Evaluating the Rebuild

[Vesa Awesaka]

It wasn't Kelly's point production that Boston got from him, it was his 2 way play. You can't teach that and that work ethic is what was missing from the Senators lineup when he was traded.

Any other GM would get rid of the dead wood when rebuilding, not key players.

Both Vermette and fisher are excellent two way players that significantly out produced kelly for only a mil or 2 more. Kelly made too much money and his role could be filled without having to give up much.

 

[Back in Black]

Then I guess Murray should have kept those 2 dead wood players too, eh?

 

[Vesa Awesaka]

For what it's worth, we were lacking a 2nd line center for all of what, 60 games? Most of which was in a season we had written off? We acquired Turris early in the year after moving Fisher. Fisher was also 30 yrs old at that point, so you could make the same argument about him more likely to regress than improve (though he started off better than Kelly).

As for the return for Vermette, it was at least an attempt to fill a long time need for the team. It backfired, but the idea was right. Move an expendable asset (Vermette wasn't cracking our top 6) for a position of need (goaltender graveyard afterall). The 2nd round pick has panned out pretty well, so I'm still ok with that trade if we ignore the benefit of hindsight.

Edit: trades that we should be pissed off about are the ones that made no sense from the get go: Havlat for a bag of pucks, Laich for a redundent aging Bondra, Commodore (I liked getting Stillman, wish we re-signed him), Campolli made a bit of sense (from a team need perspective), but imo, if you're going to give up a 1st, aim higher and add a bit more.

I've heard you say this a 1000 times and it doesnt matter. LeClaire was an injury prone goalie who wasnt a proven number one and was VERY VERY inconsistent. Add to the fact we traded for him when he was coming off an injury riddled season with a sub 890 save percentage. Guy had one good year and Murray bit hard. Columbus recognized this guy wasnt an NHL starter and got rid of him for a player they would use as their first line center. Vermette is and was a consistent 20 goal scorer and we sold him when his value was low for a goalie who's value was high but with a little digging and thought you could see leclaire was a bust.

 

[Benjamin]

It is far too early to tell. Puempel is still young... And a natural scorer. Took a long time for Stone or Hoffman to break in and both are very useful. Puempel is far younger then both. So he has no NHL games so far. He easily could be called up and be a top 9 forward now. It is too early to assess late first rounders now. You can tell who is a huge success and who os a total bust. No one in hockey considers Puempel a bust. At all. He is an unproven, but successful scorer with a lot of tools. He wasn't drafted 5 years ago. He has only played a couple of AHL seasons. Was injured some in junior. He could totally succeed. Was Toffoli a bust? He was not a first. But a highly successful higher draft pick. He took time and call-ups. By the time he made it he was almost a legit star. Puempel has a similar opportunity over the next year or two.

I dont think you understand why I don't like the trade. I don't think Puempel is close to busting and far from disappointing, I think he's a pretty good prospect. I like Puempel, big fan. I wanted Puempel with the pick used on Noesen going into the draft.

I don't like the trade because we could have selected two prospects on the same level as Puempel with the 2nd's. Bad value trade.

 

[Micklebot]

I've heard you say this a 1000 times and it doesnt matter. LeClaire was an injury prone goalie who wasnt a proven number one and was VERY VERY inconsistent. Add to the fact we traded for him when he was coming off an injury riddled season with a sub 890 save percentage. Guy had one good year and Murray bit hard. Columbus recognized this guy wasnt an NHL starter and got rid of him for a player they would use as their first line center. Vermette is and was a consistent 20 goal scorer and we sold him when his value was low for a goalie who's value was high but with a little digging and thought you could see leclaire was a bust.

Lots of poeple in the business thought Leclaire was a high potential goalie. Most of his injuries prior coming to Ottawa also seemed to be of the freak accident type.

Pierre Maguire went as far as to say LeClaire was the highest skilled goalie Ottawa had ever had. It was a gamble that he stayed healthy though, had it not been, he wouldn't have been available at that price. He was a young goalie entering his prime years, who had put up numbers on a Columbus team that were better than any goalie in Ottawa's history not named Hasek had done.

