OT: Why Are We Always Picking Up These Dead Goalies?

Larionov

Registered User
Feb 9, 2005
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Ottawa, ON
Well, for years there was a no "Russian" policy in play so we missed out on drafting top Russian prospects.
The "No Russians" thing of Melnyk's was somewhat selective, though, as we did sign Kovalev under his ownership. There were also strong rumours that Melnyk was hot on having us draft Askarov.
 
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Knave

Registered User
Mar 6, 2007
21,647
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Lets label two groups here, experienced and inexperienced:

Gerber, Leclaire, Korpisalo fall into the inexperienced category - they had one good year and we acquired them.
Leclaire you can forgive because it was a trade deadline type deal because Vermette's contract was expiring. We got a second round pick.

Condon, Talbot, Murray fall into the experienced category. Before we signed them each had multiple years as a starter or at least splitting duties evenly.

Condon I think falls into his special category. He was a backup so that Anderson wouldn't have to play 60+ games in the regular season. We were just coming off the ECF and a game 7 overtime loss to Pittsburgh using that exact strategy. 2.4M per year for 3 years with the thinking that a rested Anderson and Karlsson would take us on a few deep playoff runs doesn't seem so crazy.

And then I think it's worth pointing out just how bad our goaltending has become. I'm not asking for Hasek or Anderson. I'm asking for Brian Elliott. Can we get back to finding the Brian Elliott's of the world? Cam Talbot, Filip Gustvasson, Mike Condon, Anton Forsberg - they were on our bad teams. They were on our rebuild. Korpisalo specifically is way worse than any of those guys.

What's the more likely scenario causing this decline, we got substantially worse this year? Or we now have a different starting goalie?

It's hard to understate how bad the Korpisalo signing has been. Anyone involved in that should be removed from the organization like Dorion. I get people want stability at the position but lets get back to where we were 3 years ago first. Lets get back to average-ish to subpar-ish goaltending and not catastrophically bad goaltending.
 
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jbeck5

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Jan 26, 2009
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Martin Gerber, Pascal Leclaire, Mike Condon, Cam Talbot, Matt Murray, Jonas Korisalo etc etc.. How are we always picking up these garbage men?

Only hit we ever had was Craig Anderson.

I miss the days when almost every goalie we got was respectable.

Tugnutt...
Rhodes...
Lalime...
Hasek...
Emery...
Lehner...
Bishop...
Anderson...

Heck, even the random backups like Jani hurme and Martin prusek were good.

What happened?
 
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dumbdick

Galactic Defender
May 31, 2008
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Just look how goalies do before/after they play here.

Talbit, Dreiger, D'Accord, Bishop, Gus, Elliot.

The system is the problem, not the players. Other teams don't hang their goalies out to dry like we do.

Average guys look bad here.

All stars look average here.

Andy would have won a vezina in boston or st. Louis.
 

Micklebot

Moderator
Apr 27, 2010
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Just look how goalies do before/after they play here.

Talbit, Dreiger, D'Accord, Bishop, Gus, Elliot.

The system is the problem, not the players. Other teams don't hang their goalies out to dry like we do.

Average guys look bad here.

All stars look average here.

Andy would have won a vezina in boston or st. Louis.
Talbot has been terrible after a hot start, and Gustavsson hasn't had a great year at all, I'm not sure either really makes your point.

Bishop looked great while here, not sure why you're including him. We only traded him because we had 3 starting caliber goalies with him Lehner and Anderson so something had to give

Driedger wasn't given a chance to look good or bad here, he played 3 games, but it was years before he played in the NHL again once he left. He simply was still developing,

Similarly Daccord took three years after leaving Ottawa before he looking great this year.

Meanwhile Murray pretty much looked the same here as he did in Pittsburgh and Toronto, a guy who had the talent to play well but serious consistency issues likely due to health

An average backup (if that) like Nilsson did fine before concussions ended his career. Forsberg, another average backup, looked like just that until both knees got taken out last year, not sure if his play this year is due to that or not but I wouldn't say his time here gas been an outlier for his career, unless you point to how well he played in 21-22 for us.

The narrative that this teams play makes goalies look bad seems a bit hyperbolic to me, certainly team play can impact how a goalie looks, you can make life easier or harder for a goalie, but we aren't uniquely poor defensively, our goalies own the lion's share of their poor performance imo, not the other way around.
 

Tuna99

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Sep 26, 2009
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What happened to Sens Fandom Restored... Every game its something new

I just think the fans are still feeling burned from all the years of uncertainty and they’ll only show true interested and support when they can be assured the team shows up every night win or lose
 
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Tuna99

Registered User
Sep 26, 2009
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The problem started with John Muckler not with his firing. His firing was a good thing.

