It has been a couple of weeks since it was announced Bryan Murray is stepping aside as the Ottawa Senators GM, a post he held for the better part of a decade.

It has given time to reflect on his tenure and what it has meant to the franchise.

One thing you have to consider is the economic restraints placed on him by ownership, rightly or wrongly, whether necessary or not.

The fact is, he inherited a team that was a Stanley Cup finalist that was led there by himself behind the bench, the season before he took over as GM. The team had been one of the more successful regular season teams in the early 2000's but for one reason or another couldn't get over the hump in the playoffs until that 2007 Finals where they fell one rung short of climbing to the top of the ladder.

It has been a slippery slope since then, with a lot of turmoil from star players - From Dany Heatley to Daniel Alfredsson to Jason Spezza, for a variety of reasons the organization couldn't retain their best assets.

These situations also put Murray in a tough position because they were all very public and he could get nowhere near fair value for the two trades he did have to make, because all of his counterparts knew the situation he was in. Granted, the way Heatley's play fell off the cliff shortly after his departure might have made that situation a blessing in disguise, but Murray did probably the best he could given the situations.

Perhaps Murray's biggest failing as the GM was during the purge of 2011. It was evident a rebuild was on the horizon and Murray started shipping out bodies for other assets, but in hindsight he probably didn't go deep enough. The Senators didn't hit rock bottom, or at least low enough to grab a top 5 pick, which they haven't had since they traded for the pick that became Spezza in 2001 and haven't had one of their own since Chris Phillips.

If you look at the top teams now, for the most part they are teams that did hit the depths and had a base around which to build coming out of the draft. Pittsburgh (Crosby, Malkin, Fluery, Staal), Chicago (Kane, Toews), Washington (Ovechkin, Backstrom), Tampa (Stamkos, Hedman, Drouin) are just a few examples of how important that is.

There are also the exceptions to the rule. Detroit has made the playoffs for a thousand straight seasons and haven't even had a top 10 pick since 1991 (Martin Lapointe), which is probably before many of you reading this were born. On the flipside of that coin there is the Oilers, who on Saturday could land the first overall pick for the fifth time in 7 years, and are still awaiting any success to come from that bounty at all.

But I digress.

Murray has kept a team with a relatively low internal budget afloat, while not hitting rock bottom the team hasn't been close to seriously competing with the top end teams either.

Only Murray and the Sens brass really know exactly how handcuffed he was to the internal budget that he was given, and despite the public assertion that Eugene Melnyk never told him "no" when it came to acquiring a player, I am not sure anyone really believes it.

The Senators were a cap team before Murray's transition from coach to GM, and it was around the time they fell short in 2007 that the reins of spending were pulled in by ownership.

In terms of prospects, Murray inherited a pretty bare cupboard as John Muckler essentially emptied it through poor drafting and asset management. While it is a little more stocked as Murray hands the bat-phone to Pierre Dorion, it is far from being full.

In terms of coaches, Murray was never able to find the right person to fill his shoes, even to the point where he tried to wear both hats for half a season or so. There is a string of failed attempts as the Sens went through coaches like Joe Nieuwendyk shots through Patrick Lalime's 5 hole in game 7s.

So as a coach, close but not quite might be the legacy he left, and as a GM he certainly had the best intentions but was more a victim of the circumstances surrounding him. Under his watch it was a pretty constant parade of stars leaving town.

Perhaps the most telling illustration for the legacy Murray left is this, from the Chicago - St. Louis series that will see game 7 go tonight: The pick the Blues used to draft star sniper Vladimir Tarasenko was acquired from Ottawa for the rights to David Rundblad, who is now playing (sparingly) for the Hawks almost by default. While Tarasenko probably wouldn't have been the Senators pick in the 16 spot that season (because Murray's track record drafting Russians isn't very good), that looks like a landslide loss for the Senators, yet somehow Murray was able to turn Rundblad into Kyle Turris, who isn't quite Tarasenko but has been a quality player and quite a bargain for the Sens.

Close but not quite and making the best of a bad situation.

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