I'm a little stumped here. Brian Lee was shipped back to Bingo - for the squishillionth time - and back to the fold comes Erik Karlsson. And I have to wonder why?



Lee has been solid recently. No spectacular, but he doesn't make the rookie mistakes he used to make. He's simplified his game quite a bit and is effective on defense. He also has pretty good puck sense on the offense. By far, Alexandre Picard would be a better choice to ship out. So what gives?

I can't see a Lee trade, you don't usually send your guys to the farm team to trade them. You bring them up in the spotlight... which is kind of what's happening to Karlsson: back in the spotlight after scoring 11 points in 12 games with the Baby Sens. Perhaps it's as simple as that, perhaps Bryan Murray is looking for some offense from the D, for a point shooter. But Lee's not such a bad point shooter.

Then I remembered that Murray is always looking for a top six forward. Right now, he has Jason Spezza, Daniel Alfredsson, Milan Michalek, Mike Fisher, and Alex Kovalev as his top guys. Then you get to Nick Foligno. Nick's got a lot of heart, but can't really be classified as a top-six. There are loads of people in the league who could fit the bill of a top six forward, and kickstart the type of scoring I expect Murray would like to see.

Let's look at that picture. With Anton Volchenkov returning soon, the Senators will find themselves with seven blueliners on cap, clearly one too many. The core won't move, but some could. Picard with his $800,000 salary, or even Chris Campoli with his $633,000 salary, or even Karlsson himself who costs $875,000. Both Picard and Campoli are RFA at the end of the season. Package that with a Nick Foligno or a Ryan Shannon and you're looking at the Sens making cap room to the tune of about $3.5 to $4 million. Plenty enough for a top 6 forward.

Rumours are strong that some southern teams and the Toronto Maple Leafs are ready to deal. Toronto's GM Burke has the go-ahead to clean house. Someone like Niklas Hagman would be very affordable for the Sens at $3 million.for the next three seasons. Maybe Murray is setting his ducks in a row to acquire Jaromir Jagr who may be out of a contract in the KHL soon, and has been rumoured to be speaking with Ottawa amongst others.

In the end, maybe I'm looking too deep into it. Maybe Murray's just looking to increase scoring and the point shot on the power play just before a gruelling road schedule. But that's a mighty weak maybe.