It’s not often we take time here at WTYKY to respond to a particular article in detail, but Jeffrey Simpson’s article in the Globe and Mail yesterday feels significant, and indicative of some common assumptions about hockey and how it works, and so warrants a closer look.

Of note is the author: Simpson is a public policy commenter, a winner of several media awards, and perhaps best known for his book Chronic Condition, an analysis of the worsening state of Canada’s health care system. To see his name next to an article about the mediocre performance of a small-market NHL team is, at the very least, interesting. But it’s also the equivalent of delicate dissection by bazooka. This isn’t the everyday hockey analyst, paid to spit outrage daily and meet site hit quotas. This is an eminent thinker in Canadian policy, at least when looked at through a mainstream lens, spilling over 2000 words about the Senators being bad, and blaming management.

Let’s take a closer look:

While the “national” hockey media shoot fish in a barrel reporting obsessively on the collapse of the Toronto Maple Leafs, up the road in Ottawa, a franchise has been in slow decline.

[…]

Melnyk, who has recently sold his stables and horses to raise money, used to brag about being willing to spend to the NHL salary cap in quest of a winning team. Now, Melnyk boasts about having imposed one of the league’s lowest salary caps on the Senators, claiming other owners are blowing money on bad deals. The result is obvious on the ice and in the organization. The Senators cannot compete against teams with much higher salaries. The co-relation is not exact (see the Leafs), but larger-spending teams do tend to finish higher up in the standing.

This is an odd way to start an article. So, is there a relation between spending and winning? Yes, but it’s a very general one, and the inclusion of Toronto in the analogy is proof of that. We don’t need to look far for more examples: Philadelphia, Carolina, Edmonton, Dallas, Boston, Los Angeles, Minnesota and San Jose are all spending at or near the cap and underperforming. To start a (long) article with the thesis that a team needs to spend to win is the equivalent of shooting at the broad side of a barn. He’s not wrong, but it’s also not a one-to-one equivalent.

Melnyk remains defiant, insisting in December, “I’m not in the least embarrassed about us spending at the bottom. I’m happy about it because we’ll be able to spend more in the future and some can’t. Some are stuck.”

I’m not exactly sure what an owner without money to spend is supposed to do when responding to questions about why he doesn’t spend more. Especially when he’s trying to sell tickets.

Perhaps this smaller-market reflex explains a little why Sens fans are remarkably uncomplaining. They don’t make much noise compared to fans in other cities. They seldom boo. They don’t throw sweaters on the ice in disgust or wear garbage bags over their heads. They don’t hold up homemade signs decrying mediocrity. The Ottawa media are tame by Toronto standards.

It’s almost as though by expressing unhappiness at Melnyk’s Mess, fans fear he might try to move the team, which of course he could not easily do under league bylaws. Were his creditors ever to force him to sell the club, it would be purchased by someone else.

Another option unexplored here is that perhaps the team isn’t as bad as Toronto, and is actually kind of fun to watch. Ottawa has been missing a top 4 D for most of the season, has lost more games in OT or the shootout than all but four other teams in the league, and is still a .500 team.They had possession problems at the beginning of the year, since improved under Cameron. No, they’re not contenders, but to act like they’re terrible is just misleading.

Invoking the spectre of relocation is just crass and silly. Where would Ottawa relocate to? If Arizona and Florida and Carolina and Nashville and any number of other teams who don’t rake in the cash haven’t relocated, why on earth does Simpson think the league would actually approve and abet a relocation from a Canadian market? Ottawa was actually bankrupt once and didn’t relocate. It’s ridiculous.

Ottawa’s ticket sales and prices are around league average; there’s a new television deal in place that lasts more than a decade; they’ve just submitted a bid to build a new arena downtown. I don’t think anyone but Simpson is thinking about relocation, let alone pointing to it as a reason why Sens fans don’t complain more.

The more obvious reason for that, I think, is that the team actually isn’t that bad. Or I guess Simpson could spend more time on Twitter before he says Sens fans don’t complain.

That he would be forced to sell the club is a consummation for which a growing number of sophisticated and dedicated Sens fans devoutly wish.

