Ask Poulin, he's the one who said his offer still stood. My only real assumption being Poulin wasn't lying when he stated previous offers existed and still stood and that initial source back in 2016 that was close the DLS group wasn't lying when they said they were really interested in buying the team. I'm rellying on some pretty direct statements while you're trying to tease preference out of the sequence of a list of options.
If you could put yourself in their place, for a moment, and explain why DLS group's interest in buying the Senators was predicated on winning the rights to redevelop Lebreton Flats.
I would suggest that the chance to redevelop the largest piece of prime real estate perhaps in all of Canada was their first priority, for the construction consortium.
There was never any interest (in the Senators) expressed by them, prior to the NCC competition to win the the rights to redevelop Lebetron Flats, can you explain that?
You seem to totally dismiss their list of options, when questioned by the Media, as per their preferences in regards to the Senators, is it because it does not fit your narrative that there is long line of Billionares lined up to buy the Senators, and your inability to come up with a date that they actually made an offer?
Putting together the funding to redevelop Lebreton Flats, is probably no easy task, and IF they had won the rights to redevelop Lebreton flats, they would probably not want to add another 500 Million (assumed approximate cost of the Senators) to their financial burden.......... so perhaps that's why their preferred option was the one they listed first, handover a parcel of land (at Lebreton Flats) and let Melnyk build and operate the Arena......... that option saves them the added cost of building the Arena, and their next preferred option, and more costly to them, was to build an Arena and invite the Senators in as tenants, and if that was not going to fly, their third and most costly option was to build an arena and offer to buy the Senators.
I don't know about you, but I would suggest that seeing how their primary interest is in construction, and not owning and operating an NHL team and arena, the list of options are quite logical if you look at the financial burdens it would put on them, IF they had won the rights to redevelop Lebreton flats.
With the Senators estimated value of being around the 500 million mark, and the cost of constructing an Arena somewhere around the 550 Million mark ( looking at the cost of the Oilers Arena) .......... it would cost the DLS group the better part of a Billion dollars to buy the Senators, and build arena in addition to the costs of the remainder of development costs of Lebreton Flats.
To me this is why their list of options, with the last being buying the Senators, makes sense to most people... except with perhaps you.