But you’ll have to admit Muckler had a great coach and a Cup finals roster - made the playoffs every year he was here?
 

Bileur

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Jun 15, 2004
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But you’ll have to admit Muckler had a great coach and a Cup finals roster - made the playoffs every year he was here?

Those are definite facts. IMO the sens already had an elite roster when he joined. I dont even think that finals team was the best version of the sens. If you were to play a best of 7 I’d take both the 2002-2003 and 2005-2006 teams over the 06-07 team despite worse results.

Muckler had among the worst drafting in team history which had a lasting negative impact on the team’s ability to backfill its depth.

He wasted assets on poorly identified rental targets like Peter Bondra and Mike Comrie.

Made the hotly debated Hossa for Heatley trade which in hindsight was a bad move.

Drafted a complete bust in Brian Lee when gifted a high pick.

Alienated and then lost a first ballot HoF defenseman in Chara keeping Wade Redden who washed up in a few seasons.

Lost Havlat for essentially nothing.

I did like the Varada and McAmmond acquisitions.
 

Xspyrit

DJ Dorion
Jun 29, 2008
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Martin Gerber : hired by a really bad GM (Muckler)

Pascal Leclaire and Matt Murray : really talented goalies who got ruined by injuries

Mike Condon : was on waivers just before Dorion traded for him, because of Anderson's injury, never had the talent to be more than a backup

Cam Talbot : 35 y/o veteran stop gap. He was not supposed to be a savior

Jonas Korpisalo : hired by another really bad GM (Dorion)

That thread was easy. Dorion failed (just another failure) to find a successor to Anderson. They drafted Daccord, traded for Gustavsson and drafted Sogaard and Merilainen. The latter 2 are still young prospects
 

bicboi64

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Aug 13, 2020
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Poor Leclaire. I wanted him to succeed so badly but he definitely broke too many mirrors to warrant any puck luck. Like who tf gets a fracture from a puck flying at you while you sit on the bench.

Winner of the worst luck goes to him.
 
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BonHoonLayneCornell

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Oct 16, 2006
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Pierre Dorion inherited Anderson and then was unable to find a good solution despite throwing a good chunk of change at it. I'm more optimistic with him not making the calls on it.

It was less of a disaster during most of Anderson's tenure because he was always there unless he was injured.

Gerber and Emery were such a let down after the Hasek tease that it was hard to get behind them. Gerber I actually tried to support as I was happy to be moving away from Emery, but Gerber turned out to be a train wreck.
 

Tnuoc Alucard

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Those are definite facts. IMO the sens already had an elite roster when he joined. I dont even think that finals team was the best version of the sens. If you were to play a best of 7 I’d take both the 2002-2003 and 2005-2006 teams over the 06-07 team despite worse results.

Muckler had among the worst drafting in team history which had a lasting negative impact on the team’s ability to backfill its depth.

He wasted assets on poorly identified rental targets like Peter Bondra and Mike Comrie.

Made the hotly debated Hossa for Heatley trade which in hindsight was a bad move.

Drafted a complete bust in Brian Lee when gifted a high pick.

Alienated and then lost a first ballot HoF defenseman in Chara keeping Wade Redden who washed up in a few seasons.

Lost Havlat for essentially nothing.

I did like the Varada and McAmmond acquisitions.


Chara forced his way out of Ottawa, he was offered the exact same contract as Redden…..But insisted on being named Captain of the Senators…. That was a non starter, and one split second after he became an UFA he signed with, and was named the Captain of the Bruins…… he knew Ottawa would not strip away the Captaincy and give it to him…. He had zero intention of signing in Ottawa…. And the Hossa trade may have been a motivating factor.
 

Bileur

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Jun 15, 2004
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Chara forced his way out of Ottawa, he was offered the exact same contract as Redden…..But insisted on being named Captain of the Senators…. That was a non starter, and one split second after he became an UFA he signed with, and was named the Captain of the Bruins…… he knew Ottawa would not strip away the Captaincy and give it to him…. He had zero intention of signing in Ottawa…. And the Hossa trade may have been a motivating factor.

Yes. « Alienated and then lost »
 

BondraTime

Registered User
Nov 20, 2005
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East Coast
Talbot has been terrible after a hot start, and Gustavsson hasn't had a great year at all, I'm not sure either really makes your point.

Bishop looked great while here, not sure why you're including him. We only traded him because we had 3 starting caliber goalies with him Lehner and Anderson so something had to give

Driedger wasn't given a chance to look good or bad here, he played 3 games, but it was years before he played in the NHL again once he left. He simply was still developing,

Similarly Daccord took three years after leaving Ottawa before he looking great this year.