How sophisticated is a Sens fan if they cling to the idea that a person who owns a commodity, pays his employees, and spends within the limits set by the league, would be “forced” to sell his club? This is one of the most ridiculous, patently absurd declarations in the article, and setting up a binary where if you don’t believe in it, it means you’re “unsophisticated” is just wrong. In reality, claiming that an owner should be forced to sell because you don’t like him is pretty unsophisticated.

Update: realizing after the fact that Simpson is saying it’s Melnyk’s creditors who would force him to sell, though after what we’ve seen in Arizona, Florida, Nashville and elsewhere, I don’t think that’s any more likely. The league would extend emergency funding so he could make payments long before he’d have to
resort to a $400MM sale to meet his loan obligations.

In fairness, the slide began almost imperceptibly under the previous general manager, John Muckler: two straight draft years without an NHL player, the Dany Heatley for Marian Hossa trade, poor moves at the trading deadline. The slide has continued since.

Was the Heatley for Hossa trade part of a slide? I recall Heatley forming 1/3 of the most productive line in hockey when he was here and scoring back-to-back 50 goal seasons. Wasn’t he also part of the Cup Final year? Bizarre logic.

The Senators are privately owned, so no one knows how much revenue the club produces goes into debt payment. What is known is that when Melnyk bought the franchise, which was bankrupt in 2005, he did so with plenty of debt. It is not known what Melnyk’s two divorces did to his wealth.

This is true. What the article fails to look at – and which I haven’t seen many articles look at – is that the prevailing business model of sports franchises everywhere, in every sport, is to finance the purchase and operational expenses with debt and hold on for dear life while the underlying value of the franchise increases. Then you sell for a profit.

The Sens have increased in value fourfold since Melnyk took over. That his personal fortune has diminished is unfortunate for Sens fans, but is a byproduct of a league who relies on billionaires with designs on glory, whose fortunes are subject to variances in their markets, rather than on more stable conglomerates or networks of buyers. The NHL should be doing more to stabilize the market than vet the next wacky telecom personality riding high on a wave of success. Today’s billionaire is tomorrow’s millionaire, and Melnyk isn’t anything special in that regard. He’s a byproduct of the system, not the problem.

Rather than comparisons with Toronto or Edmonton, Sens fans should check out how the Montreal Canadiens have soared under owner Geoff Molson and general manager Marc Bergevin. Or the Winnipeg Jets, a team in a smaller market than Ottawa, that is going to qualify for the playoffs and has a stacked farm system.

This is hilarious. Montreal has had success of late, but only after years and years of mediocrity, and only because of all-star goaltending and a Norris winning defenceman. Sound familiar? Ottawa also beat Montreal soundly in the playoffs not too long ago.

Winnipeg is about to make the playoffs for the first time in their modern history, and Simpson is actually pointing to them as an example of what Ottawa should do? How does he presume that Winnipeg got their stacked farm system, anyway?

The Senators are lumbered with bad contracts to underperforming players. There are not as many horrible contracts as in Toronto, but for a low-cap team, a bevy of bad contracts eats up desperately needed money.

As in, a three-year, $7.9-million contract for Colin Greening, who is now in Binghamton, never to return. As in, a two-year, $6-million contract for declining centre-iceman David Legwand, signed as a free agent. As in, a $4-million-a-year, three-year deal for Milan Michalek (11 goals in 51 games). A slightly more lucrative and longer deal for Clarke MacArthur (one goal in 2015).

I don’t disagree that there are some stinker contracts in there, but I thought the premise of the article was that Ottawa needs to spend. Now it’s that Ottawa spends frivolously.

If the point of this article is that Ottawa should spend a lot of money, but only on good contracts, then it’s not only obvious and condescending, it’s insipid. The challenge, Jeff, is how you do that. It’s not like Ottawa can just go out and sign all of the best UFAs tomorrow because 1) there aren’t any good UFAs available, and 2) Ottawa is not as attractive a destination as New York City.

What they have to do is take longshots on players who might provide value on their contracts down the line. Sometimes it works, as it has with Turris. Sometimes it doesn’t, like with Greening.

Bobby Ryan, a joyous personality and a talented player, has signed an eyebrow-raising contract starting next year: an average $7.25-million, not commensurate with someone with 14 goals this year and on target for maybe 20 or 22.

