With the trade deadline having passed three weeks ago now, I've
decided to finally collect my thoughts on what happened, with a special mention to, sorry,
review of, Pierre Dorion's fucking awful TSN1200 interview.
I'm sorry for the delay with this post, I've had a lot going on and it's been hard to concentrate on writing. But here we go.
Content warning here- if you aren't okay with swearing and anger, stop reading here because I AM PISSED OFF.
The trades.
So the Ottawa Senators actually went and set the whole bloody thing alight. They almost blew it up even. The Canadian Tire (fire) Centre is standing proud and tall in Kanata amongst the charred remains of the hockey team that just under two years ago were a goal away from the Stanley Cup Final. In June we shipped out Hoffman, September we lost Karlsson, and now Duchene, Dzingel & Stone are all gone. In this post I'm not really going to discuss the players we sent to other teams because I covered that previously, it hurts, and if I'm being honest, I know very little about two of them.
Matt Duchene and Julius Bergman were sent to the Columbus Blue Jackets in return for Vitaly Abramov, Jonathan Davidsson, a first round draft pick in 2019 and a conditional first round pick in 2020. Abramov is a small winger who at the time of me writing this has 3 points in 8 games- seems to be finding his feet still. Before you ask how we ended up with a Russian, remember that he once played for the Gatineau Olympiques, so he's basically a local boy.
I don't know much about Davidsson, and I'm not going to pretend I do, but I'm keen to see how he plays in Belleville once he has recovered fully from his concussion.
The draft pick is necessary for a player of Duchene's calibre, but if we get that conditional pick, it'll really sweeten the deal.
Realising how nice it is when trading your star players can actually give you a good return, and that following Dua Lipa's new rules actually works, Dorion decided not to contact Doug Wilson.
Instead, he chose to call Jarmo Kekalainen once more, and actually made another good deal. The day after the Duchene trade, we sent Ryan Dzingel to Columbus as well, for Anthony Duclair, a second round pick in 2020 and a second round pick in 2021. Duclair will be an interesting one. The Sens will be his 5th NHL team and he is only 23 years old, which could be seen as worrying. However, I wonder if perhaps maybe he just either hasn't found the right fit, or hasn't been deployed properly on previous teams. With regards to the picks, I'll be honest, from everything I've heard so far, the 2020 draft is said to be absolutely stacked compared to 2019, so I think hoarding them instead of 2019 picks is a good thing.
Perhaps the best trade that Dorion made at the deadline was trading Patrick Sieloff to the Ducks for Brian Gibbons. I don't think a single Sens fan could have given a crap about the return to be honest. Sieloff was not well liked in Ottawa, as he was responsible for laying a huge hit in training against fan favourite Clarke MacArthur (who had a history of concussions), and essentially was the the nail in the coffin for MacArthur's career. What baffles me is how quickly we got rid of Hoffman after the Caryk/Karlsson scandal because of fears of bad blood in the locker room. Yet, after basically ending MacArthur's career and causing bad blood with a whole fanbase and a chunk of the league, Sieloff got a one-year two-way contract in 2017, then signed a two-year two-way contract in 2018, and was named an alternate captain for Belleville?
Either way, we got the news we wanted to hear, we have a new player to learn about, and despite everything, I wish Sieloff the best of luck in Anaheim. At least it's sunnier there.
Then, THE trade happened. We sent Mark Stone to Vegas for Erik Brannstrom, Oscar Lindberg and a 2020 second round pick. I know I said I wasn't going to dwell too much on the UFA's leaving, but my god Stoner leaving hurts. I miss his plays, his celebrations, his turnovers, and his infectious smile that always made him a joy to watch. I don't know much about Lindberg, but we need warm bodies coming back to actually ice a hockey team so every little helps I guess. Getting Brannstrom was a very good move- he's set to be a star and we could use better defence right now, however the problem with Dorion managing to land Brannstrom lies in that he's not going to let us forget it. Also, while yes, Brannstrom has a real chance of being a Swedish, franchise defenceman named Erik, look what we did with the last one of those.
If we look at this in a vacuum, a purely hockey only trade, no context, etc- then I hate to say it, but Dorion did well. If that conditional first from the Duchene trade does become a first, then he's done extremely well. He got good returns under very strict time pressures (albeit ones the Senators put on themselves) and didn't totally make a fool of himself.
Now. Let us add in context, the past two years, our ownership, and literally everything else.
