I know I say this often, but it never ceases to amaze me what gets people so fired up on Sportscall or gets people in the mood to call/e-mail. I had one of those moments again this morning as Lee and Scotty were having a heated debate about whether or not the Sens should have brought up Corey Locke as opposed to Zach Smith.
I agree with portions of both sides (I know, way to sit on the fence, jacka**…), but it’s true. I think that Lee is right in the sense that Locke has proven to be an AHL commodity everywhere he goes, so why not give him the chance to try and prove his worth at the NHL level? And Scotty is right in saying that the people of Ottawa probably look at Locke in a little more regard than most because of what he did as a 67 years ago.
I’m also convinced that Sens fans are just tired of the same old call-up and not seeing any major results. Whether it’s Zach Smith, Cody Bass, Peter Regin, Bobby Butler, etc., the outcome of these call-ups is predictable. They’ll play a few games, average a point every 2-3 games and go back down to Binghamton without having really accomplished much.
For the fans, Locke represent the one player in Bingo that hasn’t had his big break yet and offers a little bit of excitement based on numbers at the AHL level. No one would be foolish enough to guarantee that Locke would end up on that same uninspiring list of players, but no one should be foolish enough to guarantee that he would fail as well.
But really, what are we talking about here? We’re talking about who’s going to take up the roster spot that fills out the fourth line. Peter Regin is getting the promotion to be a Top 6 forward and Smith is going to get limited minutes as a checker on the fourth line with the other youngsters. I think the mistake that everyone is making is that Zach Smith is being looked upon as the single answer to the loss of Jason Spezza.
While Smith may be taking the spot of Spezza as he nurses the shoulder injury, no one guy can truly replace what Spezza brings to the hockey club. Trust me, I hear the collective chuckles coming from most readers of that last sentence, but despite his struggles and his consistent problems with inconsistency, his natural talent will be a huge loss to a club that really can’t afford to be missing higher-end players.
I guess we’ll find out what life is like without Jason Spezza starting tonight, and for a high amount of people, they couldn’t be happier, but for those who just dismiss the 7-million dollar man and think the Sens are going to be OK without him, my advice to those would be, “Be careful what you wish for…” I didn’t think I would be so fired up to see Ottawa vs. Carolina, but sports have a funny way of forcing emotions.