After a truly miserable season, the Ottawa Senators will go into an off-season with more than a few chips to play when it comes to signing unrestricted free agents.

Too bad it’s such a bad year for them. The group is particularly thin at forward, which is where the Senators need the most help. You see, the Senators have a total of $42.8 million committed to 15 roster players next season, meaning that if the salary cap holds steady at $58.8 million for 2011-12, they’ll have about $16 million to spend to re-sign their own players and go after a few others.

And they won’t have to use up a whole lot of their cap space to get their own players under contract. Forwards Marek Svatos and Ryan Shannon are their only unrestricted free agents up front and David Hale is their only UFA on defence. The betting here is they could, if they choose, get Svatos and Shannon back for reasonable money and allow Hale to walk. They have David Runblad and Jared Cowen waiting in the wings. In goal, Craig Anderson is under contract and Robin Lehner will almost certainly be the backup.

The three main restricted free agents they have to get under contract are all forwards — Bobby Butler, Colin Greening and Erik Condra. All three have acquitted themselves well since being summoned by the Senators and all three make in the range of $900,000 and probably deserve a raise. But none of the three has arbitration rights, meaning these players have almost no bargaining leverage beyond sitting out if they don’t reach a deal. The Senators should not have to spend much more than $3 million to $3.5 million to get all three under contract.

They’ll probably have to reserve space for the rookie salary cap, plus all achievable bonuses, for the player they pick in the first round of the draft in June. But that still would leave ample room for them to get some desperately needed scoring via free agency.

Brad Richards is the jewel of July 1 and he would be a fantastic pickup the Senators could probably afford. But would he really come to a team that’s rebuilding when he will have so many other options? Probably not.

There are some very good players who might be available, though, including Jason Arnott, Jamie Langenbrunner, Jussi Jokinen, Joel Ward, Tomas Kopecky and Brendan Morrison. There is not a star among them, but they are solid veterans with good track records.