Melnyk's Financial Woes: Melnyk's Budget Edition

tim1_2 wrote:People can bury their heads in the sand all they want.  I said weeks ago that we couldn't have afforded both Alfie and Ryan, and people said that was stupid.  Well, now Melnyk has said the same thing.  And guess what?  We have the SECOND LOWEST payroll in the NHL.  The only team that spends less is the Islanders.  So maybe it's not the biggest deal right now when we still have a great young team, but what happens when we need to resign Spezza, Ryan, Cowen, Z-Bad, etc etc etc.  You think Melnyk is magically going to pony up the cash THEN, when he wouldn't pony it up to retain the best player in Senators history?  Right.  Put your head back in the sand.

Yeah because 2 years of revenue makes a BIG difference.

Saying he wouldn't "retain the best player in Sens history" is stupid, because the current version of the player is nowhere near where he was before. Doesn't matter how "legendary he is". Time to move on bub.

Hoags wrote:

wprager wrote:
Geez, you guys (anti-Melnyk) just aren't getting it.  It wasn't a negotiation.  

Oh no I get it.  The fact there was no negotiation tells me he wasn't all big on coming back either.  Players who want to re-sign instruct their agent to negotiate well into the night and find a way to make it work.  If Alfie really wanted to stay, him and Barry would have negotiated long and hard and found a way to make it work, the same way they found a way to make it work on his past contracts.

Alfie and Barry asked for that much because they knew other teams would pay that much.  We couldn't afford it and they probably knew it.  That's the concern here.

Spezza and Ryan's agent will know what they can get on the market 2 years from now and it does not look like we'll be able to offer anything close to that at this point.  We'll see what happens but I am not encouraged from what I read.

Again, Spezza is at a 7 million cap hit and we can afford him RIGHT NOW. He will not get more than that in two years.

Ev wrote:
Yeah because 2 years of revenue makes a BIG difference.

Saying he wouldn't "retain the best player in Sens history" is stupid, because the current version of the player is nowhere near where he was before. Doesn't matter how "legendary he is". Time to move on bub.

1) Where's the money going to come from ? The cap and floor are going up and our ticket prices are pretty much the same,

2) Again, he couldn't afford to pay his asking price.  Alfie had to take less for the Sens to get Ryan.  It's not a stretch to think that Spezza and/or Ryan will have to take less for both to stay.

Ev wrote:
Again, Spezza is at a 7 million cap hit and we can afford him RIGHT NOW. He will not get more than that in two years.

It's not about the cap hit, it's about the $$.  I'm not really worried about Spezza but Ryan(who will get a lot more) and fitting both of them into whatever the budget will be.

Resigning Spezza might not be a good idea if he blows his back out again as well.

I also think Michalek is most likely gone as well.

The fact that they seem to have so little budget flexibility will make things very difficult.

Hoags wrote:

Ev wrote:
Yeah because 2 years of revenue makes a BIG difference.

Saying he wouldn't "retain the best player in Sens history" is stupid, because the current version of the player is nowhere near where he was before. Doesn't matter how "legendary he is". Time to move on bub.

1) Where's the money going to come from ? The cap and floor are going up and our ticket prices are pretty much the same,

2) Again, he couldn't afford to pay his asking price.  Alfie had to take less for the Sens to get Ryan.  It's not a stretch to think that Spezza and/or Ryan will have to take less for both to stay.

Ev wrote:
Again, Spezza is at a 7 million cap hit and we can afford him RIGHT NOW. He will not get more than that in two years.

It's not about the cap hit, it's about the $$.  I'm not really worried about Spezza but Ryan(who will get a lot more) and fitting both of them into whatever the budget will be.

Resigning Spezza might not be a good idea if he blows his back out again as well.

I also think Michalek is most likely gone as well.

The fact that they seem to have so little budget flexibility will make things very difficult.

See above. Two years of everything in his portfolio.

He couldn't afford to pay his LUDICROUS asking price.

Michalek is gone, who cares though?

Really wish Melnyk would just keep his damn mouth shut. He just paints himself in a worse picture every time. I really don't fault fans anymore to be concerned 2 years from now when we gotta re-sign spezza + ryan and offer higher salaries to our young players like zibby, cowen, lehner, etc.

