TSN: Jason Botchford - The Athletic " Ottawa rejected waay Better offers on Karlsson"

[TeddyBare]

Some GM's are still operating in the past.

If I was an owner I'd remind the GM that you shouldn't care about divisions or conferences. You compete against 30 other teams, so get the best offer.

I wouldn't even care if say he played for the rangers and the Devils had the best offer and you traded him just over the river.

 

[NoName]

Ugh... This somehow doesn’t suprise me since that return package for what is probably the best defensman of this generation, in his prime, was sorely lacking.

This encapsulates everything wrong with the Senators organization right now: sacrificing the on-ice product for non-hockey related interests.

As a Leafs fan I have no love for the Sens, but their fans do have my sympathy. Coming from an organization that was stained by decades of Harold Ballard, I can empathize with just how tragic being saddled with a terrible team owner is.

 

[CupsOverCash]

Im with everybody that says it doesnt make sense to limit the trade only to the west because its not like they are contending. I think it had more to do with getting a return that they could afford now and down the road. As many have pointed out and we all know by now, Melnyk is cheap. He didnt want to end up in the same boat he is now having to pay quality players the money they deserve. It feels like it had more to do with money than anything. I also think that they just didnt want to see him be successful with a division rival. Hes been maybe Ottawa's best player in franchise history, it would kind of piss me off to see him play a long time against a division rival. I would still take a better deal from them than take the crap deal they took though.

 

[SnizzNasty88]

What an absolute sick joke if I am a Sens fan (thankfully I'm not). You always go for the best possible return whether it comes from a division rival or the furthest team from the Sens geographically possible, which is pretty much San Jose hahaha. Absolute joke, this rivalry won't even be fun anymore...

 

[Rhaegar Targaryen]

I'm not sure why the Sens would be worried about playing Karlsson while they're rebuilding

 

[613Leafer]

Idiotic mentality. Take a weaker trade return and hurt your team's chances against 29 other teams in the league (including 14 other conference opponents) to help yourself against one conference opponent.

 

[Stand Witness]

On the 31 thoughts Podcast Friedman said the price for an Eastern team is the more a Western team.

 

[Wallet Inspector]

Tbh I am not sure I believe this. The only East teams previously reported to hold strong interest in EK were Tampa and NYI. And Tampa didn't want to give up Sergachev.

 

[thekernel]

I'm not sure why the Sens would be worried about playing Karlsson while they're rebuilding

Well, I imagine the higher-ups envisioned it like this -- how often do we want to see that face in our building every year? Karlsson was a saint, even throughout this gut-wrenching roster turnover, so I don't think the fans will have anything but love for him when he comes around. So it strikes me as a selfish thing -- Dorion/Melnyk et al don't want the reminder of their personal failure coming to the building ~3 times a year. Pure speculation, but I think I'm being pretty realistic

 

[BodaciousBeefBazooka]

There should only be one team in Ontario anyway. Get rid of the Sens

 

[Mickey Marner]

Of course they did, Ottawa is run by buffoons.

 

[llamateizer]

No details?
Please specify way better offer

 

[smitty10]

I don't know why they were so against trading him within the East. Trading him to the West keeps him out of the East for one year. A year in which Ottawa is going to be a bottom 5 team in the league. After this year he is free to sign where ever and could very well be back in the East!

Imagine a situation where Karlsson signs in the East next year and Ottawa turned down a big package for him. Dorion is an idiot.

 

[CupofOil]

 

[405Exit]

Please don’t listen to anything Botch has to say about anything.

To be fair. It’s somewhat believable. There’s no way in hell that was the best offer for Karls. Ottawa got hosed so bad it’s almost offensive

 

[ziggy7716]

Dave Pagnotta was on my Radio Show last night and he said that the Islanders and Sens got into extensive talks about Karlsson to the point Isles were granted permission to speak to Karlsson about a extension. Ryan was involved in the deal too. Don’t know what they offered but he seemed to think it broke down because Isles weren’t comfortable not being able to sign Karlsson until Feb.

