News Article: Bullying and Backstabbing: The Ottawa Senators are Pro-Sports' Biggest Mess

[Boud]

My question is why we needed to trade Hoff...

To make it seem like they were going to offer the contract to Karlsson on July 1rst since the controversial story got out before July about Hoff and Karlsson. Essentially fans knew that they couldn't keep both so by trading him it makes it look like we try to keep Karlsson.

Otherwise I see no explanation for swapping Boedker and Hoffman. Hoff was so good with Duchene.

 

[CorrectOpinion]

To make it seem like they were going to offer the contract to Karlsson on July 1rst since the controversial story got out before July about Hoff and Karlsson. Essentially fans knew that they couldn't keep both so by trading him it makes it look like we try to keep Karlsson.

Otherwise I see no explanation for swapping Boedker and Hoffman. Hoff was so good with Duchene.

I guess that is the only explanation but I still feel like something doesn't make sense. I think we are missing part of the puzzle.

 

[Boud]

I guess that is the only explanation but I still feel like something doesn't make sense. I think we are missing part of the puzzle.

Hoffman - Duchene - Dzingel
Tkachuk - White - Stone
Ryan - Tierney - Batherson
Smith - Pageau - Paul

That would've been great.

Edit: Pageau line against top lines with 3 guys that can play C and take faceoffs.

 

[CorrectOpinion]

Hoffman - Duchene - Dzingel
Tkachuk - White - Stone
Tierney - Pageau - Ryan
Smith - Paul - Batherson

That would've been great.

Sigh

 

[bert]

To make it seem like they were going to offer the contract to Karlsson on July 1rst since the controversial story got out before July about Hoff and Karlsson. Essentially fans knew that they couldn't keep both so by trading him it makes it look like we try to keep Karlsson.

Otherwise I see no explanation for swapping Boedker and Hoffman. Hoff was so good with Duchene.

Exactly it was part of Melnyks elaborate scheme to get season ticket holders to extend. As it was supposed to suggest the sens were extending EK. Another massive miss calculation by ownership/management.

 

[Micklebot]

To make it seem like they were going to offer the contract to Karlsson on July 1rst since the controversial story got out before July about Hoff and Karlsson. Essentially fans knew that they couldn't keep both so by trading him it makes it look like we try to keep Karlsson.

Otherwise I see no explanation for swapping Boedker and Hoffman. Hoff was so good with Duchene.

Without knowing how the rest of the room reacted to the drama, there is no way of knowing. If Dorion did trade Hoffman at his lowest value solely because he wanted to fool the fans into thinking they'd sign Karlsson, that would be terrible. In this case though, I think the issue ran deeper than just Hoffman and Karlsson, I suspect teammates took sides.

 

[PeterSidorkiewicz]

I'm impressed you even got to point 1. You're usually not that open to outside perspectives. Congrats on the progress.

If you had originally called it your perspective and not the truth I wouldn’t have even commented with what I said.

I am fine with differing opinions all you have to do is look at that damn way too long boycott thread or the Warren thread, heck I even saw a poster present something and I changed my opinion about the flight banning.

 

[Nac Mac Feegle]

I guess that is the only explanation but I still feel like something doesn't make sense. I think we are missing part of the puzzle.

If Erik left and Hoffman stayed, most of the fans would have crucified him and blamed him for Erik leaving. And like Micklebot says, there was likely division in the room, as well. At the end of the day, we pretty much had to move both. It was at the point that keeping one (either one) would cause irreparable harm in the room.

Of course, it also appears there's a whole lot more happening in that room, but that's another soap opera altogether.

 

[Icelevel]

Man we used to be that team. Never the biggest playroll but always competitive, respected and one of the classiest organizations.

Gave me a lot of pride to be a fan of such classy payers like Alfredsson, Hossa, Chara, Spezza, Karlsson, Fisher, Neil etc etc.

Now we have ****ing Boro as a "veteran".

It is true that they made it easy to cheer for them and be proud of it. Classy is right. Hopefully we can get back to that.

 

[Upgrayedd]

Loving the latest twitter bot thing, I mean sucks that it happened but hilarious that they thought they would get away with it... and there were and still are people who doubt Travis Yost was hacked and furthermore called him crazy to prove the owner/team was likely behind it...LOL!

 

[Sens of Anarchy]

 

[Joeyjoejoe]

Hoffman - Duchene - Batherson
Tkachuk - White - Stone
Dzingel - Pageau - Ryan
Paarjvi - Smith - Paul

Lajoie - Karlsson
Chabot - Wideman
Wolanin - Jaros

 

[dumbdick]

I've made that point somewhere else, but again: the problem isn't necessarily running the team with a small budget, but running it WELL. A parallel with the Oakland A's was made by @solidprospect , and here's again a team that is running on a low budget, but is finding success. It all starts at the top: they've invested in a competent front office. So they get no scandals, no amateurish "interviews", but more importantly, they squeeze the maximum out of their player payroll.

