Plus, the Alfie fiasco, which was clearly a Melnyk being cheap thing.

Murray had to take the blame for that one too.

Honestly, Brian Murray should have won the 'dealing-with-the-worst-possible-situation-and-still-plugging-through-it-without-making-myself-or-the-team-look-stupid' award.

The fact that he has made more than enough $$ to retire and doesn't HAVE to deal with Melnyk's poop, yet he sticks around and gives the Sens a little semblance of class, without complaining or saying so much as a bad word about he owner is downright amazing.

Everyone in Ottawa had a bad season, if you think Murray didn't expect us to be a playoff team explain this quote he gave at the beginning of the season

"we are a better team then last season, no question"


- tuna99

EVERYONE thought the Sens had a better team going into last season than the season before.

the old blame the media trick, nice one but we're not buying your fox news attempts to give a free pass to Murray.

Everyone in Ottawa had a bad season, if you think Murray didn't expect us to be a playoff team explain this quote he gave at the beginning of the season

"we are a better team then last season, no question"

You can't blame that one on the media.

And hey, you're only argument here is that the Sens did improve a bit, but there were 20 other NHL teams that improved significantly over Ottawa. I'll let you chew on that one for a while.

If you're in the camp that all of Murray's mistakes are a result of Melnyk's meddling (Kovalev signing, Alfie leaving, trading for Hemsky, unmet expectations, all the coaches he hired before Maclean) and he gets credit for all his good moves (Mac signing, Anderson trade) then I understand how your brain works:

Good things = Come from Shawville
Bad things = Come from everywhere else that isn't Shawville

Have you ever been to the Shawville fair? It's really awesome, better then any other fair in the world....and if you don't have a great time blame Eugene Melnyk.
- tuna99

i take back my previous take back.......you're definitely more clueless than that other guy.

so every time a player, especially a young player, takes a step back in their development (cowen, lehner, wiercioch, etc), we should all blame the gm? got it.

and what the hell was wrong with the hemsky trade? he gave up useless asests to get a player who played EXCELLENT hockey for us. if he leaves, then fine, but don't act like murray sold the farm to get the guy...jesus dude.

and where did i say everything murray did was perfect....i admitted he made some mistakes. but the good things he did FAR outweigh the small negative things.

Tuna, did you think the Sens would be better or worse then the year before?

We lost Gonchar and Alfie.

We got MacArthur and Ryan.

Spezza and Karlsson were back to being 'healthy' (or so we thought).

Show me someone who thought they would be worse and I'll show you a liar (or someone who just wants to hate on the team).

this whole post is ridiculous....don't even know where to start.

first, please provide the quote where murray said the coach was too mean. he said that in the exit interviews, the players said they preferred his old coaching style to his new coaching style.

as for worst year ever as GM, are you serious? he brought in bobby ryan, and made one of, if not THE best UFA signings of the offseason. if you blame the alfie thing on murray, then you're completely delusional. murray was doing what he was told by melnyk......it was scrooge who blasted alfi in the media, i never heard murray utter one negative syllable about him.

you're reading 3 words, and turning it into 1000 words, and are taking them completely out of context.
- sensarmy_11

Just Tuna being Tuna.

Tuna, did you think the Sens would be better or worse then the year before?

We lost Gonchar and Alfie.

We got MacArthur and Ryan.

Spezza and Karlsson were back to being 'healthy' (or so we thought).

Show me someone who thought they would be worse and I'll show you a liar (or someone who just wants to hate on the team).
- Charliebox

i have no doubt if you went back through the archives of blogs, you'd find that he was ALL OVER murray's schmack after the ryan trade, and bought into the hype just as much as anyone else.

