Ottawa-- As the Senators continue to retool for the future more key players have been traded as Alex Kovalev and Scott Hartnell have been sent packing to the Bruins while Jussi Jokinen and Lukas Krajicek have been sent to the Rangers. 

Although the Senators gave up a lot in these two deals everyone with team feels they have improved there team for next year and in the future.  Coming back to the Sens in there first trade which saw Kovalev and Hartnell head to Bean Town is three young players, forwards Pierre Marc Bouchard and Alex Burrows along with defenseman Ladislav Smid.  In there second deal of the day the Sens wanted to replace some of the fire power they lost in Kovalev so they brought in Vaclav Prospal from the Rangers for youngsters Krajicek and Jokinen, picks where also exchanged in this deal.

"While Scottie (Hartnell) certainly played a great two way game for us and scored more then a few key goals, as an organization we feel that Bouchard will be a big improvement offensively for us next year and play a key role as a set up man to Brad Boyes," said the Sens GM, "and while Smid still has some improvements to make he is still very young we really feel like the sky is the limit with him and that he will develop into an outstanding defenseman, and will be an improvement over Lukas (Krajicek) who while is also very young, we feel he doesn't really have as much upside defensively as Smid."

"Losing Kovalev was obviously going to create a huge hole on our team offensively and while we aren't fully replacing his production with Vinny (Prospal) we feel he will certainly produce on a high level and is a legitimate first line center on almost any team in the leauge," continued the GM, "and of course trading away Jokinen was difficult but we felt we were wasting his talents on the third and fourth lines and that really Alex (Burrows) would be a better fit for us on our 3rd line then Jussi (Jokinen) would in a defensive role so while we lose a bit of offensive talent what Burrows makes up for defensively and physically we felt it was a better fit."

It is believed that Ottawa still has a few moves to make but it isn't expected to invlove anyone in there long term plans, meaning Todd Marchant should be moved, and if anyone can fit him under the cap Mike Rathje will be moved as well.

-- Edited by Sens at 02:19, 2008-02-23