Michallica wrote:Really wish Melnyk would just keep his damn mouth shut.  He just paints himself in a worse picture every time.  I really don't fault fans anymore to be concerned 2 years from now when we gotta re-sign spezza + ryan and offer higher salaries to our young players like zibby, cowen, lehner, etc.

Yeah that's my biggest problem. What exactly is he hoping to accomplish with his comments?

tim1_2 wrote:People can bury their heads in the sand all they want.  I said weeks ago that we couldn't have afforded both Alfie and Ryan, and people said that was stupid.  Well, now Melnyk has said the same thing.  And guess what?  We have the SECOND LOWEST payroll in the NHL.  The only team that spends less is the Islanders.  So maybe it's not the biggest deal right now when we still have a great young team, but what happens when we need to resign Spezza, Ryan, Cowen, Z-Bad, etc etc etc.  You think Melnyk is magically going to pony up the cash THEN, when he wouldn't pony it up to retain the best player in Senators history?  Right.  Put your head back in the sand.

Look, it wasn't Alfie or Ryan. Ryan is not the replacement for Alfie; MacArthur is. If Alfie stayed then that $3.5M that MacArthur is getting would have gone to Alfie, plus another $1M. I think $4.5M would have been very doable.

What's the big deal with having a low payroll? We are the youngest team in the league so, naturally, we should be at the lower end of the salary curve. Not just that, but Karlsson is underpaid relative to his comparables -- is that a bad thing? Some would say that Spezza should be making a lot more as well, being the 4th highest scoring player in the last full season. Clearly the best goalie in the league should be making way more than $3.2M, I mean he had better numbers than Rask, and he is making $7M!

Is it a bad thing that we have players signed for less than they are worth or is it simply indicative of three things:
1. Great scouting
2. Great pro scouting
3. Players willing to take a discount to play here

Honestly, this is ridiculous!

People saying Melnyk won't be able to spend in 2 years are talking out of their collective a**holes... in the same breath he could be worse off, no one knows. People want to sweat about what's going to happen in 2 years? Sure go ahead. I'm going to enjoy the best Sens team since 2007 for the next couple years and worry about something I have no control over after that if I even need to.

Hoags wrote:
1) Where's the money going to come from ? The cap and floor are going up and our ticket prices are pretty much the same,

2) Again, he couldn't afford to pay his asking price.  Alfie had to take less for the Sens to get Ryan.  It's not a stretch to think that Spezza and/or Ryan will have to take less for both to stay.

It's not about the cap hit, it's about the $$.  I'm not really worried about Spezza but Ryan(who will get a lot more) and fitting both of them into whatever the budget will be.

Resigning Spezza might not be a good idea if he blows his back out again as well.

I also think Michalek is most likely gone as well.

The fact that they seem to have so little budget flexibility will make things very difficult.

Cap goes up if revenues go up. Ticket prices don't go up all the time and I don't see the non-traditional markets making much of a difference. And the teams that are doing well cannot do better than sell out. So where is the extra revenue coming from? The outdoor games, additional revenue streams (e.g. online, expansion into Euro markets). Lots of it is shared revenue which will help all clubs.

Also, 15% of payroll will be going into escrow so if revenues don't keep up the players aren't getting $64M.

wprager wrote:

tim1_2 wrote:People can bury their heads in the sand all they want.  I said weeks ago that we couldn't have afforded both Alfie and Ryan, and people said that was stupid.  Well, now Melnyk has said the same thing.  And guess what?  We have the SECOND LOWEST payroll in the NHL.  The only team that spends less is the Islanders.  So maybe it's not the biggest deal right now when we still have a great young team, but what happens when we need to resign Spezza, Ryan, Cowen, Z-Bad, etc etc etc.  You think Melnyk is magically going to pony up the cash THEN, when he wouldn't pony it up to retain the best player in Senators history?  Right.  Put your head back in the sand.

Look, it wasn't Alfie or Ryan.  Ryan is not the replacement for Alfie; MacArthur is.  If Alfie stayed then that $3.5M that MacArthur is getting would have gone to Alfie, plus another $1M.  I think $4.5M would have been very doable.  

What's the big deal with having a low payroll?  We are the youngest team in the league so, naturally, we should be at the lower end of the salary curve.  Not just that, but Karlsson is underpaid relative to his comparables -- is that a bad thing?  Some would say that Spezza should be making a lot more as well, being the 4th highest scoring player in the last full season.  Clearly the best goalie in the league should be making way more than $3.2M, I mean he had better numbers than Rask, and he is making $7M!