Had it panned out, we had a frachize potential goalie at a relatively low cost. With it not working out, we traded a 2nd line center (Vermette was never what you'd call a 1st line center, even if he played that role on a bad team) for a mid 2nd. Not a great trade, but not devistating given we didn't have room for Vermette in our top 6.

As far as them recognizing he wasn't NHL caliber, my guess is they saw Mason win the Calder and thought they had a 20 yr old franchise goalie and opted to move their other highly regarded goalie. The revisionist history with the benefit of hindsight is intelectually dishonest, it was a calculated risk that didn't pan out. I'd make that trade 1000 times again over what we returned for a much better player in Havlat becaue it had the potential to fill a need, much like Turris for Rundblad. We took a risk to fill a need, in one case it worked out, in the other it didn't.

 

[Do Make Say Think]

I said it the day we got Leclaire and remember that day well

If you have freak accidents everywhere you go and and all times in your career you are freak injury prone

And what happens? He has to get surgery because of a puck that hit him while he was on the bench

At some point you don't argue with consistency and accept it

We got Lehner with the pick so it wasn't horrible but if that pick turned out to be poop it would have been awful

 

[Vesa Awesaka]

Lots of poeple in the business thought Leclaire was a high potential goalie. Most of his injuries prior coming to Ottawa also seemed to be of the freak accident type.

Pierre Maguire went as far as to say LeClaire was the highest skilled goalie Ottawa had ever had. It was a gamble that he stayed healthy though, had it not been, he wouldn't have been available at that price. He was a young goalie entering his prime years, who had put up numbers on a Columbus team that were better than any goalie in Ottawa's history not named Hasek had done.

Had it panned out, we had a frachize potential goalie at a relatively low cost. With it not working out, we traded a 2nd line center (Vermette was never what you'd call a 1st line center, even if he played that role on a bad team) for a mid 2nd. Not a great trade, but not devistating given we didn't have room for Vermette in our top 6.

As far as them recognizing he wasn't NHL caliber, my guess is they saw Mason win the Calder and thought they had a 20 yr old franchise goalie and opted to move their other highly regarded goalie. The revisionist history with the benefit of hindsight is intelectually dishonest, it was a calculated risk that didn't pan out. I'd make that trade 1000 times again over what we returned for a much better player in Havlat becaue it had the potential to fill a need, much like Turris for Rundblad. We took a risk to fill a need, in one case it worked out, in the other it didn't.

I hated it at the time of the trade because i saw us trade a 20 goal scorer for a guy who only played over 50 games once in his career and only put up an above .920 save percentage twice in the ahl other then that i saw crap save percentage numbers and a goalie who supposedly had all the talent in the world but couldnt keep it together. Guy would get a lot of shuts outs if i remember correctly then would absolutely suck for weeks on end. Murray bet that LeClaire would improve despite is career trending otherwise and he bet Vermette would get worse despite he career trending otherwise. He panicked... We needed a goalie, he saw Vermette was having a bad season despite being great every other year and he saw a goalie who was a year removed from being an NHL starter. Fact is LeClaire wasnt NHL material and based on his career trend outside one year didnt look like he was going to be. Then you have Vermette who outside one year looked like an NHLer. Hell i bet there were better ufa goalies available or i bet we could have gotten a better starter.

 

[Burrowsaurus]

I'm not attached to Murray and have been critical of some of his decisions. Kelly is an okay talent but hes a 30 point player that was making to much when he was traded added that to the fact that hes in his 30s and isnt likey to get better more likely only worse. We got everything we could out of Kelly as a sen and we got what his value commanded when we traded him. People should be more pissed at the return for Vermette and fisher. Two players that were legit second line center that left us begging for similar players until we got turris.

Left us begging for like 4 months

 

[Burrowsaurus]

It wasn't Kelly's point production that Boston got from him, it was his 2 way play. You can't teach that and that work ethic is what was missing from the Senators lineup when he was traded.