Just Tuna being Tuna.
- TommyDeVito

he actually makes prock look like a reasonable, level headed, and intelligent hockey fan.

i take back my previous take back.......you're definitely more clueless than that other guy.

so every time a player, especially a young player, takes a step back in their development (cowen, lehner, wiercioch, etc), we should all blame the gm? got it.

and what the hell was wrong with the hemsky trade? he gave up useless asests to get a player who played EXCELLENT hockey for us. if he leaves, then fine, but don't act like murray sold the farm to get the guy...jesus dude.

and where did i say everything murray did was perfect....i admitted he made some mistakes. but the good things he did FAR outweigh the small negative things.
- sensarmy_11

This is my point, we are arguing from the same side of the fence here - Murray said Weircoche would come in and provide the offense Gonchar did "if not more"

This isn't a you versus me thing as much as you want to make it that, this is me saying - yes the owner is insane, but the GM has also entered delusional land and the coach is the one that is keeping the organizational standards up here while the GM and the Owner do their best to throw blame at everyone else. They are in together, for better and for worse.

It is the GM's job to evaluate his team but is also his job to make the players on his team better, and he comes out at the 75 game mark and says "i have no idea what happened to my team" This is what senile people say, how can a GM not know why his team played poorly - can you imagine Holland, Chiarelly, actually any GM coming out and saying that?

What owner lauds a GM after the season they had where the franchise player and face of the franchise leaves and they miss the playoff not by a little but were never ever in it from Game 1 - the new Captain is on his way out of town, your Norris trophy winner and golden boy has a public season where you have to start to quesiton his loyalty to the team, the deadline pick up you bring in comes in and says "i want to play for a good team, I'm sick of playing for non-playoff teams so I'm going to look around at actual good teams", the coach gives a post seaosn interview saying he doesn't know what the GM is talking about.

This is not a good scene here in Ottawa, the owner and the GM who have done unquestionably the worst job together out of any GM/Owner in the NHL this season are basically trying to pull the wool over your eyes and you are letting them - just let Murray take some blame and stop making excuses for him, he had a shyte season, he made it worse in the exit interview, admit it and move on.

This is my point, we are arguing from the same side of the fence here - Murray said Weircoche would come in and provide the offense Gonchar did "if not more"

This isn't a you versus me thing as much as you want to make it that, this is me saying - yes the owner is insane, but the GM has also entered delusional land and the coach is the one that is keeping the organizational standards up here while the GM and the Owner do their best to throw blame at everyone else. They are in together, for better and for worse.

It is the GM's job to evaluate his team but is also his job to make the players on his team better, and he comes out at the 75 game mark and says "i have no idea what happened to my team" This is what senile people say, how can a GM not know why his team played poorly - can you imagine Holland, Chiarelly, actually any GM coming out and saying that?

What owner lauds a GM after the season they had where the franchise player and face of the franchise leaves and they miss the playoff not by a little but were never ever in it from Game 1 - the new Captain is on his way out of town, your Norris trophy winner and golden boy has a public season where you have to start to quesiton his loyalty to the team, the deadline pick up you bring in comes in and says "i want to play for a good team, I'm sick of playing for non-playoff teams so I'm going to look around at actual good teams", the coach gives a post seaosn interview saying he doesn't know what the GM is talking about.

This is not a good scene here in Ottawa, the owner and the GM who have done unquestionably the worst job together out of any GM/Owner in the NHL this season are basically trying to pull the wool over your eyes and you are letting them - just let Murray take some blame and stop making excuses for him, he had a shyte season, he made it worse in the exit interview, admit it and move on.
- tuna99

see: toronto, edmonton, vancouver, washington, islanders, etc, etc, etc

if you think murray has done a worse job then any other GM in the league, then we're DEFINITELY not arguing from the same side of the fence. hell, i don't even think your fence is in the same neighborhood as 99% of sens fans

Just Tuna being Tuna.
- TommyDeVito

This may be the comment of the summer!

This is my point, we are arguing from the same side of the fence here - Murray said Weircoche would come in and provide the offense Gonchar did "if not more"

This isn't a you versus me thing as much as you want to make it that, this is me saying - yes the owner is insane, but the GM has also entered delusional land and the coach is the one that is keeping the organizational standards up here while the GM and the Owner do their best to throw blame at everyone else. They are in together, for better and for worse.

