I think they are very good players but not elite players.
Stutzle is getting his points but 7 goals after 35 games does not scream elite to me.
As I said earlier, any team in the league would love what Tkachuk brings to the table, but I don't think he has game breaking skill.
Sanderson from the 3 games I have seen of him has a chance to be a superstar, but not there yet.
So maybe it's not just the coaching that has been the problem, maybe your top guys just don't compare to the top teams . We will see.
- Rang

Elias Petterson - is he a superstar?

Before this season I said Stutzle was on the same path. Yes Stutzle is struggling but he'll still finish the season close to 24-25 goals and 85 points.

Petterson had 221 points in his first 245 games. Stutzle has 211 after A LOT of underperformance this season. He is elite. 22nd in points past 2 seasons (Crosby, Matthews, Hughes, Karlsson right in front of with Stamkos, Barkov, Thompson, Keller behind him)

Brady Tkachuk isn't an elite offensive player but he is an ELITE all around player. I didn't think he was elite when he was drafted. I was leaning toward Filip Zadina - but boy was i wrong. But he has another level to get to - the level Matthew Tkachuk got to in his 6th NHL season.

I did not think making the playoffs was a critical milestone for measuring team progress.

I had hoped that Dorion would have been replaced as part of the ownership changeover from day one and I expected Smith would likely be replaced at some point by the new GM.

But, the way it all unfolded has been really bad timing. The season started with the guillotine being placed over both Dorion and Smith and the team responded accordingly. Love Jacques Martin but the game has passed him by. We are in the process of squandering Daniel Alfredson's legacy. It is hard to connect with the sweet spot when it comes to the decisions having been made by new ownership.

But, and it is a huge butt! The current poope show has so drastically altered fans' expectations that it now makes just about anything possible in terms of consequential roster changes.

I am very nervous about the Sens now thinking they need to do something that gives us a short term win by selling off a long term gem.

It is going to be hard for this new management group to choose to do nothing right now. But, doing nothing is the right choice. On the other hand, Sens will have some nice veteran pieces to move at the trade deadline...they need to patiently wait.

I am not unhappy with the new ownership. The front office on both the business and hockey side are impressive. Long term it looks good. We just need to avoid making rash short term choices.

This current downward spiral was triggered the night the fans booed the young players. It ripped their hearts out. It drove a wedge into the love affair that had previously existed between most of the fans and the young players.

I know some of you don't like to hear this perspective. But, by the end of the season this is a reality that will be clearly evident from tracking the numbers for the team and individual players.

Maybe, as fans, we need to adjust our game as well.

I did not think making the playoffs was a critical milestone for measuring team progress.

I had hoped that Dorion would have been replaced as part of the ownership changeover from day one and I expected Smith would likely be replaced at some point by the new GM.

But, the way it all unfolded has been really bad timing. The season started with the guillotine being placed over both Dorion and Smith and the team responded accordingly. Love Jacques Martin but the game has passed him by. We are in the process of squandering Daniel Alfredson's legacy. It is hard to connect with the sweet spot when it comes to the decisions having been made by new ownership.

But, and it is a huge butt! The current poope show has so drastically altered fans' expectations that it now makes just about anything possible in terms of consequential roster changes.

I am very nervous about the Sens now thinking they need to do something that gives us a short term win by selling off a long term gem.

It is going to be hard for this new management group to choose to do nothing right now. But, doing nothing is the right choice. On the other hand, Sens will have some nice veteran pieces to move at the trade deadline...they need to patiently wait.

I am not unhappy with the new ownership. The front office on both the business and hockey side are impressive. Long term it looks good. We just need to avoid making rash short term choices.

This current downward spiral was triggered the night the fans booed the young players. It ripped their hearts out. It drove a wedge into the love affair that had previously existed between most of the fans and the young players.

I know some of you don't like to hear this perspective. But, by the end of the season this is a reality that will be clearly evident from tracking the numbers for the team and individual players.

Maybe, as fans, we need to adjust our game as well.
- spatso

Situation isn't that bad. Most of the current problems are all Dorion/Smiths fault.

We cannot fairly judge this team and new management until after next summer.

This team was built by a tyrannical Dorion free of oversight and with a skeleton crew in their offices ripe with constant drama.

These are still kids, the booing is not a big deal and when the kids start winning both they and the fans will get over it.

I don't know there source but Steve Dangle mentioned Staios is working the phones for people who "take care of themselves". If this is true then I am all for it.

Tkachuk should not be the only tough guy on the team. Up front the team needs to be built tough around him + the scoring touches of Stutzle, Batherson and Norris. Not just defensively sound like with Pinto and Joseph but actually tough.

