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Hope. It’s what fuels sports fans when they are at their lowest. No matter how bad things are, you know that some good drafting and good fortune can turn things around in a few years. Hope is what keep fans interested while their teams are clearly horrendous, because organizations can sell hope for the future.
I’m certainly not opposed to rebuilds in general, but this one that the Ottawa Senators are embarking on makes it virtually impossible to have hope for the organization moving forward though---unless something changes. What is that change, you ask? It’s the obvious answer, Eugene Melnyk. I’m not afraid to proclaim that a Senators team owned by Melnyk will never win a Stanley Cup, and they don’t even stand a chance.
The NHL is a league where the teams that win are the teams that have at least one or two star-caliber players. Look at the Stanley Cup winners over the past decade and the names on those teams: Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews, Duncan Keith, Drew Doughty, Anze Kopitar, Zdeno Chara, Patrice Bergeron, Alex Ovechkin, Evgeny Kuznetsov. Ottawa had one of those players in Erik Karlsson (and Mark Stone could maybe be in that category as well), but now he is gone. You simply cannot win if you don’t have players as good as that, and Melnyk can’t afford to keep them in Ottawa. That’s what it comes down to.
It’s not like the Senators moved on from Karlsson at the age of 35 because they were worried about his diminishing play. No, he’s in the prime of his career at 28 and showed that his injury history isn’t going to slow him down. The fact that Melnyk can’t give the best player in franchise history (and a player that desperately wanted to stay in the city) the money that he deserves says it all about the organization. If they can’t keep Karlsson, then how can we expect them to keep anybody else that comes anywhere close to being as good as he is?
As I mentioned on Twitter on Thursday, it’s incredible how many star players have left the organization on bad terms:
Not all of these were the Senators fault, but we’ve reached a point where we shouldn’t even expect any players to stay here for a long time, unless they are named Mark Borowiecki apparently. Mark Stone and Matt Duchene aren’t on the same level as Karlsson in terms of impact on the ice, but they are clearly now the team’s two best players, and there’s a very real possibility that they will be gone by the summer as well. Those two situations might not be because Melnyk can’t afford to pay them, but in reality it will probably end up being a domino effect because they don’t like how most recently Karlsson and Turris were treated. He sure is running a fantastically well-oiled machine by alienating all of his best players.
I understand that Karlsson is asking for about $11M, and that is a lot of money that counts towards the cap. However, that’s just the reality of keeping the best players in the league on your team. Look at the cap hits for the 15-highest paid players in 2019-20 (picked next year just to include Doughty in there):
These are all the best players on teams, besides a few of them that have a teammate in there as well. Paying Karlsson $11M definitely stings from a cap perspective, but there should be no alternative. Even in the mainstream media he is finally recognized as the best defenseman in the NHL, and that’s the market rate for a player of his caliber. Also the argument that the Senators had no room for him under the cap is utter nonsense.
Ottawa is currently paying the group of Bobby Ryan, Marian Gaborik, Zack Smith, Alex Burrows, Cody Ceci, Craig Anderson, and Mike Condon a combined $29.325M this year, and together they provided essentially no value last season. Smart teams will be able to find room for generational talents and then discard of spare parts, rather than the other way around. There could’ve easily been a scenario where salary from elsewhere got shed.
From some more optimistic fans there has been a sentiment over the past few days that everyone should move on from the Karlsson trade and get excited about prospects that are about to make an impact in the NHL. I agree that some players like Brady Tkachuk, Logan Brown, Christian Wolanin, Alex Formenton, etc. have the potential to be solid contributors this season, and seeing new players play well is always exciting. Furthermore, things like this from Tkachuk make me momentarily forget about the outside noise:
But then I also think...What will happen when these prospects are really good in their mid-20s and are in need of a new contract? Is Melnyk going to be willing to pony up? I just can’t see it happening unless the players are of the non-star variety. I don’t know how anybody can have faith in Melnyk moving forward that he will be able to help create a team that can compete for a Stanley Cup because as I keep mentioning, you need star players to win. And star players usually cost a lot.
Of course, this all changes with an ownership change. It really is incredible how much power one man can have on a sports franchise. An owner with deeper pockets would solve a million problems for the Senators, but now I don’t know if that will happen until the LeBreton deal is finalized, which might be years from now. While he’s in charge of the team though, I can’t genuinely expect Ottawa to challenge for a Cup.
Erik Karlsson wanted to stay in Ottawa for his whole career, and I put all of the blame on Eugene Melnyk for that not happening. And because of that, I don’t blame you for being hopeless until a new owner comes in.
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