Is it a bad thing that we have players signed for less than they are worth or is it simply indicative of three things:
1. Great scouting
2. Great pro scouting
3. Players willing to take a discount to play here

Honestly, this is ridiculous!

I think it's the notion of coming out and always crying poor. I just wish they'd stop with that. Be frugal, but stop saying what we can and can't do. There's a simple way to do business and it's to say 'we're being smart with our money'.

NEELY wrote:People saying Melnyk won't be able to spend in 2 years are talking out of their collective a**holes... in the same breath he could be worse off, no one knows.  People want to sweat about what's going to happen in 2 years?  Sure go ahead.  I'm going to enjoy the best Sens team since 2007 for the next couple years and worry about something I have no control over after that if I even need to.

we're all going to enjoy the upcoming season. But the nervousness will creep in next off-season for sure. Also there's literally no hockey moves happening at this time and melnyk just came out and said what he said. So why wouldn't ppl talk about it?

I'm not entertaining the likes of Yost, but what I'm hearing from melnyk isn't encouraging

Michallica wrote:

NEELY wrote:People saying Melnyk won't be able to spend in 2 years are talking out of their collective a**holes... in the same breath he could be worse off, no one knows.  People want to sweat about what's going to happen in 2 years?  Sure go ahead.  I'm going to enjoy the best Sens team since 2007 for the next couple years and worry about something I have no control over after that if I even need to.

we're all going to enjoy the upcoming season.  But the nervousness will creep in next off-season for sure.  Also there's literally no hockey moves happening at this time and melnyk just came out and said what he said.  So why wouldn't ppl talk about it?

I'm not entertaining the likes of Yost, but what I'm hearing from melnyk isn't encouraging

The cap floor in 2 years will be more than what the Sens are spending now anyways. Either way, not overly concerned myself and yah, people are way too bored man.

NEELY wrote:People saying Melnyk won't be able to spend in 2 years are talking out of their collective a**holes... in the same breath he could be worse off, no one knows.  People want to sweat about what's going to happen in 2 years?  Sure go ahead.  I'm going to enjoy the best Sens team since 2007 for the next couple years and worry about something I have no control over after that if I even need to.

And people saying he WILL be able to spend in 2 years are also talking out of their behinds. Right now, there is absolutely no reason for optimism. The best we can hope for is that some of his other businesses turn around and he can pay off some debt. The problem isn't the Ottawa Senators' finances...it's Melnyk's personal finances that are the problem.

tim1_2 wrote:
And people saying he WILL be able to spend in 2 years are also talking out of their behinds.  Right now, there is absolutely no reason for optimism.  

Bingo. No reason at all to be optimistic right now based on what is being said.

Hoags wrote:

tim1_2 wrote:
And people saying he WILL be able to spend in 2 years are also talking out of their behinds.  Right now, there is absolutely no reason for optimism.  

Bingo.  No reason at all to be optimistic right now based on what is being said.

and there's no reason to buy into what Travis Yost is saying either

Ev wrote:
and there's no reason to buy into what Travis Yost is saying either

What does this have to do with Yost? I am basing my comments based on what Melnyk has said and how he contradicted what Murray said.  The mixed signals coming out of the organization aren't encouraging at all.

NEELY wrote:
The cap floor in 2 years will be more than what the Sens are spending now anyways.  Either way, not overly concerned myself and yah, people are way too bored man.

So we'll be a cap floor team like the Islanders in 2 years time. Awesome !

None of this is coming from Yost. Melnyk said himself we can't afford to spend, we'll be a floor team, we'll be an underdog, etc etc. Melnyk is the problem, and he needs to go.

I'm excited about the upcoming season. We have a great team. Based on Melnyk's comments, we won't be able to keep this team together.

tim1_2 wrote:None of this is coming from Yost.  Melnyk said himself we can't afford to spend, we'll be a floor team, we'll be an underdog, etc etc.  Melnyk is the problem, and he needs to go.  

I'm excited about the upcoming season.  We have a great team.  Based on Melnyk's comments, we won't be able to keep this team together.

I hear Basille is still looking... except BB isn't worth anything anymore. Good luck finding anyone willing to invest long term on a Canadian sports franchise when it looks like the Canadian dollar is going to be devalued in the short future.

Anyways, you sound like a bitter ex-wife that didn't get what they wanted.