Welcome Erik! Because You Can Never Have Too Many Undersized Swedish Teens!

I'm going to need a little time to digest this one. Erik Karlsson. Pierre McGuire calls him "the Swedish Brian Rafalski". I'm assuming that doesn't mean he's out of shape and overpaid.

If you asked any Sens fan what it was we needed the most out of this draft, the answer would have been "an assassin". The second answer? A big, mean, Pull Out Your Spleen Through Your Anus And Eat It With A Nice Chianti While Crushing Your Spine defenceman. We get...Erik. Erik weighs 157 pounds. I haven't weighed 157 pounds since Grade 10.

The Bryan began his post-draft interview with the following sentence: "To win in today's NHL...". Did I mention that Erik will be playing in Sweden for the foreseeable future? Did I also mention that we traded UP to get him?

More as the weekend goes on. Right now, I need to mail order some HGH to Stockholm.

NHL Meatmar...Er...Draft 2008! Now With 76% More Drunken Bloggers!

"Ottawa apologizes." With those immortal words uttered on a glorious June day in 1992, possibly while drunk, then GM Mel Bridgeman kicked off the Ottawa Senators' long and embarrassing disastrous painful illustrious draft day history. I'm not sure if you've heard, but this year's cattle call is happening in our own backyard of scenic Kanata, whereupon dozens of young men will kiss their moms, mount the stage in all of their pimply peach fuzzed glory, don a jersey, put on a baseball cap and rush out to buy Paraguay. Good times.

Now this may tag me as somewhat of a heretic amongst my blogospheric brethren (and...um..."sisteren"? Hi Sherry!) but I've never been a huge fan of the draft. Putting aside the inherent creepiness of middle aged men poring over the physical attributes of strapping young lads the way you would a thoroughbred ("Stamkos? Fantastic speed! Nice gait. Check his teeth."), it's hard to get excited by your team's draft picks when you know it will be a few years before you see them with the big club, if at all (freaks of nature named "Crosby" or "Ovechkin" excepted of course).

Now that said, there is one very good reason to get excited about this year's festivities. SensBlogCon 2008! Put together by none other than Ben Meyers, writer, editor and driving force-y goodness behind Sens Army, this inaugural meeting of Sens bloggers, fans and various sycophantic hangers-on promises to be an entertaining and enlightening little soiree indeed. Ben has the details up on his site as well as this Facebook group.

So join us, won't you? Not only will you be amongst kindred souls as we contemplate the pitiful sight of some poor bastard in his grandfather's suit who sat through seven rounds and never got picked, but also put pasty white faces behind the names of those responsible for some of the best Sens blogs on the interwebs. I hear most of them have even promised to wear pants.