Senator's Propsects

Patrick Wiercioch was recently drafted in the 2nd round of the 2008 NHL Draft by the Ottawa Senators, and Hockey's Future has a review of their draft. They don't say much about Patrick. He has NHL size, though he needs to fill out, and a lot of potential, but things to work and improve on as well.

The Universal Cynic blog also reports Patrick and Badger alumni Brian Elliott recently praticipated in the Senators' prospect camp. That blog's thoughts on the camp were not glowing. It appears that Ottawa does not have the best farm system. The AHL Binghamton Sens sound like a woeful defensive team outside of their goaltending. Hopefully Ottawa doesn't rush Patrick and he doesn't leave until he is NHL ready. Possibly Coach Osiecki can do more for his development in Madison then in the minors.

Speaking of Brian Elliott, there was talk that he could be in line for the backup job in Ottawa next season w/ the departure of Ray Emery. That does not seem very likely now that the Sens have signed another goalie to compliment Martin Gerber. The one positive this affords Brian is a lot of playing time in the AHL, though he regularly had to make 40+ saves a game last season on the above mentioned woefully defensive team. He still managed some good numbers (44 games, 18-19-1, 2.81 GAA, 0.915%), especially after a rather rough start to the season.

This is kinda old news, but Hockey In Wisconsin posted an article on Brian in the past month which are worth mentioning again.