On the back end we could use 1 of Chabot or Brannstrom but not both. Brannstrom probably easier to move and bring in equivalent $ value of mean-big-guy-ness and defensive mindedness. That alone I think would fix the defense entirely especially if you sit or move Hamonic somehow.

Goaltending is w/e. This year it is awful maybe next year it is good. Fix it if you can I just think it is tough to plan for goaltending with this team clearly and Carolina shows you can be good with meh goaltending.

A tone of great coaches waiting to be hired and I hope they settle on a veteran. I'm so sick of Ottawa being the experimental arena for coaches. I know people keep saying Gruden but Berube who has won a cup is right there (if he wants to come to Ottawa anyways).

Coming off the books this summer: Kubalik, Tarasenko and buyouts. Fill those two forward spots with people that have attitude and you are probably fine.

If after next summer with all the crap going out the door and all the new coming in and taking control I think the base of this team will be great.

Just so you are aware, John Gruden has a pretty illustrious career as he rises through the coaching ranks .....
From the Toronto Star, July 8, 2023 by Dave Feschuk.

Gruden, 53, spent last season as an assistant coach with Boston, running the defensive corps under head coach Jim Montgomery. In the three seasons before that, he worked as an assistant coach with the New York Islanders, learning at the right hand of head coach Barry Trotz. For all that valuable experience, perhaps Gruden is still most famous for his time as head coach of the OHL’s Flint Firebirds. Hired for the club’s inaugural season in Flint in 2015, Gruden was infamously fired by owner Rolf Nilsen a couple of months into the campaign. Nilsen was reportedly upset that his son, Hakon, a Firebirds defenceman, wasn’t being given sufficient ice time.

The firing led to what amounted to a mutiny, with players, including Hakon, marching on the Firebirds’ front office and handing in their jerseys in protest, vowing not to play if Gruden wasn’t rehired. A day after Gruden had cleaned out his office, he was back on the job.

“I felt like Billy Martin — fired one day and hired the next,” Gruden said at the time.
But, for Gruden, you can make the case the notoriety — and the way he handled it with grace — didn’t hurt. A few months after he was refired in Flint, he was hired by the Hamilton Bulldogs, whom he promptly helped transform from a team that missed the playoffs in 2015-16 into OHL champions in 2018. Along the way, Gruden earned a reputation as an approachable if uncompromising coach with a knack for teaching the game’s finer points.

That watershed season in Hamilton, which included a Memorial Cup appearance, catapulted Gruden onto Trotz’s bench with the Islanders, which led to an opportunity this past year with the Bruins, who reeled off the greatest regular season in NHL history with 65 wins and 135 points before a first-round ouster to Florida.

“You know, there’s a disappointment with the ending. But it’s a tough league,” Gruden said of Boston’s playoff thud. “But it was an historic season, for sure.”

Gruden also was an assistant coach for the USA U17 and U18 teams as an assistant coach for 5 seasons.

So, does this sound like a guy worth waiting for ? I think it is just what the doctor ordered for this team.

Besides, anybody ever stop to think that a guy like Berube, etc. doesn't want the Ottawa job. I think Berube is waiting for the Toronto job to open up.

People need to stop crapping over fans for booing when the team has been playing like utter garbage. Those are the people who spent hundreds of dollars on actually showing up to watch the game, and what they saw was yet another major regression in the on-ice product from the previous year. Playoff expectations were created because the team last year was close to playing at a playoff level. In fact, they were playing at a playoff level, but weren't able to overcome the annual horrible start to the season under DJ Smith. And then somehow, despite getting the security of new ownership, increasing the payroll significantly, and adding Norris, Tarasenko, and Korpisalo to the lineup, they come out playing worse than ever and once again faced the prospect of a lost season before the end of December. Why on Earth shouldn't the fans boo? It's far better than then not showing up at all, which is clearly the next degree of fan reaction if no visible change or improvement is made.

Exactly.
Ownership has to be pleased that the building is nearly sold out every game despite what we are seeing.

AND

Just remember what Vancouver went through last year with their "elite" core. Give this another year before you start jettisoning players left and right.

People need to stop crapping over fans for booing when the team has been playing like utter garbage. Those are the people who spent hundreds of dollars on actually showing up to watch the game, and what they saw was yet another major regression in the on-ice product from the previous year. Playoff expectations were created because the team last year was close to playing at a playoff level. In fact, they were playing at a playoff level, but weren't able to overcome the annual horrible start to the season under DJ Smith. And then somehow, despite getting the security of new ownership, increasing the payroll significantly, and adding Norris, Tarasenko, and Korpisalo to the lineup, they come out playing worse than ever and once again faced the prospect of a lost season before the end of December. Why on Earth shouldn't the fans boo? It's far better than then not showing up at all, which is clearly the next degree of fan reaction if no visible change or improvement is made.
- khawk

I don't disagree with the fans right to boo.