WHAT THE EVERLOVING FUCK HAS HAPPENED TO MY HOCKEY TEAM?
WHERE HAS IT GONE?
WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE ON THE ICE?
IS BRADY TKACHUK HOMELESS?
WHY IS PIERRE DORION OPENING HIS MOUTH?
Why can't you just be quiet- the TSN1200 interview.
The Pierre Dorion interview with Ian Mendes and Shawn Simpson on TSN1200 was infuriating. He stumbled through the questions like an awkward geek at a frat party just trying to find a corner to hide in- wait no thats offensive to nerds, geeks and dorks alike. Pierre did far worse. Yet somehow he managed to simultaneously be a smug little prick who was more proud of himself than my dog is when he eats cat shit.
In the interview he repeatedly stated how money wasn't always an issue, trying to cover his arse by saying that they offered the UFA's good money, and that the UFA's simply wanted to be on contenders instead. But here's the thing- what's the bet that any of those offers with "good money" included signing bonuses? Where was the lockout protection? We all know what Euge is like with money, he's tighter than my jeans after a few Beavertails.
In further attempts to save face and reassure fans, Pierre tried to tell us that in this rebuild, and in the future, all of these players would be staying, and decided to back this up by saying that we had heard the commitments from Mr Melnyk himself.
MR MELNYK HIMSELF.
WELL GOSH DARN IF MR MELNYK SAID IT IT MUST BE TRUE.
Thankfully, Mendes and Simpson followed Dorion's comments by saying what we were all thinking- "We didn't hear him say it".
The pain didn't stop at that. As if Melnyk was talking down his ear like an FBI agent hiding in a van around the corner, at one point, undercover agent Dorion even managed to slip in the phrase "We're excited".
We.
Are.
Excited.
Is anyone else emotionally scarred by the word excited at this point? Is it just me? How did Dorion manage to give us a wonderfully depressing throwback to "So you get excited, because they're excited, gets me excited, gets all our fans excited, and our sponsors"- a quote so iconic that the Steve Dangle Podcast turned it into a fucking t-shirt.
I don't know about anyone else, but it's pretty damn hard to be excited when management is blissfully unaware of the disconnect between them and fans. And yes Pierre, it exists. I know you say you can't see it, but it's not just an elephant in the room at this point, it's an orca crammed into a cupboard because we can't afford a fucking pool for it. Call us the Ottawa Seaworlders.
The disconnect is real. So what if only one person in the last 12 months has yelled at you Pierre? Like no fucking shit Sherlock, do you really think any of us are going to go up to you and scream in your face? No. Don't invite us to come and be mad at you at Navan Arena, we don't need to travel to be mad. We have blogs for that. There's also this magical website where you get rinsed quite frequently, it's called twitter.com, don't know if you've ever heard of it.
Next- what on earth was Dorion talking about when he said that Boro was one of the most difficult defenceman to play against, despite what analytics say- only to follow it up by saying he was a huge fan of analytics? I'm sorry, so you're a huge fan of... ignoring them? If you were truly a fan of analytics half of our defencemen wouldn't be on the fucking team.
Speaking of defencemen, Dorion also chose to explain more about his decision to sit Cody Ceci before the trade deadline. He explained that they chose to scratch him "in case something would happen". So... you thought you'd just slip and fall into a trade? He also mentioned that Ceci had gone through the walls for the team, saying that he'd played too many minutes. Well DUH. You haven't deployed him properly! But Cody Ceci playing forward instead of defence is an argument someone else can make.
What saved the whole interview was the fantastic job that Ian Mendes and Shawn Simpson did. The questions and comments were absolutely scathing. They roasted Dorion so badly that I don't know how the smoke alarms in the building didn't go off. They questioned him several times over the rebuild, the disconnect, the fact we don't keep players, I could go on. I'm thankful for their attempts at reasoning with a man at the forefront of a management more deluded than me every time I tell myself I'm only having one biscuit with my cup of tea.
Final thoughts.
Ironically, the more Pierre asks us to be patient, the more he tests my fucking patience.
I don't want to divorce my favourite players. I don't want a new girlfriend. I want to be able to trust my hockey team's management again.
Until then I'll keep listening to TSN1200 hoping that one of the guys will teach me what a rebuild is, while I hope maybe in the meantime I can rebuild my love for this fucking team.
