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Eugene Melnyk Breaks His Silence

March 22, 2019, 12:30 AM ET [54 Comments]
Trevor Shackles
Ottawa Senators Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
You can follow me on Twitter @ShackTS

EDIT:

I won't have time to listen to the entire interview from today, but here are two quotes that make Melnyk look even worse:







Here is a link to the rest of the interview:




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As mentioned in yesterday’s Thursday Think Tank, Eugene Melnyk went on Toronto’s Sportsnet 590 radio yesterday, and he didn’t exactly make things better. Any time he speaks unscripted (or even scripted) in public, there is a negative reaction from the fanbase because he is incredibly tone deaf and is not good at giving the answers that fans want to hear. Yesterday was no different.

His 10 minute interview with Bob McCown and Joey Vendetta did not reveal any groudbreaking information and it was generally more of the same things being said, although he still came across poorly. When asked about what he can do to win the fanbase over, he failed to give an actual answer and went on his usual spiel about “real fans”:




He said that “I think the key for us is, first of all, to identify who is a Senators fan or not,” implying that people out there such as that 12-year-old who are negative towards Melnyk and the Senators are somehow not real fans. He continued with this:

“For our fans that are real fans, we’re doing the best we can. All we can do is keep doing what we’ve been doing. We’ve had a great record for the past 15, 16 years. We’ve gone to the Stanley Cup Finals, we’ve gone to Conference Finals, we’ve had All-Star Games, we’ve had drafts, we’ve had outdoor games, we’re doing everything — more than most franchises, as far as what we do for our fans”


Oh so the real fans must be the ones who are still supporting him, I suppose? Even if he had a different connotation to that, he has to know that it comes across as an attack on anybody who says negative things about him. As I mentioned on Twitter, Sens fans who want #MelnykOut and have stuck with the team for the past year and a half are the most “real” and hardcore fans around. Also, all of the things he listed are in the past and do not answer the question about what he can do to win back the fanbase. Everybody knows that the Senators were one of the best teams in the league for a decade, but that was over ten years ago now. So he was unable to answer what he and the team can do moving forward to help build faith surrounding the organization.

In explaining what a team needs to be successful, his answer was incredibly ironic considering that they traded five very good players in their mid-20s in Erik Karlsson, Mark Stone, Matt Duchene, Mike Hoffman, and Ryan Dzingel within the past nine months:

“To win a Stanley Cup, I believe you have to have four or five superstar types all around the same young age — in their mid-20s, at the most — and a very, very hot top-flight goalie. You need veterans, and we have several of them left, and will continue to have”


Melnyk also reportedly only knew about the firing of Guy Boucher an hour before it happened, which seems strange to me, because the GM of the team should be in touch more often with the owner about such important decisions like that. His rationale for it was that Boucher was essentially a sitting duck because the players and the team knew that he wasn’t going to be back next season, and honestly there’s at least some thought behind that. Still though, I don’t love how he makes it look like it was 100% Dorion’s decision, which deflects all of the blame onto him.

Melnyk also started out the interview by (unsurprisingly) saying that LeBreton is dead and that Kanata will continue to work out well for them:




I’d be shocked if the Canadian Tire Centre is the Senators long-term home though, whether that means a new owner or co-owner comes in to save the day, or the worst case scenario happens and the Senators get relocated. But with LeBreton not happening under Melnyk, he has to save face and pretend like staying in Kanata is feasible.

As previously mentioned, the interview was not incredibly revelatory, but it is always interesting to hear him speak. There were other topics mentioned during the segment, and you can take a listen for yourself via this link. He will also be making another local radio appearance today (and it has probably happened once you are reading this), so perhaps there will be even more content to follow…


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