Ottawa Senators (present and past) TIDBITS & QUICK HITS!

I'm somewhere in the middle on this. To me this wasn't the year to go out and spend a ton so the Sens being at the bottom of the league in terms of where they are with the cap isn't a huge deal... again no reason to spend ie David Clarkson. Now, going forward if they don't resign Bobby Ryan or Clarke MacArthur because of cash issues then yah, sound some alarm bells.

I can't stand Melnyk and I 100% believe that he would use the Sens as leverage against the city and would use the Sens to finance his other garbage investments BUT right now there is nothing to say that's the case in terms of the spending. IMO thus far (aside from Alfie where it was more than just money) money has been spent wisely and well.

tim1_2 wrote:Depending on what Carolina, Detroit, NYR, and Toronto do tonight and tomorrow, a win tomorrow night could move Ottawa into a wildcard playoff spot.  

Carolina's one of the hottest teams in the league right now (won 5 straight), but they close out the season with a fairly tough March and April, so I'm not too concerned about them.  

A playoff spot is ours for the taking.  Just gotta keep getting points, and winning when we should.

Yeah, lots of interesting scenarios playing out this week. It's tight in hte Wild Card.

Regulation losses by the Rangers, Leafs and Hurricanes tonight would setup a nice opportunity for the Sens to jump up tomorrow night with a win.

GO SENS GO!!!

Time will tell, REDACTED.

This summer will tell the story. Ryan, Mac, Methot, Lehner, Zibanejad. Then perhaps trading Spezza and replacing him with $$ brought in

Lots of pressure on melnyk to spend this summer, I'd hope he's prepared otherwise he ain't seen nothing yet in terms of attendance.

Spending money when you're ready to make that leap to become a serious contender makes sense, I get that, no issues there. The hard part is timing it right, and having the right assets available to spend the money on in the first place. I think we can all see that the Sens are heading in the right direction as far as their own assets are concerned. We're in a dog fight for a wild card spot in an ultra crappy Eastern conference. Not exactly in a great position to be a serious contender yet right now, but yeah, the next two years will be very telling for sure starting this summer. We'll see how it all shakes out.

shabbs wrote:Spending money when you're ready to make that leap to become a serious contender makes sense, I get that, no issues there. The hard part is timing it right, and having the right assets available to spend the money on in the first place. I think we can all see that the Sens are heading in the right direction as far as their own assets are concerned. We're in a dog fight for a wild card spot in an ultra crappy Eastern conference. Not exactly in a great position to be a serious contender yet right now, but yeah, the next two years will be very telling for sure starting this summer. We'll see how it all shakes out.

Resigning the core IMO is the priority the summer coming up... year after is when you make the splash when Boston and Detroit are another year older, St.Louis is Tampa hits 40, Buffalo still rebuilding, Montreal being about where the Sens are, and the Leafs continuing the century long rebuild. That's when you go out and get that stud.

SpezDispenser wrote:This summer will tell the story.  Ryan, Mac, Methot, Lehner, Zibanejad. Then perhaps trading Spezza and replacing him with $$ brought in

Lots of pressure on melnyk to spend this summer, I'd hope he's prepared otherwise he ain't seen nothing yet in terms of attendance.

The draft for that story was written this past summer when The Alfie was budgetted out of town. Either way it might be best to kid ourselves into thinking that Ryan, MacArthur, Lehner, Methot, Zibanejad and Karlsson will be here for the long haul. Reality is too painful for we fans.

SpezDispenser wrote:This summer will tell the story.  Ryan, Mac, Methot, Lehner, Zibanejad. Then perhaps trading Spezza and replacing him with $$ brought in

Lots of pressure on melnyk to spend this summer, I'd hope he's prepared otherwise he ain't seen nothing yet in terms of attendance.

I have faith ownership will come through on signing those guys. Certainly Lehner needs to be signed first and with the season he's had, could be had for a decent price.

Mac, Methot, Ryan should be the priority. What happens with Phillips will dictate that as well. I think we can all agree that Michalek is as good as gone so you got another $4.5M in cap space coming.

What do you do with conacher, phillips, and spezza?

SeawaySensFan wrote:

SpezDispenser wrote:This summer will tell the story.  Ryan, Mac, Methot, Lehner, Zibanejad. Then perhaps trading Spezza and replacing him with $$ brought in

Lots of pressure on melnyk to spend this summer, I'd hope he's prepared otherwise he ain't seen nothing yet in terms of attendance.

The draft for that story was written this past summer when The Alfie was budgetted out of town. Either way it might be best to kid ourselves into thinking that Ryan, MacArthur, Lehner, Methot, Zibanejad and Karlsson will be here for the long haul. Reality is too painful for we fans.

Alfie was not worth $7M. There I said it. Look at cleary, look at selanne. None of those guys left cuz their heart wasn't into it. Budget aside, this wasn't just about money.