Big thanks to TSN1200 for the interview that gave me ranting material. You can find it here:
https://www.tsn.ca/radio/ottawa-1200/sens-gm-pierre-dorion-on-the-nhl-trade-deadline-1.1263855
I'm sorry for the delay with this post, I've had a lot going on and it's been hard to concentrate on writing. But here we go.
Content warning here- if you aren't okay with swearing and anger, stop reading here because I AM PISSED OFF.
The trades.
So the Ottawa Senators actually went and set the whole bloody thing alight. They almost blew it up even. The Canadian Tire (fire) Centre is standing proud and tall in Kanata amongst the charred remains of the hockey team that just under two years ago were a goal away from the Stanley Cup Final. In June we shipped out Hoffman, September we lost Karlsson, and now Duchene, Dzingel & Stone are all gone. In this post I'm not really going to discuss the players we sent to other teams because I covered that previously, it hurts, and if I'm being honest, I know very little about two of them.
Matt Duchene and Julius Bergman were sent to the Columbus Blue Jackets in return for Vitaly Abramov, Jonathan Davidsson, a first round draft pick in 2019 and a conditional first round pick in 2020. Abramov is a small winger who at the time of me writing this has 3 points in 8 games- seems to be finding his feet still. Before you ask how we ended up with a Russian, remember that he once played for the Gatineau Olympiques, so he's basically a local boy.
I don't know much about Davidsson, and I'm not going to pretend I do, but I'm keen to see how he plays in Belleville once he has recovered fully from his concussion.
The draft pick is necessary for a player of Duchene's calibre, but if we get that conditional pick, it'll really sweeten the deal.
Realising how nice it is when trading your star players can actually give you a good return, and that following Dua Lipa's new rules actually works, Dorion decided not to contact Doug Wilson.
Instead, he chose to call Jarmo Kekalainen once more, and actually made another good deal. The day after the Duchene trade, we sent Ryan Dzingel to Columbus as well, for Anthony Duclair, a second round pick in 2020 and a second round pick in 2021. Duclair will be an interesting one. The Sens will be his 5th NHL team and he is only 23 years old, which could be seen as worrying. However, I wonder if perhaps maybe he just either hasn't found the right fit, or hasn't been deployed properly on previous teams. With regards to the picks, I'll be honest, from everything I've heard so far, the 2020 draft is said to be absolutely stacked compared to 2019, so I think hoarding them instead of 2019 picks is a good thing.
Perhaps the best trade that Dorion made at the deadline was trading Patrick Sieloff to the Ducks for Brian Gibbons. I don't think a single Sens fan could have given a crap about the return to be honest. Sieloff was not well liked in Ottawa, as he was responsible for laying a huge hit in training against fan favourite Clarke MacArthur (who had a history of concussions), and essentially was the the nail in the coffin for MacArthur's career. What baffles me is how quickly we got rid of Hoffman after the Caryk/Karlsson scandal because of fears of bad blood in the locker room. Yet, after basically ending MacArthur's career and causing bad blood with a whole fanbase and a chunk of the league, Sieloff got a one-year two-way contract in 2017, then signed a two-year two-way contract in 2018, and was named an alternate captain for Belleville?
Either way, we got the news we wanted to hear, we have a new player to learn about, and despite everything, I wish Sieloff the best of luck in Anaheim. At least it's sunnier there.
Then, THE trade happened. We sent Mark Stone to Vegas for Erik Brannstrom, Oscar Lindberg and a 2020 second round pick. I know I said I wasn't going to dwell too much on the UFA's leaving, but my god Stoner leaving hurts. I miss his plays, his celebrations, his turnovers, and his infectious smile that always made him a joy to watch. I don't know much about Lindberg, but we need warm bodies coming back to actually ice a hockey team so every little helps I guess. Getting Brannstrom was a very good move- he's set to be a star and we could use better defence right now, however the problem with Dorion managing to land Brannstrom lies in that he's not going to let us forget it. Also, while yes, Brannstrom has a real chance of being a Swedish, franchise defenceman named Erik, look what we did with the last one of those.
If we look at this in a vacuum, a purely hockey only trade, no context, etc- then I hate to say it, but Dorion did well. If that conditional first from the Duchene trade does become a first, then he's done extremely well. He got good returns under very strict time pressures (albeit ones the Senators put on themselves) and didn't totally make a fool of himself.
Now. Let us add in context, the past two years, our ownership, and literally everything else.
WHAT THE EVERLOVING FUCK HAS HAPPENED TO MY HOCKEY TEAM?