Again, for me low payroll is never an issue. I don't mind rooting for an underdog, au contraire. But I find it very problematic to root for stupid decision-making. And the Sens have been making lots of questionable player decisions (including with Murray), but for me something broke especially with the Ziba trade. I didn't feel as invested in the team's playoff run that season. For someone else it could be a different move or trade. We've certainly lost a lot of fan favorites over the years, again dating back to Alfie, and none of the situations were handled well.

I agree with most of this, but I think the well-run budget team is going to be the exception, not the rule. All else equal, less money makes it harder to be competitive in an already-tough league.

I actually think the team is trending somewhat in the right direction for a budget team. Specifically, I think a budget team can't afford to take on the risk of an $11M Karl extension. So I'm glad they made a deal, even if I dislike the return and timing. Long term, we might have to accept the sens as a balanced "star-less" team that has to try to win with young guns, systems and a good supporting cast.

It will suck to routinely lose our stars as they come of age, but the alternative could be worse. Namely, putting all our eggs in one tiny budget-sized basket, and then dropping that basket (looking at you Bobby Ryan).

If you read the tea leaves, Dorion bragging about the quantity of players we got back from the Karl deal kind of aligns with that idea and gives a sense of what our roster might look like going forward. If that's the plan, there could be some major short-term pain as management overhauls the roster to get the salary balance they want.

On the other point, I'll give management SOME slack on the missteps. If you accept the budget reality, you can kind of understand some of the moves. Fans naturally want to sign ALL of our good players. But now every player has to be evaluated relative to their real salary dollars, and every decision has to be considered in terms of the spillover - that is, the impact on money available for other parts of the roster, and impact on other contracts coming due in 2-3 years.

It's way easier for rich teams. They CAN sign all their good players, and then go out and supplement the roster with whatever's left of the cap. Fans love it, and they get a pretty good roster even if some of the individual management decisions aren't very good.

 

[slamigo]

Twitter Bot Scandal Just Another Chapter in Eugene Melnyk’s Unethical History

ooof

 

[Ice-Tray]

Even cap teams have problems signing their best players. I mean TO is going to lose Nylander, that must really suck for the fans.

All teams have to be careful with who they sign, the difference between the floor and ceiling isn’t that big, we just can’t afford to make mistakes, and may have to get creative here and there when we make deals.

Some people don’t like the Zib deal, but I though it was solid at the time. I never like the player, I thought he was lazy at times, disinterest and inconsistent. We got arguably the better current player back in the deal, and we also found a way to get some financial relief. If we have to make small moves like that in our trades to try and stay compepetuve, so be it, as long as the ho key side of the trades make sense, which it did in regards to Zib in my opinion.

Small market team getting creative will be the way forward no matter who owns the team. The more fans fill the arena, and the higher the ticket prices are, the more the budget expands would be the hope

 

[dumbdick]

Where I do really dislike deals are the ones that are at least partially driven by name recognition. The Burrows, Kovalev and Gonchar signings come to mind...basically any deal where "how many jerseys will this sell?" seems to come into the decision process.

 

[solidprospect]

Twitter Bot Scandal Just Another Chapter in Eugene Melnyk’s Unethical History

ooof

Melnyk is being attacked by all the Colin's

 

[dumbdick]

These twitter bots are hilariously fake.

"Great Night for a Walk"
Tweeted at 3:39 pm on a day where the daytime high temperature was 11 degrees.

That said, I suspect even Sens marketing isn't stupid enough to try to pull this (really, for what gain?)

 

[Engineer]

Thanks for the reply. I honestly wasn't going to respond and yet here I am...

I made a mistake and while doing a search (standing on the bus and typing with one hand) I found some posts that were not written by you but were posted in threads that you had started. I misread the search results so you have my apologies. It's too bad that you quickly rushed to judgement and it's unfortunate that I came off as a troll, a tool, lazy and whatever else. That was not my intention.

Hi FJK.

I appreciate the apology, and can understand mistakes being made, I responded so strongly as I felt it you were gunning for me so I replied in the same manner. Now I just feel like a jerk, and probably rightfully so, so now it is my turn to apologize to you, sorry for rushing to judgement and insulting you in the process.

Thanks for reminding me why I hate "social media".

It's interesting that you mention this, as that is the exact same thought that crossed my mind when I read your initial reply to me.

