News Article: What did the Senators get out of trading EK65

[Tuna99]

We added $15M in salary this off season. We grabbed a top UFA. We are over the floor. At some point you're going to run out of things to be shocked about.

we didn’t add any salary. The salary spend is the same as last year. It’s $50 million total. Not $65 million - adding salary means on top of.

 

[JD1]

yes he did say that.

Good for Ottawa for making a good deal. The point remains, are players in Ottawa only welcome on team friendly contracts?

we will see. This is why the legacy of the EK trade still haunts Ottawa. Tearing to down is the easy part. Keeping it together will be hard. And the first big test will be Brady.

I don't recall him ever saying that
I recall him saying he was going to get what he was worth when he went to market, but not that there is an expectation you have to be below market to play here.

You gotta link on that?

 

[Tuna99]

I don't recall him ever saying that
I recall him saying he was going to get what he was worth when he went to market, but not that there is an expectation you have to be below market to play here.

You gotta link on that?

just rewatch his interview post Turris trade

 

[YouGotAStuGoing]

We got the right result from a very flawed process. We got lucky.

 

[Bevans]

yes he did say that.

Good for Ottawa for making a good deal. The point remains, are players in Ottawa only welcome on team friendly contracts?

we will see. This is why the legacy of the EK trade still haunts Ottawa. Tearing to down is the easy part. Keeping it together will be hard. And the first big test will be Brady.

Why wasn't Chabot the first test?

 

[Sweatred]

i never said we can’t keep our stars. I said that losing EK still has a lingering effect over the franchise because ownership hasn’t proven anything has changed payroll wise, and I need to be shown and ownership has to prove they can keep this team together.

The team payroll in real dialled is $50 million and it was $50 last year too.

melncyks coming I’m out of a pandemic and said he wants 6000 fans a game. If he gets Zero fans as expected, where is Ottawa at next year? Another $50 million in payroll. Where does that get is?

my point is we have an owner who hasn’t proven to anyone he has the money to keep the team together. EK said the owner expects his players to play below market value. Tkachuk won’t play below market value, I expect his value to go beyond $8 million, and if it does will that be problem? They want him to be Captain, fave of the franchise, All Star and community leader for $8 million - sounds like a team friendly deal to me.

First off - why on earth would we have wanted to keep EK ?

The whole premise that it was a bad thing to lose him is a mistake. It fuels a misguided narrative.

 

[SensFactor]

That Karlsson contract is horrid. Sens should be thanking the hockey gods for dodging it.

 

[AchtzehnBaby]

That Karlsson contract is horrid. Sens should be thanking the hockey gods for dodging it.

The organization made the right move. How they did it may have been a mess, but breaking up is hard to do.

It's similar to the Montreal, Subban conundrum. It was the a good way to get out of being hemmed in by ridiculous contracts that handcuff the organizations that hold them.

 

[Wondercarrot]

First off - why on earth would we have wanted to keep EK ?

The whole premise that it was a bad thing to lose him is a mistake. It fuels a misguided narrative.

the whole premise that small number of vocal posters have is that EK, Duchene, Stone, etc was not incredibly poorly managed, communicated, and planned is wrong. It fuels a misguided narrative.
That we got good result, or that we shouldn’t have kept EK is another issue entirely.
Falling into an open manhole into a pile of crap but landing on a gold nugget doesn’t make you a brilliant prospector.

 

[AchtzehnBaby]

the whole premise that small number of vocal posters have is that EK, Duchene, Stone, etc was not incredibly poorly managed, communicated, and planned is wrong. It fuels a misguided narrative.
That we got good result, or that we shouldn’t have kept EK is another issue entirely.
Falling into an open manhole into a pile of crap but landing on a gold nugget doesn’t make you a brilliant prospector.

So it was accidental that they got a good return?

 

[FormentonTheFuture]

The organization made the right move. How they did it may have been a mess, but breaking up is hard to do.

It's similar to the Montreal, Subban conundrum. It was the a good way to get out of being hemmed in by ridiculous contracts that handcuff the organizations that hold them.

Kind of different. If the owner was a different person, I am sure Dorion would have signed karlsson.