My point is there is a cost to be paid. It clearly impacted the young players, especially Tkachuk and Stuetzle.

It seems contradictory to me that fans who blame the management and coaching would boo the young players who they claim are not supposedly getting the quality coaching they need in order to succeed.

The booing is now part of the Ottawa culture for those young players. It is not going to be an easy fix.

I don't disagree with the fans right to boo.

My point is there is a cost to be paid. It clearly impacted the young players, especially Tkachuk and Stuetzle.

It seems contradictory to me that fans who blame the management and coaching would boo the young players who they claim are not supposedly getting the quality coaching they need in order to succeed.

The booing is now part of the Ottawa culture for those young players. It is not going to be an easy fix.
- spatso

Hey if you make millions of dollars a year to play a sport then you need to live with the pressure to produce. And to get booed if you have 7 goals in 35 games.
If you don't like it, then go be an accountant where nobody except your boss cares about your performance.

Hey if you make millions of dollars a year to play a sport then you need to live with the pressure to produce. And to get booed if you have 7 goals in 35 games.
If you don't like it, then go be an accountant where nobody except your boss cares about your performance.
- Rang

But teams draft kids and then commit to develop them. Just like it takes time for kids to grow into their full physical self, they need to also develop emotionally. Lots of kids who had all the physical tools failed to make it because of the psychological pressures. Confidence is a critical consideration. The kids have taken a very strong hit to their confidence. No matterow you slice it this has not been a good growth year for the young players.

But teams draft kids and then commit to develop them. Just like it takes time for kids to grow into their full physical self, they need to also develop emotionally. Lots of kids who had all the physical tools failed to make it because of the psychological pressures. Confidence is a critical consideration. The kids have taken a very strong hit to their confidence. No matterow you slice it this has not been a good growth year for the young players.
- spatso

I think you are right about confidence in any sport making a massive difference to performance.
But these guys are on their second contracts and rightfully so are making big bucks because they are good players.
All I am saying is it goes with the territory as a pro athelete . You get to make millions more than the average person but you have to live with the pressure to produce.

Besides, anybody ever stop to think that a guy like Berube, etc. doesn't want the Ottawa job. I think Berube is waiting for the Toronto job to open up.
- OttawaB

Respectfully --- I don't think coaches can afford to wait for a job to open up 99% of the time

But teams draft kids and then commit to develop them. Just like it takes time for kids to grow into their full physical self, they need to also develop emotionally. Lots of kids who had all the physical tools failed to make it because of the psychological pressures. Confidence is a critical consideration. The kids have taken a very strong hit to their confidence. No matterow you slice it this has not been a good growth year for the young players.
- spatso

Participation Trophies for everyone !

As for pressure .... most of these players have played for their country's U18, U 17 and World Junior teams. They have also fought and clawed to get to the NHL. They have been feeling pressure for years. Now they need to produce at an even higher level. The previous coaching staff never really held them accountable, and now they need to be accountable. Somebody took their cookies and ice cream away and told them they now have to work harder to get those privileges back again. I mean, it looks like Tkachuk and Stutzle are off in the corner sulking because no one is blowing smoke up their ass and calling them stars anymore. Maybe these guys have got to start getting angry and embarrassed at how poorly they are playing. If they need the cheering and accolades and fluffing from the fans to get moving, they are in the wrong business.

No matter how you slice it this has not been a good growth year for the young players.
- spatso

Actually this is a great year for the players development. Most of the young core has developed bad habits in previous years that are now hard to shake. This is especially true of the players who have had more of the development under DJ Smith (Chabot, Norris, Batherson, Stutzle, Tkachuk). They are now learning defensive structure and how to play to give the team the best chance to win. They have learned that they are not as great as they thought they were and that the big paychecks come with expectations. It is time to man up, learn to play the right way and play better.

Apparently Sens management is in attendance to watch LA and Tampa play tonight. Rumour is LA is once again beating a drum to acquire Chychrun.

Would anyone do a straight up deal: Chychrun for PLD.

PLD does not have a no move contract.

He has not been a great fit for the Kings.

Staios apparently wants to add someone who brings a physical presence.

Last summer PLD was my #1 target for the Sens. Now, I am not so sure.

We were sold five years of 'unparalleled success' from 2021-2025 where we would spend to the cap and be consistently competitive. It's 2024. I totally understand why people are disillusioned. The fact that attendance is up and fans are passionate and angry shows you this fan base is not giving up on this team.

