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From the Hockey News

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1From the Hockey News Empty From the Hockey News Tue Feb 03, 2009 1:41 pm

SensGirl11

SensGirl11
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By Ken Campbell
2009-02-02 13:11:00

When Pat Quinn was the coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs – seems like a long time ago, doesn’t it? – one of the things he banged the drum about every time a coach got fired was the need for a coaches’ union.

Pretty tough to argue with that logic when it comes to the Ottawa Senators firing Craig Hartsburg just 48 games into his tenure in Canada’s capital. If there were a coaches’ union, you can bet it would be processing the paperwork right now for a grievance against the Senators for firing their coach without just cause.

What the Senators did today is what drives coaches bonkers and it should. But what it will also do is drive any prime coaching candidates away from Ottawa if they have a choice between the Senators and almost any other organization in the league.

Is there anyone out there who believes that any of the stink from this mess in Ottawa should be sticking to Hartsburg at the moment? Hartsburg is a quality coach who has succeeded at every level of hockey and it’s amazing that over the course of 48 games, he somehow worked in a way that merited him being fired.

The problems in Ottawa go way beyond who’s standing behind the bench. It’s clear the Senators fired the wrong person today. What owner Eugene Melnyk would have done if he had any ability to admit his mistakes would have been to fire GM Bryan Murray. Or at the very least, he could have fired Hartsburg, put Murray back behind the bench where he’s much better suited and waited until the summer to replace Murray as GM.

Murray is a terrific coach and might even be a decent GM, but the fact is no objective hockey observer could possibly come to any other conclusion than pointing out that everything Murray has touched in a managerial capacity has turned to lead. And much of the blame for that has to go right to Melnyk, who allowed Murray to prevail in a power struggle between Murray and former GM John Muckler after the Senators advanced to the Stanley Cup final.

And how ridiculous does it seem now that much of the reason for Muckler’s firing was based on the fact that he was unwilling to overpay the Florida Panthers for Gary Roberts at the trade deadline in 2007? Though Muckler was not without his skeletons, either. He was the one who signed Martin Gerber to a four-year deal and allowed Zdeno Chara to leave as an unrestricted free agent in 2006, instead hitching his hopes to Wade Redden.

And now Redden is gone as well, thanks to Murray. It’s amazing a team that has had the likes of Chara, Redden and Joe Corvo at different times is now searching for a puck-moving defenseman. It’s also searching for a goaltender that can play with some semblance of consistency at the NHL level and some players who can provide a modicum of secondary scoring after Jason Spezza, Dany Heatley and Daniel Alfredsson, who are the only engines on one of the lowest-scoring teams in the league.


When it comes down to it, it wasn’t Hartsburg’s idea to give Ray Emery a three-year deal based on one decent season instead of letting him go to arbitration, then paying him for the next four years not to play goal for them. It wasn’t Hartsburg’s idea to sign Heatley to a six-year deal worth $45 million, Spezza to a seven-year contract worth $49 million, Alfredsson to a four-year deal that amounts to $21.6 million ($19.5 million in contract and a $2.1 million bonus for not playing out his option) and Mike Fisher to a five-year deal worth $21 million.

It wasn’t Hartsburg who made Murray address the Senators’ perceived lack of grit by signing an ineffective Jason Smith on defense and an erratic Jarkko Ruutu at forward. Is it Hartsburg’s fault that Fisher has worn down and can’t possibly meet the expectations of his contract? Is Hartsburg to be blamed because Antoine Vermette has fallen off the face of the earth?

The Senators are in deep trouble here. They’ve wildly misjudged their personnel and have given far too much money to players who cannot possibly be the heartbeat of their team (Spezza, Heatley) and one who can’t do it all by himself, especially at his age (Alfredsson).

Beyond top prospect Erik Karlsson and goalie Brian Elliott, the Senators’ constant production of top young players has slowed to a trickle. The fact that Heatley, Spezza, Alfredsson and Fisher take up more than $23 million in cap space proves that after making the Stanley Cup final, they failed to learn from the mistakes the Tampa Bay Lightning made after winning the Stanley Cup.

And by the way things are going, it looks like the Pittsburgh Penguins, who made the final last season, could be next in line as NHL salary cap casualties.

The good GMs in this league have figured out that you can’t throw all your cap room at a couple of players. The Senators, under Murray, have yet to grasp that concept.

And in the end, a good man and a good coach ended up paying for the mistakes of those who operate above him.


Enough said.

I thought I would post this here like this. What a great article...wow! Some very true points that we've all been talking about and some things we haven't. Well worth the read.

2From the Hockey News Empty Re: From the Hockey News Tue Feb 03, 2009 1:46 pm

TheAvatar

TheAvatar
Veteran
Veteran

I think this is a very biaised article.

3From the Hockey News Empty Re: From the Hockey News Tue Feb 03, 2009 1:53 pm

Riprock

Riprock
All-Star
All-Star

Gerber was signed for three years though.... fact checker

4From the Hockey News Empty Re: From the Hockey News Tue Feb 03, 2009 1:55 pm

Cronie

Cronie
Co-Founder
Co-Founder

Biased is just scratching the surface in my view...

I expect to see a LOT of similar articles like this one for the coming weeks... At least until the Sens org does something even bigger on the scale of stupidity...

