How funny is it that the Toronto Maple Leafs have become most competently run team in Canada?
After so many years as the punching bag of the NHL, the Toronto Maple Leafs now have a core of players that can go head-to-head with anyone in the league, and a management group that can properly run a hockey team. It wasn’t always that way. All I can say now watching the Senators implode is “Thank God that isn’t the Leafs anymore.”
That’s a far cry from what’s going on in Montréal, Vancouver, Edmonton and Ottawa.
While everyone was sleeping Monday morning, the Montréal Canadiens traded their captain Max Pacioretty to the Vegas Golden Knights. To be fair, this was a great trade for the Habs, but trading your captain is never a good look and they have made some extremely questionable moves under the watch of Marc Bergevin. And, just when you thought Canadian hockey teams couldn’t do anything weirder, the Ottawa Senators showed up.
The Ottawa Senators Everyone!
Why Sens owner Eugene Melnyk chose to release a video of him being interviewed by Defenseman Mark Borowiccki on Monday, I don’t know. To say the least, it was kind of weird.
The Ottawa Senators are proud to share the vision for the future of our team and this organization. We are about to launch an exciting plan to rebuild our team and we are inviting you to be a part of our rise to new heights. #OttawaRising pic.twitter.com/hok2jYCUVi
— Ottawa Senators (@Senators) September 11, 2018
Multiple times during the “interview” Melnyk mentions the word rebuild, yet also wants this year to be a “watershed” year in the history of the franchise. He explains the turnover of players in the next few years saying that “10 out of 22 players…are either rookies or maybe they played under 10 games last year.” Melnyk even goes out of his way to say the franchise will be staying in Canada’s capital, that they “aren’t going anywhere.”
Thanks for the reassurance, but you wouldn’t have to say that if you hadn’t made comments about moving the team in the past.
Unfortunately, Melnyk also stated that he’s “going to stick around for a long, long time”. That’s the worst thing Ottawa Senators fans want to hear and the best thing Toronto Maple Leafs fans want to hear.
You see Ottawa, as of right now Leafs fans are watching and enjoying the show, and more importantly are thankful that the Leafs have rebounded and are not the poorly run clown show that they were before or that the Sens are now.
Melnyk Meddles
With Melnyk as a meddling owner, the Sens have fallen hard since being one goal away from the Stanley Cup Final in 2017. The problem was obvious to anyone who took the time to look at the stats the Senators posted that season.
To be blunt: their performance in 2017 was a total fluke. Instead of reading the situation properly, they chose to consider themselves as a contender and then made a series of short-term moves in accordance with that massive miss-read.
It all began with the Matt Duchene trade that saw the Sens ship off Kyle Turris to the Nashville Predators, and also gave the Colorado Avalanche their first round pick in either 2018 or 2019. The Sens then finished the season an abysmal 28-43-11 with rumors of trades and firings abound.
After the rough season, Sens fan looked to Melnyk and GM Pierre Dorion for any moves or trades that could help the team.
They did not do that.
They kept the fourth overall pick instead of sending it to Colorado, passing on Filip Zadina and drafting LW Brady Tkachuk, so now the Avs have the Sens’ first round pick next year. Given the lottery and the parity in the NHL, keeping the pick wasn’t the worst idea, but just the thought of having to give the #1 overall pick away is going to haunt the Senators all season long.
They paid large sums of money to Mark Stone ($7,350,000) and Cody Ceci ($4,300,000) after arbitration hearings. And in a storm of controversy, traded Mike Hoffman, Cody Donaghey and a 2020 5th round pick to the San Jose Sharks for Mikkel Boedker, Julius Bergman and a 2020 6th round pick. It was a terrible return.
Already a lopsided trade, the Sharks then shipped Hoffman to the Florida Panthers for a better return than the Sens got for him in the first place. There were no updates on Erik Karlsson other than trade rumors, and the team remained idle for the rest of the summer, with this video being the biggest piece of news to come out of Ottawa since the Hoffman trade.
If there’s one thing to take away from the Sens situation, it’s this: Toronto Maple Leafs fans should be grateful that their team isn’t run like the Ottawa Senators. Anymore. But hey, we’ve been there. Many times.
While Montréal has made many mistakes over the last few years, at least they’ve made trades when they needed to and tried to add to their team. The Sens are being run into the ground and it may get worse before it get better, and we should all be thankful that’s not the case for the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Salary figures courtesy of capfriendly.com