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Around the League 2018-2019 Edition

Can you imagine the delusion of an owner of a team that is dead-last in the NHL WITHOUT their first round pick talking smack about one of the top NHL teams and their rebuild?
 
So apparently this twitter thread is the "12 year-old from Toronto" that triggered Melnyk so badly:

‏
Ryan @ryanclassic
The Ottawa Senators since losing in game 7 of the Eastern Conference Final. Take a deep breath, everyone...

• Bryan Murray passes away

• Owner Eugene Melnyk threatens fans at outdoor game that he'll move team

• Melnyk tells Brent Wallace he'll "bury" him

• Most talented player in franchise history, Erik Karlsson, put on trade block

• Assistant GM Randy Lee accused of sexually harassing 19-year old bus driver

• Melnyk hires the Larry Flynt lawyer to represent Randy Lee

• New COO has to be hired before Randy Lee is suspended

• Randy Lee steps down

• After months, new assistant GM is finally hired

• Mike Hoffman’s girlfriend stalks and harasses Erik Karlsson and his wife online

• Fan favourite Turris is shipped off

• Team traded potential 1st-overall pick in 2019 for one year of Matt Duchene

• Started "rebuild" two months later

• Fans started revolt against owner, erecting billboards

• Daniel Alfredsson leaves again, this time from the front office

• Alfredsson later says to reporter he hopes a new owner comes soon

• Melnyk fires CEO, named himself new CEO

• Erik Karlsson’s son is stillborn

• Craig Anderson and Mike Condon have career-awful seasons

• Anderson reportedly asks for trade, is still on team

• Condon has an even worse start to the next season, is never heard from again

• Not enough money for ushers in the third deck

• First town hall meeting allowed reporters but banned recording gear and laptops

• Town hall meeting where owner said Alfredsson wanted to leave

• Promise made to not trade Erik Karlsson at draft and make a contract offer

• Karlsson turns down offer that, allegedly, had no no trade protection

• Karlsson traded for Six Assets

• Karlsson states he believes if he'd signed offer he'd have been traded anyway

• Karlsson does not thank owner on way out

• Jonathan Pitre passes away

• Clarke MacArthur forced to retire from concussions

• Dion Phaneuf traded to LA, his retained salary is now 2nd-highest paid D

• Onesies with the team logo on it have been recalled for being a choking hazard

• Cody Ceci accidentally sets friend's girlfriend on fire

• Melnyk and Borowiecki have Twin Peaks-level interview

• When asked what fans can look forward to, Dorion pauses for over 5 seconds

• "We're a team"

• O logo replaced at centre ice by 3D centurion

• Team refuses to refund season tickets after Karlsson trade

• Season tickets down by 4,000

• Opening night heavy balls are dropped on fans

• Uber video showing players roasting assistant coach and defence

• Postmedia refuses to take down video, Ken Warren kicked off team charter

• Something called furry night actually referring to pets happens

• Team forgets to hire promo photographer for LGBTQ night until a week before event

• Team adopts dog, immediately go on losing streak

• Melnyk tells a group of sponsors - in Toronto - the team will spend near the cap in 2021

• "Five years of unparalleled success"

• Keith Tkachuk publicly states he wants Mark Stone signed to keep helping his son

• Matt Duchene traded to Columbus for Multiple Assets

• Ryan Dzingel traded a day later to Columbus for Multiple Assets

• Mark Stone traded to Vegas days later for Three Assets

• Duchene and Stone both say they received fair offers from Senators, decided not to sign

• Stone agrees to deal with Vegas in 30 minutes

• Stone says he likes Vegas' owners's commitment to winning

• Melnyk caught on video saying Stone trade has been planned for some time

• Six players remain from 2017 playoff roster

• Coach Guy Boucher fired under 24 hours after Dorion says decision will be made in spring

• Dorion jokes around during Boucher firing press conference

• Every single press release includes "rebuild" in some form

• Downtown arena deal starts and stops multiple times

• Pro-Melnyk Twitter bots use stock photos of women's faces

• Aimee Deziel, Chief Marketing Officer, says there are as many anti-Melnyk bots as pro-Melnyk bots

• Lebreton Flats Facts dot com

• Melnyk sues former Lebreton co-developer for $750M, is countersued for $1B

• Arbitrator brought in, deal falls completely apart

• Pierre Dorion refers to Mark Stone trade as his proudest moment as GM

• Dorion does not think there's a disconnect between team and fans

• Dorion inexplicably doxxes himself at Navan Arena

• Post-trade deadline radio call-in show lasts 12 hours

• After trading top six scorers from last season, Dorion tells team "no excuses"

• Doug MacLean and Brian Burke roast Dorion and Melnyk on Sportsnet

• Sharks made room for Karlsson by dumping Mikael Boedker on Ottawa in a previous trade

• Community ambassadors do media circuit talking about importance of community outreach less than 48 hours after no team (only Sens Foundation) presence at Capital Pride

• Dorion during his radio interview: "Fans are married to players. Marry new players. Get a new girlfriend."

• Fan has heart attack in the stands

• JG Pageau gets injured on the first day of training camp

• MacArthur's career was ended by a concussion sustained in training camp by a minor league teammate (Patrick Sieloff) who was later re-signed to an extension
 
JackBurton said:
Can you imagine the delusion of an owner of a team that is dead-last in the NHL WITHOUT their first round pick talking smack about one of the top NHL teams and their rebuild?
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Brady Tkachuk is fine and all, but taking him over the pick this year never made sense. Last year's draft was terrible compared to this year after Dahlin.
 
