Are we going to be the new Buffalo Sabres? 5 years straight without playoffs.

[Alex1234]

I'm sorry, not trying to be a jerk, but it is a playoff berth.

Thanks
Keyboard thing

 

[swiftwin]

So, should we not look at consistency and the ability to repeat the same result twice in a row (2 years in a row)? I'm speaking of the seasons' results when it comes to the Senators and being able to show improvement 2 years in a row.

Well, shouldn't we be doing the same with Detroit this season then??? OP is trying to measure up our rebuild against Detroit's. They haven't played their way out of the bottom 5 for two seasons in a row. Heck, they haven't even done it for one full season since 2017. They've been a bottom 6 team every single season since before our conference final appearance in 2017. But because, they've been .500 for the first 21 games of this season, their rebuild is done and ours isn't?!?! We were .571 in the last 21 games of last season. There isn't a single measure that anyone can use to declare that Detroit's rebuild is going better than ours. None.

 

[Joeyjoejoe]

Detroit’s reputation as an organization actually gives them the benefit of doubt as compared to our clown organization. They have actually won before.

Not to mention they are lead by one of the best GMs and ownership in the league, and are on track to get out of this rebuild a lot sooner than us.

 

[Byron Bitz]

You mean we will go from 32th to playoff berth in ONE season?

It’s been done, pretty sure I remember Colorado, Philly and Toronto all doing it

 

[DrEasy]

There's got to be a point where finishing at the bottom and drafting high picks will pay dividends, it's just not going to be the next two years. Even the most incompetent GM just could sit on his hands and still eventually parity will lift us to the playoffs. Dorion should just sit on his hands more often and not make devastating moves that set us back further and further.

Hard to project into 2-3 years from now, but some combination of the team below should be good enough for the playoffs, or at least a bubble team:

Chuck - Norris - Batherson
Stutzle - Pinto - Sokolov
Formenton - Greig - Boucher
Jarventie - Lodin - Crookshank
Kelly


Chabot - Thomson
Sanderson - JBD
Kleven - Brannstrom

Gus
Sogaard
Mando
Merilainen

+ picks between now and then + some useless vets

 

[DaveMatthew]

Well, shouldn't we be doing the same with Detroit this season then??? OP is trying to measure up our rebuild against Detroit's. They haven't played their way out of the bottom 5 for two seasons in a row. Heck, they haven't even done it for one full season since 2017. They've been a bottom 6 team every single season since before our conference final appearance in 2017. But because, they've been .500 for the first 21 games of this season, their rebuild is done and ours isn't?!?! We were .571 in the last 21 games of last season. There isn't a single measure that anyone can use to declare that Detroit's rebuild is going better than ours. None.

Steve Yzerman was hired as their GM in April of 2019. Why are you talking about their performance in 2017?

Detroit made the playoffs for 25 straight years until 2015-16. Then they missed for 3 straight seasons. That was enough for them to overhaul their management team.

We've missed the playoffs for 4 straight season. That was enough for us to give our GM a 3 year contract extension.

 

[swiftwin]

This is a good point.

Not enough to be excited about this roster unfortunately.

Just to add to my point, not only are we playing better this season, but the right players are playing better:

In the first 17 games last season, Batherson(1) and Norris(1) combined for 2 even strength goals playing on the first line. (Dadonov(6), Tkachuk(4), Watson(3), Tierney(3), CBrown(3) were the top 5)
In the first 17 games this season, Batherson(7) and Norris(4) combined for 11 even strength goals playing on the first line, and that's with Batherson playing only 14 games. (Batherson(7), Norris(4), Tkachuk(4), Sanford(4), CBrown(3) are the current top 5)

The rebuild is absolutely trending in the right direction. There results are just not there right now. There were always going to be bumps along the road. It was never going to be a perfect linear progression. Especially with something like the covid outbreak taking players out and cancelling practice for weeks (which is brutal for a young team trying to learn systems).

 

[swiftwin]

Detroit’s reputation as an organization actually gives them the benefit of doubt as compared to our clown organization. They have actually won before.

Not to mention they are lead by one of the best GMs and ownership in the league, and are on track to get out of this rebuild a lot sooner than us.

What about our reputation as an organization?? In the 20 years prior to the start of our rebuild in 2017, we were 6th in the league in P%. Besides maybe the Sharks, we were the best franchise not to win a cup in that era and had multiple deep playoff runs.

What about the Leafs? "Best ownership" doesn't mean jack shit. They haven't won a playoff round since 2004. We've won 7 since then. We won the presidents trophy in 2003 despite having an owner so broke we literally could not pay our players.

History and reputation as an organization is not a tree you want to bark up if you're trying to paint this organization as a failure. We have a long history of doing more with less. We're clearly on the path to doing the same thing again.

 

[SensHulk]

I’m still holding out a very faint hope they can turn this ship around and make a run, but in all likelihood it’s not happening

I didn’t realize but missing the playoffs for a 5th straight year would be a franchise record.

 

[swiftwin]

Steve Yzerman was hired as their GM in April of 2019. Why are you talking about their performance in 2017?

