Looking on the bright side of the Ottawa Senators season

"Yes, we have a plan. It involves us
repeatedly assuring you we have a plan."

The Ottawa Senators may have finally hit rock bottom.

The team has fallen to 27th place, miles out of the playoff spot they'd expected to contend for. They have the worst goal-differential in the entire league. They've lost six in a row at home, most recently an embarrassing 7-1 disaster at the hands of the Montreal Canadiens. The roster is old and expensive. And fans are screaming for heads on a platter.

So sure, things could be better. But is that any reason to get all negative?

Long-time readers know that I reject the online culture of cynical pessimism, and instead choose to always look at the glass as half full. So I reached out to my various contacts within the Ottawa organization, and they helped me put together a list of feel-good stories.

Cheer up, Senator fans. You have so much to be thankful for:

• Team salespeople report that the idea of renewing their season tickets apparently makes Senator fans really happy, since whenever you call to ask them about it they just laugh hysterically into the phone for hours.
  
  
• Making his only start of the season, third-string goalie Mike Brodeur recently gave up four goals in a half game's work and was then immediately sent down to the minors, which this season means he can be referred to as "The Good Brodeur".
  
  
• The players should be rested and ready to go next year thanks to an extended four-month offseason, as opposed to the three-and-a-half-month offseason that they're used to.
  
  
• The team has saved a ton of money on their office supplies budget in recent years by just giving every new coach the same generic "miscellaneous interim head coach" business cards.
  
  
• Let's just say that the franchise-record seven-year streak of not losing to the Maple Leafs in the playoffs shows absolutely no sign of ending any time in the next decade.
  
  
• The team is almost certain to have a top ten pick at this year's draft, so get ready to say hello to the next Brian Lee.
  
  
• Veteran defenceman Sergei Gonchar is having a career year, in the sense that at his age it's pretty much a given that every other season over the rest of his career will be even worse than this one.
  
  
• All in all, you have to admit that the players have actually done a pretty good job of dealing with the crushing pressure of playing for the city's third most popular NHL team.
  
  
• Anyone who's watched him play recently would agree that Alexei Kovalev is ridiculously, embarrassingly, horrifically overpaid at $5 million per year, which should make it especially entertaining when he gets $6 or $7 million as a free agent this summer from the Rangers.
  
  
• Thanks to the purchase of an insurance policy that pays $100 for each Pascal Leclaire injury, the team will turn a profit on the season of roughly seven billion dollars.
  
  
• The front office is unlikely to have to make any offseason choices between a future Norris winner and a future overpaid minor leaguer, which is good news since they tend to have a little bit of trouble with that one.
  
  
• Daniel Alfredsson just guaranteed that no team would be crazy enough to give up anything decent for a struggling 38-year-old with two more years left on his contract, so, ka-ching!
  
  
• Ownership is confident that the community will continue to support the franchise during a rebuilding phase, since other than the Rough Riders, Rebel, Loggers, Lynx, Renegades and maybe a dozen more at the most, Ottawa sports fans have never abandoned a losing team.
  
  
• They're about to embark on a thorough rebuilding of an Ontario-based team under the leadership of a former Anaheim Ducks general manager -- how could that ever go wrong?