But we've been sold BS for years, and at some point you need to take off the rose coloured glasses. When you change everything - the owner, the GM, the coach, the systems, and you get more of the same, who do you point the finger at? So look for empirical evidence - look to Tocchet's Canucks and tell me this can't be turned around. If we get a new coach in place we may yet see this group evolve. But we should have never been sold hope the way we were - totally unfair to the team, the fans, and the players.

And please, no Gruden unless the Leafs win the cup this year. I am FN sick of Ottawa's Torontonian owners taking that *cursed* FN team's castoffs over the past decade. Just. Stop. It. Unless they prove they can actually win the show, don't go anywhere fricken near them. We have tons of evidence it's about as effective as shooting a hole in the boat.

We were sold five years of 'unparalleled success' from 2021-2025 where we would spend to the cap and be consistently competitive. It's 2024. I totally understand why people are disillusioned. The fact that attendance is up and fans are passionate and angry shows you this fan base is not giving up on this team.

But we've been sold BS for years, and at some point you need to take off the rose coloured glasses. When you change everything - the owner, the GM, the coach, the systems, and you get more of the same, who do you point the finger at? So look for empirical evidence - look to Tocchet's Canucks and tell me this can't be turned around. If we get a new coach in place we may yet see this group evolve. But we should have never been sold hope the way we were - totally unfair to the team, the fans, and the players.

And please, no Gruden unless the Leafs win the cup this year. I am FN sick of Ottawa's Torontonian owners taking that *cursed* FN team's castoffs over the past decade. Just. Stop. It. Unless they prove they can actually win the show, don't go anywhere fricken near them. We have tons of evidence it's about as effective as shooting a hole in the boat.
- Bartacus

Good read.

I agree on the Toronto stuff. Started with Damien Rhodes and has gone downhill.

Would anyone do a straight up deal: Chychrun for PLD
- spatso

Isn't PLD a big "cancer"/hates playing in Canada/media/taxes/attitude/etc. ?

Isn't PLD a big "cancer"/hates playing in Canada/media/taxes/attitude/etc. ?
- PogBoi

I thought his first choice was Montreal

I thought his first choice was Montreal
- spatso

PLD has 10 less points than Chychrun. As a forward. On the powerhouse Kings. For 8.5M per for the next 7 seasons. No thanks.

This team plays 2 period hockey.

We were sold five years of 'unparalleled success' from 2021-2025 where we would spend to the cap and be consistently competitive. It's 2024. I totally understand why people are disillusioned. The fact that attendance is up and fans are passionate and angry shows you this fan base is not giving up on this team.

But we've been sold BS for years, and at some point you need to take off the rose coloured glasses. When you change everything - the owner, the GM, the coach, the systems, and you get more of the same, who do you point the finger at? So look for empirical evidence - look to Tocchet's Canucks and tell me this can't be turned around. If we get a new coach in place we may yet see this group evolve. But we should have never been sold hope the way we were - totally unfair to the team, the fans, and the players.

And please, no Gruden unless the Leafs win the cup this year. I am FN sick of Ottawa's Torontonian owners taking that *cursed* FN team's castoffs over the past decade. Just. Stop. It. Unless they prove they can actually win the show, don't go anywhere fricken near them. We have tons of evidence it's about as effective as shooting a hole in the boat.
- Bartacus

\
Gruden is not nor would not be a Toronto castoff. He is coaching his first season with the Marlies and has no previous Toronto connections. But he does have connections with Staios and Andlauer from the past. And he learned coaching from 2 of the best recent history coaches in Trotz and Montgomery.

Jacques Martin said we need better from a few guys....

who do you think he's talking about ???

Sens NEED to trade Norris, Chabot, and maybe Chrychrun - in that order !!

Tkachuk, Stutzle, Sanderson need to be the leaders of this team for the next decade - they still need to develop big time! Chychrun doesn't look like a good leader. Mentally he reminds me of Ceci which is scary

\
Gruden is not nor would not be a Toronto castoff. He is coaching his first season with the Marlies and has no previous Toronto connections. But he does have connections with Staios and Andlauer from the past. And he learned coaching from 2 of the best recent history coaches in Trotz and Montgomery.
- OttawaB

Gruden for Sanderson? Just kidding.
Watching the highlights from your game last night there were multiple goals where you had possession in your own end and just gave the puck away under forechecking pressure.
Surprising for any team Jacques Martin has been involved with, and he has been there for months.
Combine that with meh goaltending and it's not hard to figure out why you have not met expectations.
Hopefully you can figure it out before a permanent losing culture takes over. Would love to see Ottawa be a contender again.