It is the GM's job to evaluate his team but is also his job to make the players on his team better, and he comes out at the 75 game mark and says "i have no idea what happened to my team" This is what senile people say, how can a GM not know why his team played poorly - can you imagine Holland, Chiarelly, actually any GM coming out and saying that?

What owner lauds a GM after the season they had where the franchise player and face of the franchise leaves and they miss the playoff not by a little but were never ever in it from Game 1 - the new Captain is on his way out of town, your Norris trophy winner and golden boy has a public season where you have to start to quesiton his loyalty to the team, the deadline pick up you bring in comes in and says "i want to play for a good team, I'm sick of playing for non-playoff teams so I'm going to look around at actual good teams", the coach gives a post seaosn interview saying he doesn't know what the GM is talking about.

This is not a good scene here in Ottawa, the owner and the GM who have done unquestionably the worst job together out of any GM/Owner in the NHL this season are basically trying to pull the wool over your eyes and you are letting them - just let Murray take some blame and stop making excuses for him, he had a shyte season, he made it worse in the exit interview, admit it and move on.
- tuna99

this hurt my brain to read

This is my point, we are arguing from the same side of the fence here - Murray said Weircoche would come in and provide the offense Gonchar did "if not more"

This isn't a you versus me thing as much as you want to make it that, this is me saying - yes the owner is insane, but the GM has also entered delusional land and the coach is the one that is keeping the organizational standards up here while the GM and the Owner do their best to throw blame at everyone else. They are in together, for better and for worse.

It is the GM's job to evaluate his team but is also his job to make the players on his team better, and he comes out at the 75 game mark and says "i have no idea what happened to my team" This is what senile people say, how can a GM not know why his team played poorly - can you imagine Holland, Chiarelly, actually any GM coming out and saying that?

What owner lauds a GM after the season they had where the franchise player and face of the franchise leaves and they miss the playoff not by a little but were never ever in it from Game 1 - the new Captain is on his way out of town, your Norris trophy winner and golden boy has a public season where you have to start to quesiton his loyalty to the team, the deadline pick up you bring in comes in and says "i want to play for a good team, I'm sick of playing for non-playoff teams so I'm going to look around at actual good teams", the coach gives a post seaosn interview saying he doesn't know what the GM is talking about.

This is not a good scene here in Ottawa, the owner and the GM who have done unquestionably the worst job together out of any GM/Owner in the NHL this season are basically trying to pull the wool over your eyes and you are letting them - just let Murray take some blame and stop making excuses for him, he had a shyte season, he made it worse in the exit interview, admit it and move on.
- tuna99

Just stop.

You can't do this: GM/Owner.

You just can't.

They are two separate people. The decisions the owner makes (deciding not to spend money) directly affects whatever a GM can do.

Murray is handcuffed, plain and simple. There's no other way to see it.

Alfie left because of Melnyk. Murray isn't going to be able to bring back Hemsky because of Melnyk. The Sens are a budget team because of Melnyk.

This isn't 'GM/Owner'. This is owner.

The only bad move Murray has made over the past few seasons was Bishop for Conacher. I give him a mulligan on that because he has made so many good moves/drafts over that time span.

Has Murray made some dumb quotes in the media? Of course. Does that have anything to do with how he MANAGED the team? NO!

Those quotes stem from the fact that he is working for a guy that has no money and is trying to profit from the Sens. If Murray could and did spend to the cap, you would never hear those quotes coming from him.

Just stop.

You can't do this: GM/Owner.

You just can't.

They are two separate people. The decisions the owner makes (deciding not to spend money) directly affects whatever a GM can do.

Murray is handcuffed, plain and simple. There's no other way to see it.

Alfie left because of Melnyk. Murray isn't going to be able to bring back Hemsky because of Melnyk. The Sens are a budget team because of Melnyk.

This isn't 'GM/Owner'. This is owner.

The only bad move Murray has made over the past few seasons was Bishop for Conacher. I give him a mulligan on that because he has made so many good moves/drafts over that time span.

Has Murray made some dumb quotes in the media? Of course. Does that have anything to do with how he MANAGED the team? NO!