 

[StreetHawk]

Please don’t listen to anything Botch has to say about anything.

A Vancouver guy knows what is happening in Ottawa? And has contacts of eastern based hockey teams...... Hmmm

As for rejecting better offers that isn’t surprising. In 2013 Edmonton apparently offered more to get Schneider than NJ and the Canucks said no.

Playoffs are division based. So, I would expect a premium to be paid within the division for high end players. If you are talking about guys with term. If all deals were rental types then you take the best deal cause EK can sign anywhere next season. That’s the main difference here.

 

[Korpse]

The idea of limiting trading partners is stupid but not as dumb as this "report". Better offers is subjective, don't bother reporting it if you aren't gonna have details.

 

[DFC]

Tbh I am not sure I believe this. The only East teams previously reported to hold strong interest in EK were Tampa and NYI. And Tampa didn't want to give up Sergachev.

Nobody knows for sure what we had on the table. Either way, we could have beaten this offer without adding Sergachev, and without missing a step. Most of our prospect pool projects to be top-sixers (our strength), but not star players (our weakness). So we could have dealt from the middle of the pile and come up with a prospect more likely to be in Ottawa's top-six someday. Or Foote.

 

[Beville]

Doesn’t surprise me.

Was all based on money, which is a joke.

If you get a Sergachev, for example, you know he’s going to be getting paid sooner or later.

You get a bunch of nobodies and you know money won’t really be much of an issue in the future.

 

[Sky04]

Tbh I am not sure I believe this. The only East teams previously reported to hold strong interest in EK were Tampa and NYI. And Tampa didn't want to give up Sergachev.

If not Sergachev, Foote had to have been on the table and he alone is a better return than anything Ottawa got from SJS, add that in with one of their forward prospects and it's miles better than what they got from SJ.

My gut feeling was that the ask from Tampa was higher because he the high probability of resigning, he probably had a better offer (but not full value from Tampa but for an essentially signed Karlsson) - instead he opts to trade Karlsson as a pure rental package to save face, as bad as this return he'd have been under more backlash if Foote, Raddysh went the other way and Karlsson signed for 8 years the day after, as of today there's no inclination of him not going to UFA.

 

[Canada4Gold]

What exactly is "first hand source". I doubt it's someone from Ottawa telling him they took a lesser offer. So it's likelyu some other teams GM telling him they offered more. Which there's a couple of issues with.

1. The GM probably has a slight bias towards their own players, obviously unintentional, but you draft the guys you draft because you like them more than other guys. Just because they thought their offer was better doesn't mean it was

2. Ottawa is allowed to have opinions too. Maybe they're extremely high on Norris, and Balcers, and valued them more than the "better offers" they got from other teams.

I certainly wouldn't doubt that if all the offers were right in front of me now that I would be able to pick out a handful of better ones, and it's entirely possible or even likely that Ottawa picked a lesser offer because they wanted to send him out West(which is dumb). However, I think a large factor in the rating of these offers is who the info was coming from and how different people will view prospects differently.

 

[One Winged Angel]

Also Botch is notorious for pretending he has some sort of insider connection when in reality he isn’t any more connected than the average poster on this board. He enjoys his histrionics and insessant negativity to a whole new level, it’s actually impressive.

And for sure my dude, send me a DM because I don’t social media well anymore.

I'm not surprised by any of that, but I'm also inclined to believe that Dorion did reject eastern offers because of what he got in return and that clause being apart of the trade.

There's a good chance you're right and he's making stuff up about having connections and knowing what offers were made, but I definitely think the basic premise of what he's saying is accurate.

 

[Dr Pepper]

Well that shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone (someone's paying him to write this?)

What I'd like is to one day hear from one of the GMs who did submit an offer to Dorion, what they were willing to give up. That's not going to happen any time soon of course, but I refurse to believe the package that Ottawa settled on was the most lucrative of the bunch.

 

[Gaylord Q Tinkledink]

I'd love to pile on Ottawa, but Botchford is f***ing dumb.