 

[stempniaksen]

There's a heck of a difference between being a budget team and a floor team though. We've (almost) always been a budget team for the entirety of the teams existence and fans ahve (for the most part) been okay with that. I personally am not okay if the team becomes one of the "floor dwellers" like Arizona or Carolina, as that isn't the path to success.

Someone posted in this thread somewhere that spending money doesn't guarantee success, and while that's absolutely true, I'm equally confident that NOT spending money guarantees a lack of success. Other than Vegas (which will never happen again) I'd bet there aren't very many teams in the bottom-five in spending that have been able to consistently make the playoffs, let alone contend for a cup.

 

[solidprospect]

There's a heck of a difference between being a budget team and a floor team though. We've (almost) always been a budget team for the entirety of the teams existence and fans ahve (for the most part) been okay with that. I personally am not okay if the team becomes one of the "floor dwellers" like Arizona or Carolina, as that isn't the path to success.

Someone posted in this thread somewhere that spending money doesn't guarantee success, and while that's absolutely true, I'm equally confident that NOT spending money guarantees a lack of success. Other than Vegas (which will never happen again) I'd bet there aren't very many teams in the bottom-five in spending that have been able to consistently make the playoffs, let alone contend for a cup.

The Hawks, Penguins and Kings are all spending money. They also all won Cups with their players that were drafted by them before they got their big pay cheques. It was after winning the Cups that most of them were paid.

 

[BatherSeason]

I personally am not okay if the team becomes one of the "floor dwellers" like Arizona or Carolina, as that isn't the path to success.

Other than entry level contracts, this team currently has only 2 committed contracts for the 2020-2021 season, Bobby Ryan and Zach Smith. The organization has made multiple attempts to rid themselves of both of those contracts. Not gonna browse through every team, but I imagine that this is not normal.

Both Carolina and Arizona have locked up key pieces of their future for multiple years. The Sens seem unable to extend anyone.

We will be a floor team for the foreseeable future, at least until Melnyk is gone.

 

[stempniaksen]

Other than entry level contracts, this team currently has only 2 committed contracts for the 2020-2021 season, Bobby Ryan and Zach Smith. The organization has made multiple attempts to rid themselves of both of those contracts. Not gonna browse through every team, but I imagine that this is not normal.

We will be a floor team for the foreseeable future, at least until Melnyk is gone. Don't @ me with your "we will sign FA" takes, no FA will ever want to sign here.

Yeah, I think I'm pretty "on the record" as far as my views and what I expect will happen in the next few months. Just trying to clarify for people on the other side of the argument who continuously state that the Sens are a small market team and need to be run on it a budget. A Budget team is not the same thing as a Floor team, and if management tears this thing down completely I think a lot of people around will have to change their tunes.

 

[DrEasy]

I agree with most of this, but I think the well-run budget team is going to be the exception, not the rule. All else equal, less money makes it harder to be competitive in an already-tough league.

I actually think the team is trending somewhat in the right direction for a budget team. Specifically, I think a budget team can't afford to take on the risk of an $11M Karl extension. So I'm glad they made a deal, even if I dislike the return and timing. Long term, we might have to accept the sens as a balanced "star-less" team that has to try to win with young guns, systems and a good supporting cast.

It will suck to routinely lose our stars as they come of age, but the alternative could be worse. Namely, putting all our eggs in one tiny budget-sized basket, and then dropping that basket (looking at you Bobby Ryan).

If you read the tea leaves, Dorion bragging about the quantity of players we got back from the Karl deal kind of aligns with that idea and gives a sense of what our roster might look like going forward. If that's the plan, there could be some major short-term pain as management overhauls the roster to get the salary balance they want.

On the other point, I'll give management SOME slack on the missteps. If you accept the budget reality, you can kind of understand some of the moves. Fans naturally want to sign ALL of our good players. But now every player has to be evaluated relative to their real salary dollars, and every decision has to be considered in terms of the spillover - that is, the impact on money available for other parts of the roster, and impact on other contracts coming due in 2-3 years.

It's way easier for rich teams. They CAN sign all their good players, and then go out and supplement the roster with whatever's left of the cap. Fans love it, and they get a pretty good roster even if some of the individual management decisions aren't very good.

A well-run budget team can save money by not signing Smith to an extension, by not having two back up goalies on multi-million deals, by not trading Hoffman for a guy who probably clears waivers because he's too expensive for what he brings (while we know what other teams could have obtained for him). It's worth investing a little bit in the front office, knowing that it pays off ten fold.

And, like you said, when the return on the stars we can't afford to retain is good it is much easier to stomach to lose them.

 

[branch]

100% the bots came from the organization. Ruszowski is a slimy bitch and his boss is even greasier.