Home
Publications
Welcome to the club.
Allow me to respond to your post by sharing my take on what’s currently going on with management. I believe Melnyk and Brian Murray are pretty tight, and Melnyk has lots of respect for Murray. I figured that this was likely Brian Murray’s last year as GM, and the team’s performance this year has guaranteed that fact. Melnyk does not want to disrespect Murray in his final year before retirement (or a retirement position within the Sens organization), so he will not fire him.
I am 99% sure that Melnyk and Murray agree that the only course of action right now is to trade the veterans they can by the deadline, and take prospects/picks back in return. Given this, there isn’t much point in replacing Murray now anyways, since the direction is clear.
They will hire a new GM in the off-season, whether it’s Tim Murray or not remains to be seen. I have a hunch it will be Tim Murray, which would make it next to impossible to fire Brian Murray part way through a season only to be replaced by a family member. Ouch.
On the coaching side of things, we all know Clouston will not be back next year (barring some kind of miraculous 30-game winning streak). If he were going to be fired, he would have been fired by now. I believe there is some truth to the rumours that Murray wanted to fire him, and Melnyk said that if Clouston went, Murray would return behind the bench. I think Murray wasn’t too keen on going behind the bench again, so agreed to let Clouston ride out the season. At this point, the damage is done anyway. I’m not too sure if the Clouston-era will leave a bad taste in the vets mouths…nothing the off-season and hiring of a new coach won’t cure.
As for trades, when a team is in the tank like Ottawa, the offers for players don’t tend to become reasonable until the deadline. You’re bang on in this respect…there is no reason for Ottawa to make a panic-trade now, so we might as well wait until all the offers are rolling in at the deadline.
Allow me to respond to your post by sharing my take on what’s currently going on with management. I believe Melnyk and Brian Murray are pretty tight, and Melnyk has lots of respect for Murray. I figured that this was likely Brian Murray’s last year as GM, and the team’s performance this year has guaranteed that fact. Melnyk does not want to disrespect Murray in his final year before retirement (or a retirement position within the Sens organization), so he will not fire him.
I am 99% sure that Melnyk and Murray agree that the only course of action right now is to trade the veterans they can by the deadline, and take prospects/picks back in return. Given this, there isn’t much point in replacing Murray now anyways, since the direction is clear.
They will hire a new GM in the off-season, whether it’s Tim Murray or not remains to be seen. I have a hunch it will be Tim Murray, which would make it next to impossible to fire Brian Murray part way through a season only to be replaced by a family member. Ouch.
On the coaching side of things, we all know Clouston will not be back next year (barring some kind of miraculous 30-game winning streak). If he were going to be fired, he would have been fired by now. I believe there is some truth to the rumours that Murray wanted to fire him, and Melnyk said that if Clouston went, Murray would return behind the bench. I think Murray wasn’t too keen on going behind the bench again, so agreed to let Clouston ride out the season. At this point, the damage is done anyway. I’m not too sure if the Clouston-era will leave a bad taste in the vets mouths…nothing the off-season and hiring of a new coach won’t cure.
As for trades, when a team is in the tank like Ottawa, the offers for players don’t tend to become reasonable until the deadline. You’re bang on in this respect…there is no reason for Ottawa to make a panic-trade now, so we might as well wait until all the offers are rolling in at the deadline.
