Senators Begin to Roll

When the Senators signed Dany Heatley (Jeff) on Wednesday, there seemed to be a collective reliving breath out of the whole Ottawa area that could be heard across the country. Heatley, arguably one of the top 5 players in the league today, opened up the season with a bang, scoring a pair of goals, including the game winner against the Leafs on Wednesday night... only hours after signing his deal. The top line of Heatley/Spezza/Alfredsson will be in contention again this season to being the best line in the league, after a display like Wednesday night. On Thursday, they get to do it all over again against Toronto, but this time they're at home.

Injuries have already hit the Senators and it gives way to some opportunity to some other players. Dean McAmmond's concussion opens the door to Nick Foligno, while Ray Emery's (Aaron)wrist problems gives Martin Gerber (Chris) the number one job for the time being.

Gerber has the best chance of making a name for himself again with this new opportunity and frankly, he could either have himself a good enough start that when Emery comes back Gerber either remains the number one for the time being or makes himself attractive to other teams for a trade. It's a very interesting time for Gerber.

Dany Heatley	Jason Spezza	Daniel Alfredsson
Antoine Vermette	Mike Fisher	Patrick Eaves
Shean Donovan	Chris Kelly	Chris Neil
Nick Foligno	Josh Hennessy	Brian McGrattan
Dean McAmmond

Joe Corvo	Wade Redden
Andrej Meszaros	Chris Phillips
Christoph Schubert	Anton Volchenkov
Luke Richardson

Martin Gerber

Brian Elliot

Ray Emery

All 23 players on the roster, including McAmmond and Emery, are all listed as active players, so their salaries do count towards the cap at the moment. The current salary projection sits at $49.8 million. There is next to no room for any movement through the year and will have to hope for health throughout the season and none of those periods of time when key players are missing one or two games at a time.

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