Detroit made the playoffs for 25 straight years until 2015-16. Then they missed for 3 straight seasons. That was enough for them to overhaul their management team.

We've missed the playoffs for 4 straight season. That was enough for us to give our GM a 3 year contract extension.

Not even remotely comparable. Holland was their GM for 22 years.

Dorion was the GM for 1 year (where he was nominated for GM of the year), and was then given an extension in year 2 with the mandate to complete a scorched earth rebuild (meeting with Melnyk in Barbados in February 2018). Considering the rebuild was trending in the right direction, it was the right call to give him annother extension this summer.

Completely different situations.

 

[SensFactor]

You mean we will go from 32th to playoff berth in ONE season?

I mean the season after next

 

[swiftwin]

You mean we will go from 32th to playoff berth in ONE season?

Colorado went from having the worst record of any non-expansion team in NHL history in 2016-17 to the playoffs in 2017-18.

Bonus: They did it without changing the coach or the GM, who are both still there to this day.

 

[L'Aveuglette]

ITT: Pierre Dorion's greatest champion spinning the utter failure that is this season as "actually we're better!". LOL

 

[Ice-Tray]

It will be the longest streak of non-playoff seasons in franchise history at the end of this season. The expansion team made the playoffs in their 5th season. It is crazy that some on here have the audacity to say the fanbase hasn't been patient with management, ownership and coaches.

I honestly believe we are maxed out budget wise with the Batherson and Tkachuk extensions, which is why we didn't do anything to improve the team. With how things have unfolded so far and with a few young guys that need new contracts, I would expect next offseason to be another money-in/money-out offseason.

Therefore I vote the last option.

Here is the problem with your assessment.

This is the 5th year. 2 of the years was the collapse of the last team.

This rebuild is only as old the final sell off of EK, Stone, Dutch, and Pageau. We didn’t have playoff misses in the expansion years. We had 5 years of straight building.

Let’s see where we’re at after 5 straight years of building, I suspect we’ll make the playoffs as well.

Call me audacious all you want, but you need to be patient. Why not look for excuses to make the rebuild look better instead of looking for excuses to make it look worse?

Can you realistically be already impatient when our captain is 22, and the bulk of our young core has yet to play a single 82 game season? Calling for patience seems more like common sense than audacity when you actually look beyond the absolute most superficial comparisons.

 

[swiftwin]

ITT: Pierre Dorion's greatest champion spinning the utter failure that is this season as "actually we're better!". LOL

I'm sorry the facts shatter your world view.

Will you provide some facts and arguments to the discussion, or will you just attack other people?

 

[Alex1234]

Colorado went from having the worst record of any non-expansion team in NHL history in 2016-17 to the playoffs in 2017-18.

Bonus: They did it without changing the coach or the GM, who are both still there to this day.

They had 112 and 90 and 82 points season before
Not 5 years of abysmal suckiness lol

 

[L'Aveuglette]

I'm sorry the facts shatter your world view.

Will you provide some facts and arguments to the discussion, or will you just attack other people?

The facts speak for themselves. You cherry pick those that fit your agenda.

 

[Ice-Tray]

Unless we luck into Wright or Bedard/Mitchkov and they end up being generational, i doubt we get out of bottom 10 given managements inability to bring in pro talent

The good news is that management has told us that they weren’t even been trying to bring in good on ice pro talent last season, and this year they only wanted to bring in two players if possible. I’m not sure we have been trying too hard to bring in pro talent as of yet.

 

[swiftwin]

They had 112 and 90 and 82 points season before
Not 5 years of abysmal suckiness lol

They missed the playoffs 6 of 7 seasons.

 

[GermanSpitfire]

I have lost confidence in management, coaching and ownership at this point unfortunately.

If Pierre McGuire is the next man up after Dorian… man are we in trouble.

 

[Ice-Tray]

They had 112 and 90 and 82 points season before
Not 5 years of abysmal suckiness lol

Yeah they fell off a cliff for one year, almost like they tanked

 

[Alex1234]

Colorado went from having the worst record of any non-expansion team in NHL history in 2016-17 to the playoffs in 2017-18.

Bonus: They did it without changing the coach or the GM, who are both still there to this day.

No lol

 

[Alex1234]

They missed the playoffs 6 of 7 seasons.

They are a team too
Thats not the point

 

[swiftwin]

No lol

I stand corrected. I read the wiki too quickly, it says:

"It was also the worst record of any team in the NHL since the Atlanta Thrashers finished with a record of 14–61–7 and 39 points in the 1999–2000 season (which was their first season in the league)[135] and one of the worst for a non-expansion team since 1967."

Ok, so maybe not the worst, but one of the worst. Way worse than any of the seasons in our current rebuild (48pts for them in 2016-17 vs 64pts for us in 2018-19).

 

[Alex1234]

The good news is that management has told us that they weren’t even been trying to bring in good on ice pro talent last season, and this year they only wanted to bring in two players if possible. I’m not sure we have been trying too hard to bring in pro talent as of yet.

The good news is management said FYOUS were starting this season lol
Senators' Eugene Melnyk pledges to spend close to salary cap from 2021–25 - Sportsnet.ca
So they lied
So where is the proof they are not lying again?