Those quotes stem from the fact that he is working for a guy that has no money and is trying to profit from the Sens. If Murray could and did spend to the cap, you would never hear those quotes coming from him.
- Charliebox

No because when we were a Cap team under Murray we missed the playoffs and he signs Kovalev - the evidence is right before you, we have a bad hockey team- you can't say everything bad is Melnyk's fault and everything good is Murray.

This is Murray's team, it's a bad hockey team, it's slow, soft, doesn't have a high hockey IQ and he's oversold the product.

No because when we were a Cap team under Murray we missed the playoffs and he signs Kovalev - the evidence is right before you, we have a bad hockey team- you can't say everything bad is Melnyk's fault and everything good is Murray.

This is Murray's team, it's a bad hockey team, it's slow, soft, doesn't have a high hockey IQ and he's oversold the product.
- tuna99

You're not worth arguing with...

To start fresh, I'm going to post my latest "Cost-Per-Point" championship roster here based on a few things:



In this scenario,

- Methot + Spezza are traded for Stalberg, Josi, + a pick.

- We moved Greening + Prince to Buffalo for Stewart

- We Traded Chris Neil to colorado for Patrick Bordeleau, to save cap space on our designated knuckle-chucker position)

- We resigned Hoffman, Grant, and Da Costa.

- We signed Dominic Moore as a UFA.

And voila, we have a 23 man roster that is only 3,000 dollars above the cap floor.

Could likely still win some games, too, be a team similar to columbus, get our pesky identity back.

Tuna have a snickers

I don't understand this business, but then I don't understand a lot of things. Why are all of last year's coaching decisions so shrouded in mystery? Why doesn't someone in the so-called 'media' just ask the obvious questions that we all spend so much time arguing about.

Q: Why did you give the Greening-Smith-Neil line so many minutes while they were clearly so bad?
MacLean: An answer.

So I have an idea: the 'Old Paul' was a good guy that players liked and looked up to and he built loyalty which translated into on-ice performance. This worked like gangbusters in 12/13. However, when the team was terrible out of the box at the beginning of 13/14 and the pressure started coming down from the top, 'New Paul' started using the old ice-time model and started benching players and lines whose performance was uninspired and lacklustre (and face it, this is VERY OFTEN with this team). Once he considered a game lost or out of reach, he would simply bench the lazy and give more minutes to the 4th line who a least made an effort.

Well, it's just an idea. There's got to be some logical explanation for what appeared to be such terrible coaching decisions. I wonder if any of the season trends and stats would bear any of this out...

No because when we were a Cap team under Murray we missed the playoffs and he signs Kovalev - the evidence is right before you, we have a bad hockey team- you can't say everything bad is Melnyk's fault and everything good is Murray.

This is Murray's team, it's a bad hockey team, it's slow, soft, doesn't have a high hockey IQ and he's oversold the product.
- tuna99

We missed the playoffs due to the fact that Muckler ruined our team.

Only an idiot would think that those Sens were 'Murray's sens'.

Kovalev signing sucked for sure, but that wasn't the reason we missed the playoffs. We missed the playoffs because Muckler ran the organization into the ground. There's a reason why he's still out of work.

Murray was able to turn over our entire roster (minus Spezza, Phillps and Neil) and still only miss the playoffs 3x over that stretch.

Most teams that have that much turnover bottom out for a few seasons. The fact that Murray has been able to do what he has, with the budget he has is amazing.

We missed the playoffs due to the fact that Muckler ruined our team.

Only an idiot would think that those Sens were 'Murray's sens'.

Kovalev signing sucked for sure, but that wasn't the reason we missed the playoffs. We missed the playoffs because Muckler ran the organization into the ground. There's a reason why he's still out of work.

Murray was able to turn over our entire roster (minus Spezza, Phillps and Neil) and still only miss the playoffs 3x over that stretch.