So now we’re rating Bobby Ryan, on pace for some of the highest point totals of his career, solely on goals?

The slide – remember the Senators went to the Stanley Cup finals in 2007 and remained strong for several years thereafter – has featured bad trades, the worst being goalie Ben Bishop to Tampa for Cory Conacher.

They remained strong for several years thereafter? I thought they were consistently mediocre, according to this article. They were swept in the first round the year after the finals and missed the year after, all while spending to the cap.

Yeah, the trade of Bishop for Conacher was bad. How about the Turris trade? Or the Ryan trade? Or the Anderson trade?

By contrast, the trade that brought Kyle Turris from Phoenix was a steal for Ottawa, although this season with Jason Spezza gone has revealed that Turris is a second-line centre, not a No. 1.

Oh, there it is. A backhanded mention that Turris isn’t a #1 center without Spezza, ignoring that Turris played most of a season without Spezza already and was fine.

The Senators are among the league’s youngest teams. Perhaps that explains the team’s inconsistency, as in a 6-3 loss this week at home to a bad Carolina team; a 4-2 triumph over first-place Montreal. The franchise hopes that many of young players are still adjusting to the demands of the NHL and, with time and more experience they will help the Senators improve. The Senators will have a high pick this year in a draft with many fine players.

Yes. Finally. This is what’s called “building.”

So, as we all know, this happened.

Not the craziest thing in the world. Not even the craziest thing Lehner’s ever done.

Let’s be clear about one thing first: I don’t care that Lehner threw / broke his stick. As James, Steven and I have covered on our Scotchcast more times than we remember because we drink when we’re recording those things: goalies are always a little bit crazy, and the best goalies are also kinda pricks. For years Lehner has been our nutso-goalie ace-in-the-hole.

But we can agree it’s a tiny bit concerning when your goalie melts down after losing a totally meaningless game in February, right? Especially when management has a Pros and Cons list on Lehner on which they’ve written “might be crazy” under the Cons column.

This is the first time Lehner is without training wheels. He was always insulated in the past, either relegated to backup duty or even playing second fiddle to Ben Bishop (who is no longer in the NHL, I believe). This season, Anderson’s ridiculous play has nailed his ass to the bench again.

Now he’s the team’s starter. His backup is Andrew friggin’ Hammond. Management has been agonizingly patient with Lehner’s development, but now they have no choice and nothing left to lose. It’s the Lehner show, at long last.

Even better, when Anderson got hurt the team was already like 10 points out of a playoff spot. There’s absolutely zero pressure to get this team into the playoffs. All Lehner needed to do was acknowledge that he wasn’t playing that well, come to the rink ready to work, and learn from every mistake. Whatever his performance was like, this was his chance to prove to everyone that the biggest hole in his game — his ability to get through the day without eating another human being alive — was something he’d thought long and hard about.

And I have to say, it’s looking a wee bit like management’s not-so-secret fear that he couldn’t handle the pressure is looking not entirely unreasonable. If this is how he reacts after giving up a 4th goal when the team is already well on its way to a loss, in mid-February, with the playoffs long out of sight, then how does this person react in game 7 of a Conference Final? (I mean theoretically. I don’t actually remember what a Conference Final looks like.)

I also can’t help but think of Ray Emery. Ah, Ray. The only goalie to backstop a team that was starting to get a reputation as a goalie graveyard to the apex of its modern era. Young. Talented. Room to grow. Oodles of swagger. The playoff resume to show for it. Signed to a reasonable deal. Then bought out because of attitude problems and off-ice issues.

I can’t help but feel like Ottawa is still a bit sensitive about their goalies, and with Lehner still having all kinds of trade value, I’m starting to think that this is his audition. If he doesn’t win some games and show some poise while doing it, I can see Lehner in another uniform. I’m not saying it’s a good idea. I’m just saying that for a team obsessed with having the “right” people, “good” people, Lehner’s quirkiness could get blown out of proportion right quick.