Michallica wrote:

SeawaySensFan wrote:

SpezDispenser wrote:This summer will tell the story.  Ryan, Mac, Methot, Lehner, Zibanejad. Then perhaps trading Spezza and replacing him with $$ brought in

Lots of pressure on melnyk to spend this summer, I'd hope he's prepared otherwise he ain't seen nothing yet in terms of attendance.

The draft for that story was written this past summer when The Alfie was budgetted out of town. Either way it might be best to kid ourselves into thinking that Ryan, MacArthur, Lehner, Methot, Zibanejad and Karlsson will be here for the long haul. Reality is too painful for we fans.

Alfie was not worth $7M.  There I said it.  Look at cleary, look at selanne.  None of those guys left cuz their heart wasn't into it.  Budget aside, this wasn't just about money.

Start picking a number now so you can say that Ryan wasn't worth $XM or Lehner wasn't worth $XM or that MacArthur wasn't worth $XM. Make sure that number is greater than the amount that player is actually making, as you have done here with The Alfie, former team Captain and budget casualty.

SeawaySensFan wrote:

Michallica wrote:

SeawaySensFan wrote:

SpezDispenser wrote:This summer will tell the story.  Ryan, Mac, Methot, Lehner, Zibanejad. Then perhaps trading Spezza and replacing him with $$ brought in

Lots of pressure on melnyk to spend this summer, I'd hope he's prepared otherwise he ain't seen nothing yet in terms of attendance.

The draft for that story was written this past summer when The Alfie was budgetted out of town. Either way it might be best to kid ourselves into thinking that Ryan, MacArthur, Lehner, Methot, Zibanejad and Karlsson will be here for the long haul. Reality is too painful for we fans.

Alfie was not worth $7M.  There I said it.  Look at cleary, look at selanne.  None of those guys left cuz their heart wasn't into it.  Budget aside, this wasn't just about money.

Start picking a number now so you can say that Ryan wasn't worth $XM or Lehner wasn't worth $XM or that MacArthur wasn't worth $XM. Make sure that number is greater than the amount that player is actually making, as you have done here with The Alfie, former team Captain and budget casualty.

Well he isn't wrong. Alfie didn't leave because of 1.5 million dollars, there is more than that to it but hey, if you think the budget is why he left town then sure, whatever makes you feel better.

Michallica wrote:

SpezDispenser wrote:This summer will tell the story.  Ryan, Mac, Methot, Lehner, Zibanejad. Then perhaps trading Spezza and replacing him with $$ brought in

Lots of pressure on melnyk to spend this summer, I'd hope he's prepared otherwise he ain't seen nothing yet in terms of attendance.

I have faith ownership will come through on signing those guys.  Certainly Lehner needs to be signed first and with the season he's had, could be had for a decent price.

Mac, Methot, Ryan should be the priority.  What happens with Phillips will dictate that as well.  I think we can all agree that Michalek is as good as gone so you got another $4.5M in cap space coming.  

What do you do with conacher, phillips, and spezza?

Conacher gets re-signed, hopefully Phillips gets re-signed. We all know that Murray needs to think carefully about Spezza.

I think it's pretty obvious The Alfie thought the team was being unnecessarily crippled by an internal budget. But again, we have no proof, other than a 1 year, $4M offer from the Sens to a player that was paid under market value his entire career.

Losing The Alfie isn't the biggest deal in the world going forward...as we have said, we need to wait and see what happens over these next two years. All the signs are pointing towards Melnyk continuing to NOT spend money on the payroll, but for now, it's wait and see.

No it's not obvious lol. He left because of the e-mail Melnyk sent to him.

and he wasn't paid under market value given he he was overpaid with that huge contract he signed before

Same old same old from Travis1_2

Haha Alfie didn't leave because of the budget.  Why did he not choose Boston then who offered him basically the same contract?  He felt disrespect, left to a team where he would enjoy his last year with a lot of Swedes he's going to be playing with at the Olympics, said F You to Melnyk.  

If people think it was truly a budget issue then w/e, keep thinking it.  Melnyk is 100% to blame but it has nothing to do with the team budget.

SeawaySensFan wrote:

LeKing wrote:Who cares if Bufalo management allows to spend more, do you see them on top of the standings? Ehrhoff and Leino sure helped a lot...

You'll care when Karlsson, Ryan and Lehner end up there. Trust me.

Rest assured that if any of the big guns don`t re-sign because of budget my tune will change pretty quick.
Like Neely said, now is far from the time to panic about budget as there is no reason to pay big bucks to whoever

tim1_2 wrote:I think it's pretty obvious The Alfie thought the team was being unnecessarily crippled by an internal budget. But again, we have no proof, other than a 1 year, $4M offer from the Sens to a player that was paid under market value his entire career.

Losing The Alfie isn't the biggest deal in the world going forward...as we have said, we need to wait and see what happens over these next two years. All the signs are pointing towards Melnyk continuing to NOT spend money on the payroll, but for now, it's wait and see.

Alfie's last contract with Ottawa was front loaded. He made around $7M his first two years with a cap hit of $4.875M. I think he was mad that he ended up playing for $1M and felt his next deal should have been closer to $6M to balance it out.