Artnes said:
It gets worse

He later apologized to Rieder for the comments saying he crossed the line and hopes they can move on

How tone deaf is he to not see the collateral damage from this with future FAs
aac3c93cae6f8445921539cacb42eabd.jpg


Sent from my SM-G950W using Tapatalk
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something is in the water in edmonton

it might be vodka
 
leafman101 said:
Thats ridiculous. Someone in the organization need to come out and say "actually the reason the Oilers aren't a playoff team is Bob Nicholson and all the stupid decisions management has made that he is responsible for".
Click to expand...

especially the decision to get Reider
 
leafman101 said:
Brady Tkachuk is fine and all, but taking him over the pick this year never made sense. Last year's draft was terrible compared to this year after Dahlin.
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nah

if the avs end up picking third it is a wash
but picking in the top two is a clear loss
 
It's such a horrible situation to be in. Ottawa has no control and pray they did not give up Hughes. And the entire reason they are in this situation is because they mis-read their team so badly. They honestly thought they were a cup favorite adding Duchene. They never even had a sniff at the playoffs.
 
I disagree. After Hughes and Kappo, there are a handful of centers/defensemen with better U18 seasons than Tkachuk (Byram, Cozens Dach, Zegras) , plus a bunch of guys from the USNDTP that were much better at the same age than Tkachuk (Boldy/Caufield).

You'd be hard pressed to walk out of the draft with a player worse than Tkachuk even in the 8-10 range. And even if you don't get the elite prospects, you still end up with a more talented player at a more impactful position. For example, I am sure you Habs fans are much happier with Kotk over Tkachuk.

Giving up this years pick for last year made no sense after they didn't win the lotteries.
 
leafman101 said:
I disagree. After Hughes and Kappo, there are a handful of centers/defensemen with better U18 seasons than Tkachuk (Byram, Cozens Dach, Zegras) , plus a bunch of guys from the USNDTP that were much better at the same age than Tkachuk (Boldy/Caufield).

You'd be hard pressed to walk out of the draft with a player worse than Tkachuk even in the 8-10 range. And even if you don't get the elite prospects, you still end up with a more talented player at a more impactful position. For example, I am sure you Habs fans are much happier with Kotk over Tkachuk.

Giving up this years pick for last year made no sense after they didn't win the lotteries.
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It's not like this is a "in hindsight" take on the situation either. That was the consensus last year too.

But it seems pretty clear that the direction to keep last year's pick came right from the top.

And it’s a decision that was made either because Melnyk felt that giving up last year’s pick would have been an admission that they were expecting to be even worse this year, and was probably worried that’d hurt ticket sales. Or it’s also possible that Melnyk was deluded enough to think the Sens would be significantly better this season even without Karlsson.
 
leafman101 said:
I disagree. After Hughes and Kappo, there are a handful of centers/defensemen with better U18 seasons than Tkachuk (Byram, Cozens Dach, Zegras) , plus a bunch of guys from the USNDTP that were much better at the same age than Tkachuk (Boldy/Caufield).

You'd be hard pressed to walk out of the draft with a player worse than Tkachuk even in the 8-10 range. And even if you don't get the elite prospects, you still end up with a more talented player at a more impactful position. For example, I am sure you Habs fans are much happier with Kotk over Tkachuk.

Giving up this years pick for last year made no sense after they didn't win the lotteries.
Click to expand...

Sure. I did not want Tkachuk when the habs were picking right there but I cannot ignore what he has done in the NHL this year.

I remember the talk around him and he was a tools over numbers person so it is hard to compare that way IMO as he seems to be a guy that is putting it together in the NHL.

So I do think it will be hard to find a player better than Tkachuk in that 3-10 range.

But ya worst case for the avs is they get kappo.
 
Ottawa's biggest issue is they have no money. Every decision made is based on $. It'll affect every aspect of their organization.
Melnyk is likely very upset at the Leafs for the bonuses they are giving. Ottawa cannot ever afford to do that. It's rumoured that was an issue in the Stone contract. But he won't actually admit that because he's admitting they are lacking financial resources to compete.
 
eh. they've spent enough to be good, they've just been poorly run.

spending money on guys like Ryan and Phaneuf and Boedker and Ceci and.....whoever. it's juist bad managemetn.
 
Leafs took so much $ back, they barely spent anything on Phaneuf though. That was financial motivation making that deal.
And it's not just about cap, it's about spending on other areas. Overall operational budget.
 
zeke said:
eh. they've spent enough to be good, they've just been poorly run.

spending money on guys like Ryan and Phaneuf and Boedker and Ceci and.....whoever. it's juist bad managemetn.
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I disagree. It's not "just" bad management.

Now, that's definitely a part of it. When they have spent money, they've spent it badly.

But when you're a cap floor team, you're pretty far behind the eight ball when it comes to being competitive, let alone a contender. And there's also no doubt that they've made a bunch of moves where their management prioritized saving the owner hard cash ahead of maximizing their assets and/or the competitiveness of the team.
 
Yeah their front office is lean. The Leafs list 36 people in their front office, Ottawa has 7. Scouting 26 versus 13.

Plus they just lost two of the best players in the league over money.
 
leafman101 said:
Yeah their front office is lean. The Leafs list 36 people in their front office, Ottawa has 7. Scouting 26 versus 13.

Plus they just lost two of the best players in the league over money.
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Yeah, that's true too. It's not just player salaries they're skimping on.

Compared to the Leafs, their front office, scouting & development staff are pretty much a skeleton crew.
 
That's a big reason why a team like Florida or Arizona has struggled to get to the next level. Operational budgets are so important.
 
yeah. The turnaround here has been impressive, but you're talking about untold millions to get it done. The money to pay guys like Babs and Shanahan alone is beyond the budget of more than a few teams.
 
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