Christian Jaros Autographed Card

The Ottawa Senators have ultimately parted ways with defenseman Christian Jaros and gained forward Jack Kopacka (who this morning belonged to the Anaheim Ducks) and the San Jose Sharks' 7th-round draft pick from 2022; in the three-way trade, the Sharks sent former fourth-rounder Trevor Carrick to Anaheim.

I had identified size on the back end in my Shaks Season Preview post as a need they needed to fill, and it seems instead of going with the devil they knew, they opted to give a guy who couldn't make it out of the Sens' Taxi Squad a chance instead. Jaros is 24 years old, 6'3" and 222 pounds; he's good enough to be a top-four defender in both the Swedish League and the AHL, he just has to transpose his skill to the NHL level. Last season he had three assists and six penalty minutes in 13 games in Ottawa to go with 2 goals, 13 assists, 15 points, 14 PIMs and an astonishing +20 rating with the Belleville Senators.

What I've seen from him so far can be solved with a bit of self-confidence: he's already good defensively and uses his size to make timely hits; he rarely gets outskated (although he won't get confused with Connor McDavid anytime soon, either) and he seems to have good offeinsive reflexes, a decent pass and a good shot. In that sense, he reminds me of Peter Popovic in the 1990s, a guy who was comfortable on the second pair, who remained on the back end, until he started shooting more, and little by little gained some powerplay time. He unfortunately went back to Sweden just as he was hitting his stride and quickly became his team's captain overseas. I see the same type of skill, with perhaps more speed on Jaros' part.

Here he is wearing the Senators' white (away) uniform on card #638 from Upper Deck's 2017-18 O-Pee-Chee collection and Marquee Rookies sub-set:

He signed it in blue sharpie after a preseason game; it allows me to enter him as #83 in my Sens Numbers Project.