Any other GM would get rid of the dead wood when rebuilding, not key players.

Not if tbey wanted to return anything of value.

 

[Ismellofhockey]

Don't forget the Vermette trade also gave us the pick we used to select Lehner.

 

[Micklebot]

I hated it at the time of the trade because i saw us trade a 20 goal scorer for a guy who only played over 50 games once in his career and only put up an above .920 save percentage twice in the ahl other then that i saw crap save percentage numbers and a goalie who supposedly had all the talent in the world but couldnt keep it together. Guy would get a lot of shuts outs if i remember correctly then would absolutely suck for weeks on end. Murray bet that LeClaire would improve despite is career trending otherwise and he bet Vermette would get worse despite he career trending otherwise. He panicked... We needed a goalie, he saw Vermette was having a bad season despite being great every other year and he saw a goalie who was a year removed from being an NHL starter. Fact is LeClaire wasnt NHL material and based on his career trend outside one year didnt look like he was going to be. Then you have Vermette who outside one year looked like an NHLer. Hell i bet there were better ufa goalies available or i bet we could have gotten a better starter.

I can appreciate that you didn't like the trade at the time, as it had some inherrent risk. That said, I don't agree with your assesment of his career at that point. He had shown potential as a rookie, and injuries derailed his sophomore season. The next year was the breakout season which was again followed by an injury (of the freak accident variety). His 2007 season was actually pretty consistant, with 57.7% of his starts being above league average in sv%, he also had very few really bad outings that year. He very much looked like a player on the rise if he could shake the injury bug.

I also find it funny that you say he wasn't NHL material outside of 1 year. The reality is before being traded, he only had one subpar year as a 24 yr old backup on a terrible team. Prior to that he had a promising rookie year, again on a terrible team, a very good season, and an injury shortened season, with too little games to evaluate.

Anyways, agree to disagree, I'm not going to be risk adverse when it comes to potentially solving a long term issue at a time when #1 goalies were very hard to come by (we could have had Conklin, or Biron... Maybe even Niittymaki!). I think the glut of quality starters right now has blinded people to how hard it was to find good goalies as little as 5 years ago.

 

[Icelevel]

Trading fisher was one move too far imo. Should have kept fisher. Excellent leader, role model for younger guys and would be our best center even today. Mistake, especially when you look at the return.

 

[Pierre from Orleans]

Trading fisher was one move too far imo. Should have kept fisher. Excellent leader, role model for younger guys and would be our best center even today. Mistake

So who would you have moved instead Fish?

 

[Icelevel]

So who would you have moved instead Fish?

Chris Phillips

 

[Pierre from Orleans]

Chris Phillips

Solid post.

 

[Boud]

Trading fisher was one move too far imo. Should have kept fisher. Excellent leader, role model for younger guys and would be our best center even today. Mistake, especially when you look at the return.

I agree with that. He was a heart and soul player and core player of this team and would still be I think. We got Bobby Ryan by trading that 1rst rounder we got for Fisher thoo!

 

[Icelevel]

I agree with that. He was a heart and soul player and core player of this team and would still be I think. We got Bobby Ryan by trading that 1rst rounder we got for Fisher thoo!

Well we traded Noesen not the pick. Could have traded another asset maybe and still done the ryan deal

 

[Micklebot]

Well we traded Noesen not the pick. Could have traded another asset maybe and still done the ryan deal

Hmm. interesting though. Right now, would we be better off with Fisher, Silfverberg and Ritchie or Bobby Ryan?

Probably better off with Ryan imo, particularly when we already have very limited high end talent.

 

[YouGotAStuGoing]

Hmm. interesting though. Right now, would we be better off with Fisher, Silfverberg and Ritchie or Bobby Ryan?

Probably better off with Ryan imo, particularly when we already have very limited high end talent.

Agree with this. Not making the move for Fisher leaves us in the exact same quandary we're in now — lots of mid-to-good players, no great players.

Also worth noting, the second pick in that trade got us Jarrod Maidens. Have to wonder what if he'd panned out.