Could it be possible that he’s traded by the deadline? I hope he isn’t traded at all, but if he is, let me just throw this out there: if you’re a team in a transition year — not truly bad, definitely not good — and the draft is particularly deep, and you’re already 6th last in the league, and there’s no way you’re clawing your way back into it, and you’ve already fired your coach…is playing Andrew Hammond for a few games the worst strategy in the world?

According to Craig Custance, whose name still sounds like it belongs to a Dickensian brigadier general:

Senators will be an interesting team to watch as deadline approaches. Told they’re wide open for business even beyond the names out there.

— Craig Custance (@CraigCustance) February 5, 2015

Sounds good to me! Sens currently sit 125 points out of the second wild card spot. Which seems like when you go a-sellin’.

I’m not one of these “Blow the team up! Blow the team up!” people. (You know what? Strap a bomb to yourself and blow yourself up.) The team ain’t all bad. They’re competitive most nights. They’ve got room to grow. But I’m excited that a lost season gives management the cover to make some changes: sell off popular vets, correct mistakes, and head into the strongest draft in years with a few extra lira in their pocket.

Who do I most want to see traded, and for what, you didn’t just ask? Here’s some words about it.

BUT WHO? (scream the fans)…AND FOR WHAAAAAAAT?? (going hoarse)

Chris Neil – for a 3rd round pick

Well shyeah. He’s not very good at hockey. He plays on the fourth line. He doesn’t score, he doesn’t drive possession, he makes everyone around him worse, and he doesn’t even fight that much anymore, if that’s your thing. Whatever it is you think Chris Neil brings to the team, I’d trade it for a draft pick.

So here’s what I propose: trade him for a draft pick. We already have Zack Smith. (…wait, do we? Is he alive?) And character pluggers are not as expensive as Neil. Way back in the day we traded Jarkko Ruutu for like a 6th. Getting anything higher than a 4th would be a coup for Neil.

Chris Phillips – for a 2nd round pick or prospect

I know, I know: this will never happen. But Phillips has found himself slipping down the depth chart and hasn’t been a positive possession player in a couple of years. He’s not very expensive, provides more of that magical veteran juice that playoff teams seem to want to load up on for playoff runs, and is apparently supposed to be a shutdown defender. If Ray Shero gave up two 2nd round picks for Douglas Murray, we can get one for Phillips.

Zack Smith – for a 2nd round pick

He’s probably hurt, which makes this unfeasible. But if he’s tradeable, Ottawa has depth down the middle and plenty of third liners on the farm team. And he’s not that far removed from seasons of 14 and 13 goals. This seems to me like the prototypical Chris Kelly trade. Solid two-way guy. Can chip in with timely goals. Punches stuff.

Milan Michalek – for a reclamation player or prospect

Milo’s been playing better lately, but he’s still way off of what the team must have hoped his pace would be. Without Spezza, he’s just another solid two-way player; he doesn’t have the kind of scoring jam they need out of him.

I hate to say that this was probably predictable, but you know what? We have WOWY stats and this was probably predictable. Murray still extended him. At this point, I’d take another team’s underachiever and see what the change of scenery does for him, though picks and prospects is probably preferable.

David Legwand – 2nd or 3rd round pick or prospect

See Phillips, Chris. Veteran player. Doesn’t actual produce offense anymore, but hey, you can trust him to make the “smart play,” even if he does get skated around by Jonathan Huberdeau so easily that he may as well be a tree. He’s got a year left on his deal, too. On a stacked team, you could see him anchoring a shut down line and providing good value for that later pick.

Jared Cowen – a good prospect / another player of the same age and ceiling

You wonder if Cowen could actually be the centrepiece of a larger trade package. After all, people are still talking about Tyler Myers as if he hasn’t been terrible for years now and isn’t on an expensive contract. But we’ve written thousands of words already about the team rewarding him for potential, and he hasn’t turned into that ideal top line pairing partner for Karlsson (even though they played him as one forever). I’m ready to cut bait.

Alex Chiasson – as part of a larger package for a big fish

Hold on, hear me out. I like Chiasson, even if the stats seem to imply that he drags his teammates down, but he’s young. He started well this season, just as he did last season, which would imply that as he matures he’ll be able to maintain production longer…

…or not. Maybe he’s just another third liner on a team of third liners who puts up a few lucky points early on because he keeps getting played on the top line. I’m just saying that if a good player becomes available and we need to include some promising young players in the package going back the other way, Chiasson’s still got some of that allure. He’s tall!

