Roster Additions Land, But Sanderson's Shadow Hangs Over Everything

Ottawa added a former Penguins forward late last month — details on terms remain thin — and the move fits the general shape of what the Senators have been doing all summer: patching holes left by the Tkachuk trade and a blue line that lost depth before the offseason even started. Eklund, Spence, Giroux's one-year return, and now this. The pieces are accumulating.

The problem is that none of them address the thing I wrote about earlier this week. Sanderson logged 24.5 minutes a night last season and finished plus-seven, the best rating on the roster. He was the connective tissue on a defense that already has questions behind him. Artem Zub is also out. Adding a forward doesn't change the math on any of that.

The Senators won just 43 percent of their one-goal games last season — that's where the playoff race was lost. A tighter blue line was supposed to be part of the fix. Spence is a reasonable bet, but he's never been asked to carry the load Sanderson carries. If Sanderson isn't ready for opening night, Ottawa is asking a rebuilt roster to solve a close-game execution problem with a defense corps that's thinner than the one that couldn't solve it last year.

The late-July additions are fine. They're just not the variable that matters right now.