 

[GCK]

i never said we can’t keep our stars. I said that losing EK still has a lingering effect over the franchise because ownership hasn’t proven anything has changed payroll wise, and I need to be shown and ownership has to prove they can keep this team together.

The team payroll in real dialled is $50 million and it was $50 last year too.

melncyks coming I’m out of a pandemic and said he wants 6000 fans a game. If he gets Zero fans as expected, where is Ottawa at next year? Another $50 million in payroll. Where does that get is?

my point is we have an owner who hasn’t proven to anyone he has the money to keep the team together. EK said the owner expects his players to play below market value. Tkachuk won’t play below market value, I expect his value to go beyond $8 million, and if it does will that be problem? They want him to be Captain, fave of the franchise, All Star and community leader for $8 million - sounds like a team friendly deal to me.

You need to relax. If his value goes above 8M, that will be great.

 

[GCK]

we didn’t add any salary. The salary spend is the same as last year. It’s $50 million total. Not $65 million - adding salary means on top of.

Well you are wrong again. We will be minimum 5M above last year.

 

[Sweatred]

the whole premise that small number of vocal posters have is that EK, Duchene, Stone, etc was not incredibly poorly managed, communicated, and planned is wrong. It fuels a misguided narrative.
That we got good result, or that we shouldn’t have kept EK is another issue entirely.
Falling into an open manhole into a pile of crap but landing on a gold nugget doesn’t make you a brilliant prospector.

Not sure what to say here - the players you listed would have cost us nearly $30 million ... each their own for roster construction I guess?

 

[playasRus]

The organization made the right move. How they did it may have been a mess, but breaking up is hard to do.

It's similar to the Montreal, Subban conundrum. It was the a good way to get out of being hemmed in by ridiculous contracts that handcuff the organizations that hold them.

I think in a vacuum it was the right move. In context, it was a gong show.
Sold Hoffman on the penny because of friction with EK.
Sold EK because they didn't want to give him the money.
Sold Duchene for less than what we paid for him 1.5 seasons later.
Unable to keep our 26yo star forward after above, after extending him to a ONE FRIGGING year contract when he'd already shown he was on his way to being one of the leagues best two way forward and pushing him to UFA...

We lucked on on the EK trade, and Hoffman wasn't a big deal since he's a top 6 type replaceable forward, but damn was it hard to be a fan of this team with that period followed by 3 years of bottoming out in last/second last place.

 

[GCK]

I think in a vacuum it was the right move. In context, it was a gong show.
Sold Hoffman on the penny because of friction with EK.
Sold EK because they didn't want to give him the money.
Sold Duchene for less than what we paid for him 1.5 seasons later.
Unable to keep our 26yo star forward after above, after extending him to a ONE FRIGGING year contract when he'd already shown he was on his way to being one of the leagues best two way forward and pushing him to UFA...

We lucked on on the EK trade, and Hoffman wasn't a big deal since he's a top 6 type replaceable forward, but damn was it hard to be a fan of this team with that period followed by 3 years of bottoming out in last/second last place.

EK was offered a fair contract but it didn’t matter, he was never playing for Melnyk. People underestimate the bad blood there. It’s all on Melnyk but it wasn’t a money issue.

 

[JD1]

the whole premise that small number of vocal posters have is that EK, Duchene, Stone, etc was not incredibly poorly managed, communicated, and planned is wrong. It fuels a misguided narrative.
That we got good result, or that we shouldn’t have kept EK is another issue entirely.
Falling into an open manhole into a pile of crap but landing on a gold nugget doesn’t make you a brilliant prospector.

Here again idk about that

It was an 18 month gong show, led by a guy that's clearly not great at dealing with the media (i think he's gotten better). I'm certainly a guy that was good with moving on...but can certainly acknowledge it was a gong show.

The guy i would have kept was Duchene

 

[Tuna99]

Here again idk about that

It was an 18 month gong show, led by a guy that's clearly not great at dealing with the media (i think he's gotten better). I'm certainly a guy that was good with moving on...but can certainly acknowledge it was a gong show.

The guy i would have kept was Duchene

Duchene and the pro scouting is always a massive question mark. He’s doesn’t come as advertised. He didn’t have any impact on the ice and didn’t want to be here. Huge fail.

