come to terms on a new deal and less than a week into the open market, he dismissed Paul Theofanous and hired Pat Brisson and J.P. Barry. At the time, the speculation was that he had multiple multi-year deals worth a little more than he ultimately wound up signing for. That’s good news for Ottawa as they’ve now landed a capable scoring threat who will be motivated for a big year with the hopes of cashing in on what’s projected to be a more favorable free-agent market next summer, making it a possible win-win contract for both sides.
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