Melnyk's letter to the fans

[harrisb]

Ottawa is 1 win away from finals. fans don't show up. Ottawa sucks and fans don't show up. Ottawa doesn't want to spend to the max cap because $ aren't there and fans are upset. logic 101. look in the mirror. yeesh.

In the last 19years of available data the Oilers have beaten the Sens in attendance exactly twice and most years it hasn't been particularly close. What a horrid, horrid fanbase Ottawa has, they should be ashamed of themselves. Why do I say this? Cause facts matter....

 

[NorthCoast]

I've never understood this. The Senators have spent 67.7 of a possible 72 million, with about 2.7 in cap space left, all numbers from CapFriendly.

How the hell is this considered cheap? It doesn't make a lick of sense that people keep saying this.

Melnyk does not want to incur a loss in any year because even though the value of the team may go up, and even though he might make the money back in a future year...the year of the loss will require him to payout millions from his own pocket.

Most NHL teams will incur these loses (as Melnyk used to when he had more cash) because you are not going to change your long-term team building strategy simply because you had a down year. ie: you don't trade your 1st round pick in the fall and then decide to go into a rebuild at the deadline of the same year.

By this logic Tampa should have traded away salary last year because they did not make the playoffs. Instead they suffered the losses, believe in their team direction, and loaded up.

Now I know that some will say "what if they really are a bad team and should go into a rebuild." I would be fine with that but then why trade our first round pick for Duchene. Has the team really changed so much since November that you go from trading first round picks for player upgrades to trading your franchise player?

BTW: Would LOVE to be proven wrong and if the team resigns Karlsson/Duchene including a 5-10 million bonus payment (evidence Melnyk is willing to pay out of his pocket) built in for lockout protection in 20/21 then I will gladly eat my words.

 

[harrisb]

Like I just posted. Someone is upset Dion got traded. Dion? Lol
Tried to upgrade at center they cry.....
Traded brassard for needed pieces whaaaa.
Giving away a second round pick to save money=money to spend on something else. Whaaaaa

Candidate for worst future GM in the league.

Not upset that Dion is gone but when a worse contract comes back for a player who can barely stay on the roster....explain how that is somehow good?
Not crying about upgrading at centre at all but thanks for putting words in my mouth. We didn't have to involve Nashville and could have kept both guys, THAT would have been an upgrade and what a good owner would have done.
Giving away a second and then not spending that 2m....hmmm. Zib was traded at under value due to the 2m bonus payout to Brassard and Melnyk didn't want to pony up for his next contract. Add to that Brassard made 3.5m on a 5m cap hit and there is a trend here. So minus the bonus payment Brassard made 1.5m his first year here but showed as 5m against our cap.

Any more highly insightful thoughts?

 

[GOilers88]

Perhaps follow the team and not just stats....How much of that cap is actually salary? How much is guys on LTIR? We're close to the basement in spending.

Example, we traded for Phaneuf as we were too cheap to buyout our own contracts and his cap hit was higher than his salary. We tossed in a 2nd round pick for Brassard / Zib trade to avoid paying his signing bonus (the pick should have went the other way). We just traded Phaneuf again for Gaborik because Gaby's contract will be cheaper to buyout but Phaneuf is the more effective player. We gave away more assets trading Brassard again to the Pens so that we could get Nashville to retain. Traded Turris cause we wouldn't pay 6m x 6yrs for him (see his wife's tweet after the trade). We had to make that a 3 way trade again and were fleeced just due to our miser of an owner. Imagine Duchene - Turris - Brassard - Pageau down the middle for a second, that's contender status right there. We let our long time captain walk due to lowball offering him on his last contract which would have kept him a sen for life. Majority of this has all been in the last 2 years and attendance is now reflecting it, fans are fed up, should I go on?

Are the Oilers or Leafs who say "welcome to our world" watching the same thing or just management incompetence keeping them in the basement? This is penny pinching destroying the team, when every move is motivated by the holy dollar rather than improving the team the fans eventually revolt. We were one of the highest attending team in the league until the last few years when Melnyk started pinching pennies and it has slowly declined as the fans are done.

Well according to CapFriendly, they have $29,733 in LTIR, so that's really a total moot point.

 

[GOilers88]

Melnyk does not want to incur a loss in any year because even though the value of the team may go up, and even though he might make the money back in a future year...the year of the loss will require him to payout millions from his own pocket.

