TSN: Ottawa Senators GM Pierre Dorion on TSN Radio 1200 on commentator RFA defenseman Erik Branstrom and forward Alex Debrynat.
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Host: “Pierre, with the improvements Erik Branström has made throughout the season, is it in your best interests to look to bring him back and sign him on a long-term deal?
Dorion: “Well, on that, yeah. I think it’s a two-part question. So obviously bringing it back, yeah.
One thing you have to realize is, depending on where we go with Alex, we will qualify Alex at the end of the year, even if we don’t have a contract, because we will be a big team.
So we may have to get a little creative as much as we do the guys at bridge deals. Maybe we’re doing guys on long-term deals, but I think we’re just going to be creative, especially for 2023-24, I think 2024-25 we’ll be fine with our plan if the cap goes up.
But I think with young defenders, people, I won’t say his name, but a really respectable GM in the league told me once in my first few years, you shouldn’t rate defenders until they’ve played about 200 games in the NHL. I think Eric has now played 200 or close to that.
Therefore, as we see him now, we cannot forget how young he is still. So, he’s only 20, he’s played 188 games according to Gord, thank you, so I think he’s really finding his confidence. He skated as he skated before. I think with Thomas Chabot’s injury, he’s got more ice time, especially with Jacob Cicciron’s injury, it’s got him more ice time. With Travis Hamonic’s injury making it ice time. And he’s really shown he can play those minutes, so that bodes really well for us.
I think one of the positions you can’t get a lot of is goalkeepers and defenceman.
Obviously we’d love to bring him back. I don’t know what the contract will look like. I’d like to go to Arabs with (inaudible), it’s something I really enjoy. All the times they put the gun to your head so we’ll see what happens but I think we have to compliment Eric and how he played, especially in the second half of the season.”