WHERE HAS IT GONE?
WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE ON THE ICE?
IS BRADY TKACHUK HOMELESS?
WHY IS PIERRE DORION OPENING HIS MOUTH?
Why can't you just be quiet- the TSN1200 interview.
The Pierre Dorion interview with Ian Mendes and Shawn Simpson on TSN1200 was infuriating. He stumbled through the questions like an awkward geek at a frat party just trying to find a corner to hide in- wait no thats offensive to nerds, geeks and dorks alike. Pierre did far worse. Yet somehow he managed to simultaneously be a smug little prick who was more proud of himself than my dog is when he eats cat shit.
In the interview he repeatedly stated how money wasn't always an issue, trying to cover his arse by saying that they offered the UFA's good money, and that the UFA's simply wanted to be on contenders instead. But here's the thing- what's the bet that any of those offers with "good money" included signing bonuses? Where was the lockout protection? We all know what Euge is like with money, he's tighter than my jeans after a few Beavertails.
In further attempts to save face and reassure fans, Pierre tried to tell us that in this rebuild, and in the future, all of these players would be staying, and decided to back this up by saying that we had heard the commitments from Mr Melnyk himself.
MR MELNYK HIMSELF.
WELL GOSH DARN IF MR MELNYK SAID IT IT MUST BE TRUE.
Thankfully, Mendes and Simpson followed Dorion's comments by saying what we were all thinking- "We didn't hear him say it".
The pain didn't stop at that. As if Melnyk was talking down his ear like an FBI agent hiding in a van around the corner, at one point, undercover agent Dorion even managed to slip in the phrase "We're excited".
We.
Are.
Excited.
Is anyone else emotionally scarred by the word excited at this point? Is it just me? How did Dorion manage to give us a wonderfully depressing throwback to "So you get excited, because they're excited, gets me excited, gets all our fans excited, and our sponsors"- a quote so iconic that the Steve Dangle Podcast turned it into a fucking t-shirt.
I don't know about anyone else, but it's pretty damn hard to be excited when management is blissfully unaware of the disconnect between them and fans. And yes Pierre, it exists. I know you say you can't see it, but it's not just an elephant in the room at this point, it's an orca crammed into a cupboard because we can't afford a fucking pool for it. Call us the Ottawa Seaworlders.
The disconnect is real. So what if only one person in the last 12 months has yelled at you Pierre? Like no fucking shit Sherlock, do you really think any of us are going to go up to you and scream in your face? No. Don't invite us to come and be mad at you at Navan Arena, we don't need to travel to be mad. We have blogs for that. There's also this magical website where you get rinsed quite frequently, it's called twitter.com, don't know if you've ever heard of it.
Next- what on earth was Dorion talking about when he said that Boro was one of the most difficult defenceman to play against, despite what analytics say- only to follow it up by saying he was a huge fan of analytics? I'm sorry, so you're a huge fan of... ignoring them? If you were truly a fan of analytics half of our defencemen wouldn't be on the fucking team.
Speaking of defencemen, Dorion also chose to explain more about his decision to sit Cody Ceci before the trade deadline. He explained that they chose to scratch him "in case something would happen". So... you thought you'd just slip and fall into a trade? He also mentioned that Ceci had gone through the walls for the team, saying that he'd played too many minutes. Well DUH. You haven't deployed him properly! But Cody Ceci playing forward instead of defence is an argument someone else can make.
What saved the whole interview was the fantastic job that Ian Mendes and Shawn Simpson did. The questions and comments were absolutely scathing. They roasted Dorion so badly that I don't know how the smoke alarms in the building didn't go off. They questioned him several times over the rebuild, the disconnect, the fact we don't keep players, I could go on. I'm thankful for their attempts at reasoning with a man at the forefront of a management more deluded than me every time I tell myself I'm only having one biscuit with my cup of tea.
Final thoughts.
Ironically, the more Pierre asks us to be patient, the more he tests my fucking patience.
I don't want to divorce my favourite players. I don't want a new girlfriend. I want to be able to trust my hockey team's management again.
Until then I'll keep listening to TSN1200 hoping that one of the guys will teach me what a rebuild is, while I hope maybe in the meantime I can rebuild my love for this fucking team.
Big thanks to TSN1200 for the interview that gave me ranting material. You can find it here:
https://www.tsn.ca/radio/ottawa-1200/sens-gm-pierre-dorion-on-the-nhl-trade-deadline-1.1263855
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