EK trade is a win because of the amateur scouting component, taking Norris and Balcers. Tierney and Demerol are okay, good for some late round picks but Norris and Balcers are the icing on the cake that goes with Stuz and the 2nd rounders

 

[Pierre from Orleans]

Here again idk about that

It was an 18 month gong show, led by a guy that's clearly not great at dealing with the media (i think he's gotten better). I'm certainly a guy that was good with moving on...but can certainly acknowledge it was a gong show.

The guy i would have kept was Duchene

I for one am really glad we didn't keep Duchene.

Good individual player but not the type to make his teammates around him better from the games I watched.

 

[JackieDaytona]

Karlsson’s current contract is fair for a player who is consistently in the conversation of the league’s top dman. But he hasn’t consistently been in that conversation since he signed it.

It currently looks like it was a smart move to avoid offering that contract to keep him here. But I still subscribe to the argument that I’d rather pay one difference maker who’s at the top of the league at what they do than string together a bunch of mediocre players on good deals for the same cap space. At some point, if things work out with a player who becomes a top player, you need to pay them to keep a core of those players together.

Seeing former Sens (including EK) in the playoffs leading their teams the past couple years indicates to me that they had the horses to put together a contender, but not the bank or will to keep the core stars together and add quality depth around them.

This team still needs to demonstrate an ability to do that.

 

[dumbdick]

I feel like I kind of called this.

A few posts of mine from before the Karl Trade (that i typically got ripped pretty hard for).

Hard to say but I'm strangely okay with dealing Karlsson. Its part drooling for the return and part the realization that our team can't carry that kind of salary concentrated in one star player

I look at vegas boston Nashville Edmonton and chicago and am okay with a deal that doesn't involve an elite-salaried player coming back. I want good value, spread out over the pieces.

 

[AchtzehnBaby]

I think in a vacuum it was the right move. In context, it was a gong show.
Sold Hoffman on the penny because of friction with EK.
Sold EK because they didn't want to give him the money.
Sold Duchene for less than what we paid for him 1.5 seasons later.
Unable to keep our 26yo star forward after above, after extending him to a ONE FRIGGING year contract when he'd already shown he was on his way to being one of the leagues best two way forward and pushing him to UFA...

We lucked on on the EK trade, and Hoffman wasn't a big deal since he's a top 6 type replaceable forward, but damn was it hard to be a fan of this team with that period followed by 3 years of bottoming out in last/second last place.

1. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.
2. No way, no way, no way, no way
3. Nope, nope, nope, nope
4. Assumptions, assumptions, assumptions, assumptions

a. Hoffman - bad move. Panic move brought on by a pending lawsuit.
b. EK gone because he was the catalyst to the rebuild - that's the ace in your hand.
c. Duchene was brought in to win. Got a fair deal on it.
d. Stone was not in to stick around for 4 -5 years of a rebuild. He wanted out of Stittsville and into some new life somewhere hot where he could be on a contender in his prime. FFS he is from ice cold winterpeg. He did not want to live in Otttawa.
e. no luck.

Watch chicago - they are starting a rebuild - see if they make some big trades to move into some fresh talent over older dudes.

 

[Tuna99]

Why wasn't Chabot the first test?

In a way he was, BUT we are still at a $50 salary spend which to me proves really nothing. The Cap spend has to increase for me to believe it all stays together - and increase massively. Like +20 million and that almost seems like a dream to get to $70 million and that’s still in the lower spend of the NHL

 

[YouGotAStuGoing]

d. Stone was not in to stick around for 4 -5 years of a rebuild. He wanted out of Stittsville and into some new life somewhere hot where he could be on a contender in his prime. FFS he is from ice cold winterpeg. He did not want to live in Otttawa.

Even if we except your logic as true (which, for the record, I don’t) then the quoted above is more than enough to make you wonder why the org thought this was a good time for a rebuild.

 

[Cosmix]

I'm a big fan of this strategy. Parity is dead, but this could help level the playing field a bit.

Rationally, but grudgingly, I support this plan too. I hope some day that the league agrees to a revenue sharing system to make the competition for top UFA players more equal or equitable than it is today.