During last Thursday night’s Habs broadcast, Pierre LeBrun mentioned that the NHL has scheduled a Board of Governors meeting for mid-June.
“It should be an interesting one because, of course, while the agenda hasn’t officially been put together yet, it’s two months away. The state of the Ottawa Senators ownership, of course, will be of interest to a lot of the governors that I talked to today. What happens next with the passing of Eugene Melnyk?”
What happens next with the passing of Eugene Melnyk?
That is the (650-800) million dollar question.
For the better part of the last two decades, all modern Senators fans have known are the ups and downs of the Melnyk era. Senators fans deserve a fresh start and a new downtown arena. We deserve it. For as high as the ups have been — the 2007 Stanley Cup Final, the Hamburglar Run and the 2017 Eastern Conference Final appearance — the lows have drawn comparisons to Harold Ballard’s Maple Leafs. The last 20 years have been earmarked by: high employee turnover rates; arrogant executives; the alienation of alumni, fans, local businesses and politicians; front office cost-cutting; poor messaging and communication; and cold water in the Canadian Tire Centre washrooms.
Fans want something new. It is just not going to be a quick transition. It will take some time to play out.
For all the speculation about Melnyk’s estate will decide to do with the franchise, their group also has to contend with its lawsuit and countersuit with John Ruddy.
Although reports indicate that there is no shortage of interest in the team, expecting an imminent sale feels like wishful thinking. Unfortunately, it is going to take time for the Senators’ ownership situation to be resolved.
As this rebuild continues, each offseason’s importance becomes that much more magnified. It may sound redundant to hear that this summer is the most important over the team’s last five seasons, but it is.
The bulk of the Senators’ young core is already in place. Many of their best players are playing and productive members of the parent roster. Jake Sanderson and Shane Pinto will join them as regulars last season. Having drafted a top-10 pick last year, the team looks poised to add another to its pipeline this summer. The pieces are in place and ideally, this summer would represent a time of transition when the team can pivot to strategically adding good players to the mix so that this young talent can be properly insulated.
The issue is that the team’s unresolved ownership situation could have negative impacts this summer. The Senators do have executives in place and these employees will continue to operate as normal without Melnyk in the picture. Until the water becomes less muddied, however, it feels safe to assume that things will continue to run as status quo — which raises its own questions about budgets.
Will this organization be able to spend more money to make this team more competitive?
CapFriendly.com lists the Senators as having 16 skaters under contract next year at a cost of approximately $58.5 million. After the buyouts to Bobby Ryan and Dion Phaneuf are due, that number is closer to $61 million, which leaves the team with approximately $21 million of cap space.
Signing Josh Norris and Alex Formenton to new contracts will eat up some of that valuable space, but ridding the roster of big-ticket items like Matt Murray, Colin White and Nikita Zaitsev would help free up some cash.
The question becomes, how tied are general manager Pierre Dorion’s hands? Many of his best trades have come when he has creatively dumped the poor investments that he and his predecessor made. Moving on from Phaneuf, Marian Gaborik, Evgenii Dadonov, Anders Nilsson and Mike Condon has helped this organization reallocate its limited resources, but does Dorion have more aces up his sleeve this summer?
The ideal solution would be to simply use buyouts to avoid having to use prospects or draft picks to entice a team to take on this team’s bad money. Absorbing another bad contract to facilitate a trade may not be palatable. So, is this a situation in which the organization has the appetite to buy these players out and then have more money available to find replacements?
If the Senators are destined for new ownership, another consideration to think of is how a new group would likely want their own people in decision-making positions. If this summer winds up being the last for Anthony Leblanc or Pierre Dorion and his staff, how much concern should there be? Will these guys treat it like it is their last opportunity to salvage their jobs?
Obviously, with any incoming ownership group, there is always the risk of an organization making rash decisions and splashy moves for the sake of optics. It happens all the time in sports. When Mikhail Prokorov purchased the Brooklyn Nets in 2011, he pushed for aging name talents fuelling some of the worst trades in NBA history. Terry Pegula bought the Sabres in 2011 and immediately went out and signed Christian Ehrhoff and the unforgettable Ville Leino to expensive deals. Vinnie Viola and Doug Cifu arrived in Sunrise in 2014 and immediately spent approximately $17 million per season on this:
The grass is not always greener, but if this is Dorion’s last kick at the can, how aggressive will he be in trying to improve this team’s short-term interests at the expense of a more secure future that probably does not include him?
And for a general manager and front office that has failed to capably target and acquire good supporting players, how big of a concern is it that this potential lame-duck manager is sitting in the driver’s seat during this transitionary period?
There is also the fact that many of Ottawa’s best prospects have already graduated to the parent level. For an organization that has failed to take a marked step forward, is the team really good enough yet to start jettisoning valuable future pieces when: 1) the majority of Ottawa’s best prospects have graduated to the parent level; and 2) many of the prospects left, with the exception of Ridly Greig, within Ottawa’s system aren’t safely projectable.
The risks are significant, so should this organization be moving out valuable assets given those circumstances?
The answer obviously depends on what the trade returns are, but when management has struggled to identify and procure good pro talent before, it all becomes a question of trust.
Can we trust the status quo to make the most informed and best decisions for the long-term future of this franchise?
Thought provoking read…good stuff
The faster this gets settled, the better. Uncertainty hurts the current team, and free agents likely will look elsewhere rather than gamble.