Most NHL teams will incur these loses (as Melnyk used to when he had more cash) because you are not going to change your long-term team building strategy simply because you had a down year. ie: you don't trade your 1st round pick in the fall and then decide to go into a rebuild at the deadline of the same year.

By this logic Tampa should have traded away salary last year because they did not make the playoffs. Instead they suffered the losses, believe in their team direction, and loaded up.

Now I know that some will say "what if they really are a bad team and should go into a rebuild." I would be fine with that but then why trade our first round pick for Duchene. Has the team really changed so much since November that you go from trading first round picks for player upgrades to trading your franchise player?

BTW: Would LOVE to be proven wrong and if the team resigns Karlsson/Duchene including a 5-10 million bonus payment (evidence Melnyk is willing to pay out of his pocket) built in for lockout protection in 20/21 then I will gladly eat my words.

Even last year, nobody gave Ottawa a chance in hell at doing anything, but there they were again making a Cinderella run to the ECF falling one game short of the Stanley Cup. And there were still empty seats. What the hell do you want?

 

[inthewings]

Either apologize for your lack of incompetence or don't say anything. This guy can **** right off.

He certainly isn’t lacking incompetence.

 

[Samsquanch]

What the hell do you want?

A new owner and a downtown arena. Or was that a rhetorical question?

 

[inthewings]

A lot of people complaining in here. Seems like most of you don't understand simple economics. Ottawa is in debt. Ottawa can't afford nice things anymore. Ottawa's arena is too small so they can't make enough profits from the games and therefore they can't get those big Money players that will win you games. This isn't Melnyk's fault. He's doing all that he can under the circumstances. Ottawa fans should just be happy as long as the team doesn't relocate...

 

[inthewings]

I've never understood this. The Senators have spent 67.7 of a possible 72 million, with about 2.7 in cap space left, all numbers from CapFriendly.

How the hell is this considered cheap? It doesn't make a lick of sense that people keep saying this.

The team has a bare bones coaching staff, scouting staff, and front office because he doesn’t want to invest in them. They trade draft picks for cash (see the original Brassard trade where they gave New York a 2nd to pay his $2M bonus). They lost Alfredsson in his last year over what amounts to a pittance.

The cheapness goes far beyond the cap hit, and is very apparent to anyone paying a attention.

 

[joe dirte]

Well according to CapFriendly, they have $29,733 in LTIR, so that's really a total moot point.

it's not LTIR though. hes been trading for contracts that are cap hit heavy and actual salary light. Phaneuf contract had large portions paid by the leafs in the first two years. the cap hit outstanding to the sens was far more than the salary outstanding. the trade for gaborik also gave them less actual salary to pay over the life of the contract but more cap.

if you go through all the trades they all have that in common. they're all $$motivated, but you often have to do the math on the actual salary not cap hit.

bargain basement coaches. refusal to pay alfredsson. he'll he publicly botched about paying Heatley his signing bonus.

 

[supsens]

Candidate for worst future GM in the league.

Not upset that Dion is gone but when a worse contract comes back for a player who can barely stay on the roster....explain how that is somehow good?
Not crying about upgrading at centre at all but thanks for putting words in my mouth. We didn't have to involve Nashville and could have kept both guys, THAT would have been an upgrade and what a good owner would have done.
Giving away a second and then not spending that 2m....hmmm. Zib was traded at under value due to the 2m bonus payout to Brassard and Melnyk didn't want to pony up for his next contract. Add to that Brassard made 3.5m on a 5m cap hit and there is a trend here. So minus the bonus payment Brassard made 1.5m his first year here but showed as 5m against our cap.

Any more highly insightful thoughts?

Would he have fit under the cap withboth guys? If you dont include Turris who do you trade then? Do you send out another top prospect and Turris leaves in the summer?
The team does not have money. You put on the big boy shorts and make tough choices. I guess in your world millions of real dollars mean nothing.
Spend away. Sell everything you own, go get the biggest loan you can and give it away. No? Hmmm must be cheap or something if you wont dont that.

Zib was traded because Bm gave Ryan that stupid contract and they didnt have over 5 mil for his new contract. But hey ignore that fact you gots all the insight

 

[TheGoldenJet]

Did he write it on the back of the sign he took away from that fan?

Omg dying here!

 

[harrisb]

Would he have fit under the cap withboth guys? If you dont include Turris who do you trade then? Do you send out another top prospect and Turris leaves in the summer?
The team does not have money. You put on the big boy shorts and make tough choices. I guess in your world millions of real dollars mean nothing.
Spend away. Sell everything you own, go get the biggest loan you can and give it away. No? Hmmm must be cheap or something if you wont dont that.