5From the Hockey News Empty Re: From the Hockey News Tue Feb 03, 2009 1:58 pm

Guest


Guest

This was pretty accurate. The Sens are a joke right now, there really isnt another way to put it.

6From the Hockey News Empty Re: From the Hockey News Tue Feb 03, 2009 1:58 pm

SensGirl11

SensGirl11
Mod
Mod

I've personally always thought that Murray was the best coach for these guys. I wish he was still our coach. He was the only guy that got the guys going, and he got the guys to the Final during a season where we were looking very weak and it was looking like we might be bound for a 1st round or 2nd round exit. That season, we were not very good to start off, but obviously finished on a very strong note, and that was because of Murray's system. Why Melnyk had to promote him to GM is suspect to me. I realize that he's supposedly a GREAT GM, and he's proven that in certain aspects of the team, but he has completely failed in other areas. Spezza listened to and respected Murray, he needs another coach similar to Murray to come in and teach him the ways. We all saw the big difference in him when he was being coached by Murray and we saw how he was just getting better and better defensively - just to have it ripped away, the year after they went to the Final...I just don't understand that and never will. Then he goes on to hire John Paddock as coach, Paddock who had the perfect system to work with, it was clear in our 15-2 start (under Murray's system)...and then he just flushes it all down the toilet and decides to work with NO system whatsoever. We all know what happened from there. IMO Spezza should not be traded, rather, he should get a strong coach (preferably an older coach a la Murray) to come in and continue to develop him into an offensive powerhouse, with some good defensive backchecking skills. Only then will Spezza be the player he can truly be and mature to the extent he needs to mature, to win in this league. I do believe that you need to hire coaches for certain players, especially players that you've decided to build your team around. It does work, it worked for us in 06-07...it took time, but it worked. Everyone else feeds off of these guys. I can only hope that Wang gets fired or decides to leave Columbus and come coach for us. He WANTS to coach Spezza and has for a short period of time, and he loved it. He says that Spezza is a very coachable player and he enjoyed coaching him. He listened and did what coach wanted and got better for it. That's what is needed here.

7From the Hockey News Empty Re: From the Hockey News Tue Feb 03, 2009 2:00 pm

SensGirl11

SensGirl11
Mod
Mod

Holy moly that was long ^....I didn't realize... Suspect

8From the Hockey News Empty Re: From the Hockey News Tue Feb 03, 2009 2:03 pm

Guest


Guest

I think we should bring in every coach in the leauge to see what the perfect fit for Spezza is.

9From the Hockey News Empty Re: From the Hockey News Tue Feb 03, 2009 2:03 pm

SensGirl11

SensGirl11
Mod
Mod

Why did Wang come up as Wang?

10From the Hockey News Empty Re: From the Hockey News Tue Feb 03, 2009 2:04 pm

SensGirl11

SensGirl11
Mod
Mod

LOL...that's too funny. I'm trying to write Hitch-Wang

11From the Hockey News Empty Re: From the Hockey News Tue Feb 03, 2009 2:22 pm

PTFlea

PTFlea
Co-Founder
Co-Founder

Worst article I've read in a long, long time. Hartsburg is an amazing junior coach. Enough said. You'd have to be blind and stupid not to see that he didn't have a good enough system and didn't have the players buying into whatever system he brought.

Boo hoo hoo, he's such a good coach! No he's not. Plain and simple, he was NOT a good coach, he was another coach like John Paddock who has no system and looked baffled 90% of the time.

Hey Hockey News Idiot: put this in your pipe and smoke it: Brian Murray waited too Diddle long to fire Hartsburg.

Union that Dung head.

12From the Hockey News Empty Re: From the Hockey News Tue Feb 03, 2009 2:24 pm

beerandsens

beerandsens
Sophomore
Sophomore

Meh...

I expect many 'experts' to share their opinion at this stage of the game. It's too easy and makes it look like they have some great insight. Really, anyone can tell that when you go through 4 coaches in one year you have other issues. The fact that many of these writers didn't come out and say this in September means they were nearly as clueless as anyone at the time, or they didn't have the stones to write about it.

I can see it now, if the Sens were 1st in the east these writers would be talking about how smart it was to tie up Spezza and Heatley, to get rid of Corvo and Redden, to sign Smith and not take on extra salary etc. I prefer real insight, not biased, hindsight 20-20 articles like this one.

13From the Hockey News Empty Re: From the Hockey News Tue Feb 03, 2009 2:29 pm

PTFlea

PTFlea
Co-Founder
Co-Founder

Once dick weed Cambell here got off his Hartsburg high-horse, he wrote the bleeding obvious. Something we all feel right now:

Give me John Muckler back and make Brian Murray head of scouting.

14From the Hockey News Empty Re: From the Hockey News Tue Feb 03, 2009 2:35 pm

strachattack

strachattack
Rookie
Rookie

I posted this in another thread but I think it could provide some balance to what was written in the HN... even though it's only Duthie's blog;

http://communities.canada.com/ottawacitizen/blogs/duthie/default.aspx

15From the Hockey News Empty Re: From the Hockey News Tue Feb 03, 2009 2:35 pm

beerandsens

beerandsens
Sophomore
Sophomore

Just for fun, check this link out

http://www.thehockeynews.com/articles/15043-THNcom-Blog-Why-Im-picking-the-Senators.html

Wow, smart and insightful. No wonder he still feels the same way. What, he doesn't? Oh well...

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