Condon Remains in Ottawa

On Wednesday, the Ottawa Senators announced that they had put pen to paper with back-up goalie Mike Condon, signing him to a new 3-year, $7.2 million deal.

Condon was a huge help to the Senators in the 2017 season, as he was at the helm for the club, when Craig Anderson needed his leaves of absence for family reasons, and he held the fort quite admirably, helping the team reach the playoffs.

The 27-year old netminder posted 19 wins and 48 points in 41 appearances, 38 of those appearances were starts.  Those numbers were good enough for 25th among all goalies in hockey pool points, putting him among the starters in the top 30, which makes for a pretty good year, considering his workload.

The signing does recreate a log jam of netminders for the Senators, as Andrew Hammond is still hanging around with a significant cap hit to his name, one that could find its way back down to the minors, if all things remain equal.  Hammond could fetch the Senators a decent return via trade, which also appears to be an option, but I would guess that a lot of those teams looking for goalies are going to the free agent market first, but will swing back around later.

Nevertheless, with Condon on board, he may not get the same amount of work that he did in the 2017 season, but the Senators may be more comfortable giving Anderson an extra night off here and there, with the reliable back-up ready to go in his place.  Just don't expect those same numbers, when you're drafting your hockey pool team.

Forwards	Cap	Defense	Cap	Goalies	Cap
Bobby Ryan	7.250	Dion Phaneuf	7.000	Craig Anderson	4.200
Mike Hoffman	5.188	Erik Karlsson	6.500	Mike Condon	2.400
Derick Brassard	5.000	Cody Ceci	2.800	Andrew Hammond	1.350
Clarke MacArthur	4.650	Mark Borowiecki	1.100
Kyle Turris	3.500	Thomas Chabot	0.894
Mark Stone	3.500	Chris Wideman	0.800
Zack Smith	3.250	Fredrik Claesson	0.650
Alexandre Burrows	2.500
Tom Pyatt	1.100
Colin White	0.925
Mike Blunden	0.738
Nick Paul	0.670
Chris DiDomenico	0.613

The Senators are not hurting for cap space, despite having a few lumps of salary on their books, like Bobby Ryan or Dion Phaneuf.  The 23-man projected roster above is still coming in $8.4 million below the salary cap ceiling, which would suggest that they could be players in the free agent market, possibly trying to find some extra scoring help up front and/or some more playoff experience to help push through where they finished this spring, the Eastern Conference Finals.