Zib was traded because Bm gave Ryan that stupid contract and they didnt have over 5 mil for his new contract. But hey ignore that fact you gots all the insight

First question, yes he would have fit easily and Turris wanted to stay.
The team doesn't have money because Melnyk lost most of his and this is the only profitable business he still owns. Try paying attention to all the people saying this. It's being cheap because he has to, only owner in the league that uses a team as his primary income source. He just isn't rich enough any longer to support it but his ego won't allow him to sell. Is it really that difficult for you to understand?

Zib was traded for no reason other than money out. It's that simple, as explained many, many times, this team spends FAR below their cap number and has positive operating income from most reports. He isn't losing money, he's pocketing it.

To live in a bubble and ignore the reality of those at ground zero. I sure wouldn't want you being the one to have to bail out someone in combat when they say their being ambushed and you respond with "Kypreos told me it's ok, I'm not sending reinforcements". There is a reason the league blocked the Brassard deal first round as well, we were selling a draft pick, plain and simple.

 

[Burke the Legend]

I wonder what metric he was using when he said, "we have had Canada's most successful NHL on-ice performance over the past 15 years," but a quick check has Vancouver having more points (and being closer the a Stanley Cup win, along with Calgary and Edmonton).

Corsi?

 

[Burke the Legend]

Even last year, nobody gave Ottawa a chance in hell at doing anything, but there they were again making a Cinderella run to the ECF falling one game short of the Stanley Cup. And there were still empty seats. What the hell do you want?

Yeah that was pretty terrible. Not sure how that is Melnyks fault

 

[Drytoast]

Hey at least it's dialogue.

Better than anything we got from Ballard.

 

[New User Name]

The only time he's been passionate and truthful was when he went public regarding a need for a liver transplant.

The way Alfredsson was treated, not once but twice and the Turris situation (though I'm not buying 100% what Turris said) and other issues suggests an owner that really needs to look in the mirror for the down turn in attendance and the poor play of the team.

 

[Soups On]

He certainly isn’t lacking incompetence.

Lololol you got me m8.

 

[supsens]

First question, yes he would have fit easily and Turris wanted to stay.
The team doesn't have money because Melnyk lost most of his and this is the only profitable business he still owns. Try paying attention to all the people saying this. It's being cheap because he has to, only owner in the league that uses a team as his primary income source. He just isn't rich enough any longer to support it but his ego won't allow him to sell. Is it really that difficult for you to understand?

Zib was traded for no reason other than money out. It's that simple, as explained many, many times, this team spends FAR below their cap number and has positive operating income from most reports. He isn't losing money, he's pocketing it.

To live in a bubble and ignore the reality of those at ground zero. I sure wouldn't want you being the one to have to bail out someone in combat when they say their being ambushed and you respond with "Kypreos told me it's ok, I'm not sending reinforcements". There is a reason the league blocked the Brassard deal first round as well, we were selling a draft pick, plain and simple.

So keep Turris and then what do you do with mark stone? Turris wanted more then they think he’s worth so the traded him for someone else who makes more money...so cheap
Ohh and then you can’t even offer Karlsson 6 cause your capped out
You guys have confused stupid GM moves with the owner

 

[harrisb]

So keep Turris and then what do you do with mark stone? Turris wanted more then they think he’s worth so the traded him for someone else who makes more money...so cheap
Ohh and then you can’t even offer Karlsson 6 cause your capped out
You guys have confused stupid GM moves with the owner

Last reply to you [mod].

Let's say we buyout our own players rather than acquire phaneuf, poof, 7.5m of additional cap space. 4.2m in LTIR from Macarthur. We also keep Zib at 5m rather than Brassard and run Duchene-Turris-Zib-Pageau down the middle (that's serious centre depth). The extra first and second round picks we sold are used in the Duchene trade to make this possible. We're suddenly at 64m in cap with zib's raise factored in. Add 5m raise for Karlsson, 5m for stone and 2m for Duchene, 2m for Ceci and presto 78m cap hit that begins two seasons down the road and the cap THIS YEAR is projected at 80m. If it goes up another 3 or 4m the next year we have tons of space by the time those contracts kick in. Not to mention we have Brown, Batherson, Formenton all coming up on the cheap that will begin replacing overpaid vets as soon as next year (Burrows and Pyatt expired before those renewals kicked in which drops another 3.5m from our cap). We have a good chance of drafting a special player on the cheap this year on top of that to augment the roster even further and possibly make some of the aforementioned guys expendable for more picks and cap space.

