Quoting: Jacketsman61
Actually the players coming back for Ottawa make sense. Considering the dumpster fire Ottawa is right now, they are bringing in high character guys. Plus, I don’t think you give enough credit guys like Jenner and Murray who have shown glimpses of being the players that can be. Ottawa needs some decent talent in order to sell tickets. Niskanen may be a player moving towards the backend of his career but is very good player still and is not bogged down with a bad contract. He gives them time to develop prospects who will be more helpful when it is time to contend.
I am not saying that any of the players are bad. I actually like Boone Jenner and Matt Niskanen a lot, and would love them on my team. But picks aside, none of those pieces give the sens what they need to get out of a Karlsson trade. They need to get prospects that are going to be top end players for Ottawa for the next decade. None of the players in trade can do that.
Boone Jenner is a third line roleplayer who scored 30 goals once and will almost certainly never go it again. nice piece to have, but he's not substantially different than JGP who the sens already have.
Ryan Murray is a 2nd/3rd pair LHD who is thoroughly unimpressive at every aspect of the position. While he would certainly make the sens team, the sens already have enough ho hum LHD, and Ryan murray is going to be making a lot more money than a combination of Claesson, Borowiecki, Harpur or Englund would.
Niskanen is a good player. he might even be very good. On a Sens team with no EK65, he is the clear cut #1 RHD. I imagine having him next to Chabot would allow chabot to be the free wheeling maniac we've only dreamed of. And If he was 23, I would probably be fine with this trade. But he's 31, and I don't think it makes sense to bring in older players just to have them waste their last good years playing on a **** Sens team, only to have them retire or fall off before the sens are ready to contend again.
thats my rationale anyway.