The Senators quickly found out they erred last summer by signing veteran David Legwand just in case Jean-Gabriel Pageau wasn't quite ready for prime time.
They refused to travel down the same road again as the 2015 free agent market opened.
Instead of inking their own Erik Condra or any other proven NHLer, GM Bryan Murray opted to only add three players who are ticketed to start the season with their farm team.
"We liked Erik a lot, we tried real hard to encourage him to stay here," said Murray. "He got a three year offer (from Tampa), and we've done that in the past but in a couple of cases, like Legwand last year, it didn't really work out.