———-

Ottawa already has a high 1st round draft pick that only seems to be getting higher by the day. They have their own high 2nd round pick, plus Dallas’ from the Spezza trade. You add another couple of picks at the deadline, and Ottawa has some serious ammunition to trade up at the draft. They’re not looking for wide-net prospectin’ at this point. They need to combine some assets to draft an impact player who will help them in the next couple of seasons. This is one way to do it.

I had a thought the other day: is there another team in the bottom 10 of the NHL better positioned to add a top prospect and transition from mediocre to good than the Ottawa Senators?

Buffalo is in the first year of a multi-year rebuild. They’re legitimately horrible.

Edmonton has added aggressively, drafted superstars, and is still a mess. At this point they’re talking about rebuilding the club’s culture from the ground up.

Carolina is full of unwieldy contracts, from the Staal brothers to Cam Ward to Alex Semin to the tiny and oft-injured Jeff Skinner. They’re 10 games under .500 even with all of those expensive veterans.

Arizona is talking full rebuild and is buried under their expensive goalie contract. Who knows in which direction they’ll jump.

Columbus probably shouldn’t even be in the bottom ten. They’ve just had terrible luck with injuries this year.

New Jersey has the oldest lineup in the league.

Toronto has terrible contracts we read about in every paper all the time and don’t need to see listed again here.

Philadelphia’s defense is a mess, and they’ve handed long-term contracts to the like of Andy MacDonald and Mark Streit.

Minnesota could fix their goaltending and be better; they won a playoff round last year.

And then Florida, who could also be better, and at times have looked playoff-bound.

So, the Sens, Minnie, and Florida. I’d say those are the three who could add a prospect and then do some damage.

What sets Ottawa apart from the other two? Consider the following:

• Ottawa has the lowest payroll in the league, and thus the most room to spend. You can see how restorative it’s been for the Islanders to add take advantage of teams near the cap to snag Nick Leddy and Johnny Boychuk. A few key signings in Grabovski, Kulemin and Halak, and they’re one of the best teams in the East. That could be Ottawa, if they play their cards right.
• Ottawa has the youngest lineup of those three. They’re the third youngest team in the league, compared to Minnie’s 13th and Florida’s 26th. They already have young players in key roles, and they’re producing. Mike Hoffman and Mark Stone have been revelations this season. Mika Zibanejad has quietly turned his season around. Cody Ceci and Curtis Lazar are both very early on in their careers, and are only growing. Alex Chiasson is a human male who can skate.
• Ottawa has a core to build around. Kyle Turris is on a high value contract, as is Erik Karlsson. Bobby Ryan re-signed, causing the city to emit a giant sigh of relief, and he seems to be thriving in a leading role. Robin Lehner is holding a knife to my throat as I type this.
• Ottawa has goaltending. Craig Anderson has been one of the best in the league this year, and Robin Lehner, though struggling at the moment, has finally been given the opportunity to work without a safety net.
• Ottawa doesn’t really have any bad contracts. Sure, Colin Greening…with his $2.5M cap hit. Not exactly a crippling mistake. David Clarkson that signing was not. Milan Michalek hasn’t been great, nor has he been disastrous. Maybe Zack Smith? None of those signings is the sort of thing that will prevent Ottawa from being aggressive if and when they get the opportunity.

All of which makes it confusing to hear and read fans and bloggers describe this iteration of the team as ‘disastrous’ and ‘disappointing.’ What exactly were the expectations to begin with? A low playoff seed, maybe, at best?

One advantage of all of this parity is that there are only thin slivers of truly bad and truly good teams. Most teams are in the milky middle of the league. And so a team like Ottawa, who aren’t truly bad, can snag a top ten prospect and not have it mean that they’re years away from contending.

Ottawa’s playing good hockey at the moment. Their shots on goal are being cut down. They can hang with any team in the league on any given night. And there’s nowhere to go but up. Add a good player in this year’s draft and Ottawa could be next year’s dangerous, dark horse pick.