Most teams that have that much turnover bottom out for a few seasons. The fact that Murray has been able to do what he has, with the budget he has is amazing.
- Charliebox

Smoke another one bud - who was the GM when we made the finals - does Murray get credi or GM'ing that team as well:

What happened under Murray's first year as a GM when it was predicte we'd be contending again

Check you head

I don't understand this business, but then I don't understand a lot of things. Why are all of last year's coaching decisions so shrouded in mystery? Why doesn't someone in the so-called 'media' just ask the obvious questions that we all spend so much time arguing about.

Q: Why did you give the Greening-Smith-Neil line so many minutes while they were clearly so bad?
MacLean: An answer.

So I have an idea: the 'Old Paul' was a good guy that players liked and looked up to and he built loyalty which translated into on-ice performance. This worked like gangbusters in 12/13. However, when the team was terrible out of the box at the beginning of 13/14 and the pressure started coming down from the top, 'New Paul' started using the old ice-time model and started benching players and lines whose performance was uninspired and lacklustre (and face it, this is VERY OFTEN with this team). Once he considered a game lost or out of reach, he would simply bench the lazy and give more minutes to the 4th line who a least made an effort.

Well, it's just an idea. There's got to be some logical explanation for what appeared to be such terrible coaching decisions. I wonder if any of the season trends and stats would bear any of this out...
- sgoodwin

kudos for trying, but i dont think that's it.

the smith-neil-greening line was ottawa's worst line on a large majority of nights. therefor, he'd be punishing a line for playing poorly, by playing a line that was likely playing much worse.

doesn't add up imo

Smoke another one bud - who was the GM when we made the finals - does Murray get credi or GM'ing that team as well:

What happened under Murray's first year as a GM when it was predicte we'd be contending again

Check you head
- tuna99

Murray gets no credit for making the finals. Frankly, neither does Muckler. Muckler took an all star team and slowly eroded it.

Obviously, Melnyk and others in the organization agree with me. Muckler was fired the year after going to the finals. Why?

Hossa for Heatley.. Redden over Chara.

The Sens were on the downswing and there was nothing in the prospect pool when Murray took over.

Smoke another one bud - who was the GM when we made the finals - does Murray get credi or GM'ing that team as well:

What happened under Murray's first year as a GM when it was predicte we'd be contending again

Check you head
- tuna99

when literally EVERYONE thinks that everything you say is both wrong, and often times stupid, you're likely the one smoking something and need to get your head checked.

NOT SO FAST JACK!


I'm told that Spezza may not be on his way out after all. They are listening to offers but unless they get what they want he WILL stay put. If he stays put it is also possible that he is extended.

Gordie and I will be the only ones happy about this.

The only thing that has changed is time and contract status but the Spezza situation is not unlike it was 4 years ago where he told the team that if he was to be moved he would be ok with it.

Regardless we'll have ALL of our answers the first week of July. Some extensions will be announced then.

NOT SO FAST JACK!


I'm told that Spezza may not be on his way out after all. They are listening to offers but unless they get what they want he WILL stay put. If he stays put it is also possible that he is extended.

Gordie and I will be the only ones happy about this.

The only thing that has changed is time and contract status but the Spezza situation is not unlike it was 4 years ago where he told the team that if he was to be moved he would be ok with it.

Regardless we'll have ALL of our answers the first week of July. Some extensions will be announced then.
- Cup 06

Isn't that what's been said since day 1.....trade him if the price is right, keep him if not.

I don't believe for one second that they'll extend him, unless they move Ryan, or melnyk decided to spend money.....and I can't see either of those happening

Now that I think about it guys, I don't know if I want to let Spezza go. Sure he had an abysmal start, but him and Hemsky have something that can be promising. Let's just say that they sign him and Hemsky stays along for the ride. If Michalek is released, can't Zibanejad play on the wing with Hemsky and Spezza?

Zibanejad-Spezza-Hemsky
Mac-Turris-Ryan

Offensively we're sound if this is indeed what happens. Defensively we're on a bubble. Cowen rebounding is ?, and Weircioch must get some T4 ice-time.
Karl-Meth
Cowen-Weir
Phil-Ceci