Meanwhile Murray pretty much looked the same here as he did in Pittsburgh and Toronto, a guy who had the talent to play well but serious consistency issues likely due to health

An average backup (if that) like Nilsson did fine before concussions ended his career. Forsberg, another average backup, looked like just that until both knees got taken out last year, not sure if his play this year is due to that or not but I wouldn't say his time here gas been an outlier for his career, unless you point to how well he played in 21-22 for us.

The narrative that this teams play makes goalies look bad seems a bit hyperbolic to me, certainly team play can impact how a goalie looks, you can make life easier or harder for a goalie, but we aren't uniquely poor defensively, our goalies own the lion's share of their poor performance imo, not the other way around.
We haven't brought a single good goalie in since Anderson left.

It's not surprising, nor is it indictive of the team in front of them. The team in front of them is very bad, but they aren't making the goalies bad.

The goalies brought in have been either waiver wire type guys, guys on the downswing, or guys you hope play 25 games a year at most.

Of course the goaltending will look bad, we've brought average at the very best goalies.

Hogberg
Nilsson
Gus
Forsberg
Murray
Korpisalo
Talbot
Condon

What team would be signing any of these guys to be their #1, or even 1a/1b and be confident?
 

jbeck5

Registered User
Jan 26, 2009
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We haven't brought a single good goalie in since Anderson left.

It's not surprising, nor is it indictive of the team in front of them. The team in front of them is very bad, but they aren't making the goalies bad.

The goalies brought in have been either waiver wire type guys, guys on the downswing, or guys you hope play 25 games a year at most.

Of course the goaltending will look bad, we've brought average at the very best goalies.

Hogberg
Nilsson
Gus
Forsberg
Murray
Korpisalo
Talbot
Condon

What team would be signing any of these guys to be their #1, or even 1a/1b and be confident?

This.

We would rather get a goalie on waivers or trade a 5th for them and hope they can be part of a tandem instead of going out and signing or trade or drafting a bonafide starter.

We need to target that guy who's clearly a starter behind another starter and caught in a numbers game, and pay a price to bring them in as I'm guaranteeing anyone with a top half of the league starter isn't getting rid of them.

Find a team that has a situation like we did with Anderson/Lehner/bishop and pay like a good prospect and a second round pick for them.

We haven't done that.

We would rather trade a 5th for a guy who was just on waivers and has only had one good season...and then we bank on them repeating that 1 good season when they gave 4-5 bad seasons to go along with that 1 good season.

We always cheap out. Always bottom of the barrel.
 

OgieO

Registered User
May 17, 2006
5,279
1,180
Halifax
Korpi might be the most frustrating. You can excuse most of the goalies the past 6 years because teh roster wasn't great and the system even worse. But we've been playing good defensive hockey recently and he's just killing us.
 
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Tnuoc Alucard

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Yes. « Alienated and then lost »
Well, they were not going to remove the C from the existing captain, and hand it over to Chara, he knew that, and I suspect he already knew the deal and the Captaincy, were his, in Boston….. so people can say the Senators, who offered him the exact same contract as was offered to Redden, “Alienated” him by not also handing him the C…. He knew they wouldn’t, and he was right.
 

Qward

Because! That's why!
Jul 23, 2010
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The "No Russians" thing of Melnyk's was somewhat selective, though, as we did sign Kovalev under his ownership. There were also strong rumours that Melnyk was hot on having us draft Askarov.
The no Russian thing was for drafting. He was willing to bring in a Russian that was NHL established or even played in the Q, but they stopped drafting Russians for years.
Melynk bought the Sens in 2003.

Russians picked
2003 - 2nd round, 5th round - 0 NHL games
2004 - 2nd round, 4th round - 0 NHL games
2005 - 2nd round, 4th round, 6th round - 11 NHL games
2006 - No Russians drafted
2007 - 2nd round - 0 NHL games
No Russians drafted until 2020 with Egor Sokolov.

I am willing to bet that Melynk saw the team used 8 draft picks over 5 years, half of which were 2nd round picks and got nothing in return. They were wasted picks.

That is why I say No Russians.
 

BonHoonLayneCornell

Registered User
Oct 16, 2006
15,369
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Yukon
We haven't brought a single good goalie in since Anderson left.

It's not surprising, nor is it indictive of the team in front of them. The team in front of them is very bad, but they aren't making the goalies bad.

The goalies brought in have been either waiver wire type guys, guys on the downswing, or guys you hope play 25 games a year at most.

Of course the goaltending will look bad, we've brought average at the very best goalies.

Hogberg
Nilsson
Gus
Forsberg
Murray
Korpisalo
Talbot
Condon

What team would be signing any of these guys to be their #1, or even 1a/1b and be confident?
PD did not acquire one solid goaltender from the looks of it. Not one. He sure bit on paying a lot for short sample sizes though.
 

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