We’re all creatures of habit. We all have a routine when we get up in the morning. A lot of people catch the same bus every Monday-Friday and others drive the same morning commute every weekday morning. We even have workday schedules around the office and anything that takes us off course will put a huge dent into our day.
We put routine into everything from the way we eat our meals to the way to how we shower to even the way some people make love to their significant others. Routine is not thought about when it’s unaffected, but becomes a huge problem when things go differently or go wrong.
Why am I bringing up routine? Well, for Sens fans, it’s become routine for them to be cheering for a playoff-caliber team led by a couple of superstar players and a large contingent of veteran players. There may have been a couple of youngsters sprinkled here and there throughout the lineups, but they weren’t expected to be major contributors to the club. That’s all changing and in a hurry…
With the trade of Chris Kelly to the Boston Bruins last night and the trade of Mike Fisher to Nashville last week, not only has the rebuild started, but the average age of the roster has begun its significant plummet from old to young. Any other Senator that’s rumored to be moving between now and the trade deadline are 30 and over.
Despite losing two of their biggest locker-room assets, the amount of guys on this team that are 30 and over is staggering based on how putrid their record is and how close they are to being the worst team in the NHL. The bottom 5 is supposed to be reserved for the young and inexperienced.
Check the ages of the top players though. Daniel Alfredsson leads the bunch at 38. Alex Kovalev is 37. Sergei Gonchar is 36. Jarkko Ruutu is 35. Filip Kuba is 34. Chris Phillips is 32 and Chris Neil is 31. Mike Fisher and Chris Kelly are both 30 and now members of new teams.
The writing is on the wall and it says this team is OLD. Bryan Murray is right in doing what he is to this hockey club because it's time for a fresh start and you just don’t start fresh in professional sports with guys who are closer to retirement that to the day that they were drafted.
So be prepared to cheer on the youngster that closer to your son/daughter’s age than your own. It will be a huge shock to the system to Sens fans as they cheer for a team with an average age closer to 25 as opposed to one that has hovered around 30 for the longest time.
It’s yet another necessary evil that comes with re-tooling a franchise for the long-term. You have to let the young guys make their mistakes, mature and become better as they progress in their NHL careers.