So, I'm no cap wizard, no buyouts done, no Robidas island mischief and by not being cheap I just assembled a contender under the cap long term. Took me all of 2 minutes

 

[supsens]

Last reply to you [mod].

Let's say we buyout our own players rather than acquire phaneuf, poof, 7.5m of additional cap space. 4.2m in LTIR from Macarthur. We also keep Zib at 5m rather than Brassard and run Duchene-Turris-Zib-Pageau down the middle (that's serious centre depth). The extra first and second round picks we sold are used in the Duchene trade to make this possible. We're suddenly at 64m in cap with zib's raise factored in. Add 5m raise for Karlsson, 5m for stone and 2m for Duchene, 2m for Ceci and presto 78m cap hit that begins two seasons down the road and the cap THIS YEAR is projected at 80m. If it goes up another 3 or 4m the next year we have tons of space by the time those contracts kick in. Not to mention we have Brown, Batherson, Formenton all coming up on the cheap that will begin replacing overpaid vets as soon as next year (Burrows and Pyatt expired before those renewals kicked in which drops another 3.5m from our cap). We have a good chance of drafting a special player on the cheap this year on top of that to augment the roster even further and possibly make some of the aforementioned guys expendable for more picks and cap space.

So, I'm no cap wizard, no buyouts done, no Robidas island mischief and by not being cheap I just assembled a contender under the cap long term. Took me all of 2 minutes

Ya like I said, BM picked up dion and gave Ryan that contract. From that day on the team has been screwed. Also note the sens are not a top end cap team. And buyouts are millions of someone’s money given away, easy thing to pretend to do.

It’s super easy to back seat drive two years later. I can pick a bunch of random players and pretend I did good too.
If nashville didn’t get Turris they were getting duchene the sens paid extra for that one.

 

[Hutz]

LOL, what a joke of a owner. Sens fans deserve better!

Thank you. From a fan of our hated rival (who is a lot harder to hate these days) that means a lot. Fwiw, as a Sens fan for the first time in about 20 years I can see myself possibly joining the blue and white bandwagon at some point this postseason (oh that hurts to say, but it's true)

 

[Hutz]

By this logic Tampa should have traded away salary last year because they did not make the playoffs. Instead they suffered the losses, believe in their team direction, and loaded up.

Now I know that some will say "what if they really are a bad team and should go into a rebuild." I would be fine with that but then why trade our first round pick for Duchene. Has the team really changed so much since November that you go from trading first round picks for player upgrades to trading your franchise player?

BTW: Would LOVE to be proven wrong and if the team resigns Karlsson/Duchene including a 5-10 million bonus payment (evidence Melnyk is willing to pay out of his pocket) built in for lockout protection in 20/21 then I will gladly eat my words.

Tampa missing the playoffs was a huge surprise. They were a much better team than that. Injuries hurt them big. They and everyone else knew they didn't need to do anything except retain Stamkos to improve. Heck, even without Stamkos they're a playoff team. If TB had made the playoffs, we would've been bounced in round 2 by them. Lucky for us they didn't.

I agree with the second point. Trading for Duchene was a mistake. I'm not going to look back at my posts, but I didn't love it at the time, I think I've been consistent with that. I certainly liked the message it sent, but I really didn't and still don't think Duchene is enough of an upgrade on Turris to warrant a 1st round pick add-on. And that was before it looked like it was going to be a high one, too. But, what do we do now? It was a mistake, it's done. We can keep throwing bad money after good or we can accept that we did something stupid and move on from that. It's time to rebuild, I think. Blow it up, sucks we're going to lose a good draft pick. We do have to make a serious pitch to Duchene, but ultimately, if he wants stupid money, trade him next deadline. Should be able to recoup a 1st rounder as a rental. Later than ours will likely be, but better than nothing.

 

[A1LeafNation]

Thank you. From a fan of our hated rival (who is a lot harder to hate these days) that means a lot. Fwiw, as a Sens fan for the first time in about 20 years I can see myself possibly joining the blue and white bandwagon at some point this postseason (oh that hurts to say, but it's true)

Rivalry would be there with a competent management group. Need fans on both sides to work correctly.

 

[Bruin4Life]

Bruins fans said the same thing about Jacobs when they did poorly. Now that we are doing well the Jacob hate has quieted