It probably doesn’t come as any surprise at this point in the season to hear that Ottawa’s biggest weakness is its defence, or lack thereof. 28^th in the league in shots allowed per game—only last-place Buffalo and made-a-deal-with-the-devil Toronto are worse. 28^th in the league in goals allowed per game—only Edmonton and the Islanders are worse. They have decent, or at least average possession metrics. (Possibly as a result of slowly working Karlsson to death.) But when they’re outshot, they’re outshot badly. And when they get outshot badly, they can’t keep the puck out of their net.

It becomes truly worrisome when one considers there’s really no relief in sight. Ottawa’s best defensive prospect, Cody Ceci, is already up with the club. He’s acclimatized well, though is still a couple of years away from the team knowing what it has on its hands. Even when he maxes it, he’s thought to be more of an offensive defenseman.

Look at this depth chart from Hockey’s Future (number rating is self-explanatory; letter rating is probability of them having success, which I take to mean applicability of their skillset to the NHL game. I don’t really know how it’s determined, though it seems conservative enough):

Troy Rutkowski is our fourth best defensive prospect! Ugh.

Beyond Mark Borowiecki, who’s demonstrated that he can play replacement level minutes, and some promising output from Mikael Wikstrand, there’s nobody that projects as a top four defenceman, and certainly nobody who projects as a top four shutdown defenceman.

The UFA market doesn’t look much better (courtesy of Capgeek):

Yeah, I stopped at Nick Schultz. I considered stopping further down the list at Douglas Murray, but I think you get the point. Even if there was anyone desirable on that list, Ottawa would be easily outbid by Philadelphia, who are basically a bunch of nihilists bent on crashing the market system at this point.

Chris Phillips—he of the fresh new contract—is clearly in decline. Marc Methot is only 28, but hasn’t had a great season, and could be on the verge of his own decline. Wiercioch doesn’t seem to have earned the trust of his coach, spending every other game in the press box, even if he earned a contract at $2MM per from Bryan Murray. And to make matters worse, without a first round pick this year, Ottawa misses out on the chance to draft a defenceman in the top ten. (Assuming they continue to perform at their current output.)

Bryan Murray has put all of his chips on Jared Cowen developing into a top four defenceman. It may have been a reasonable enough bet; drafted top ten, big guy, you know the drill. And it’s the sort of gamble small market teams have to make to get players at good value—trust your projections, get them under contract, and pray. But if Cowen doesn’t round into form, and Ceci takes a step back, Murray is going to need to find a solution elsewhere.

After all: we only have five seasons left of Karlsson’s prime after this year. I suppose it could be worse. Imagine if Karlsson had turned out to be an Anton Babchuk-like offensive specialist instead of the tiny beast we know and love. Where would Ottawa be in the standings today?

So where does that leave Ottawa? It does have a few decent if not outstanding NHL-caliber forwards it can dangle as trade bait, including captain Jason Spezza. Its prospects on the front end are also respectable, with players like Mark Stone, Matt Puempel, and Mike Hoffman at what might be the peak of his trade value.

Who could Ottawa target? There are a number of small fish like Dimitri Kulikov, or pending free agent Tom Gilbert, but this is depth at best. Christian Ehrhoff’s name has been bandied about, though the 175 years left remaining on his contract may be an issue. We can fantasize about getting Shea Weber from the offensively starved Nashville Predators for Jason Spezza, but I don’t see two captains with no trade clauses waiving to swap mid-level teams and go play in a system that doesn’t suit either of their skillsets. You might see a transaction on the Foligno-for-Methot level, but the truth is that there just aren’t many options out there for a team without blue chippers, without their first round pick, without money, and without being an appealing contender in an appealing market.

…which is to say that, in the short term, it’s Cowen or bust. Let’s hope that in the next couple of drafts Murray concentrates on the blueline.

Having two related Murrays in GM roles is a convenient way to contrast approaches to building an NHL team. While we’ll never know the degree to which Tim Murray was involved in the decision making in Ottawa, what we do know is that in 2010-2011, when Ottawa finished 5^th last in the league, they declined to sell off a number of their veterans—Chris Phillips, Daniel Alfredsson, Jason Spezza, and the newly acquired Craig Anderson—and go full rebuild. Instead, they traded Mike Fisher for a late 1^st round pick, Chris Kelly for a second, and salary dumped Jarkko Ruutu and Alexei Kovalev for late picks. By the end of the 2011 draft, their rebuild was entirely comprised of the sixth overall pick, and two late first rounders.

In a lot of ways, this was totally defensible. Ottawa had almost as many points separating them from dead last as they did from a playoff spot. They weren’t a catastrophe; they were just one of many mediocre teams in this league. Ottawa settled for their meager picks, the emergence of Erik Karlsson as a stud defenceman, and the notion that once you make the playoffs, anything can happen. Ottawa looked at their future and decided to be a bubble team sooner than a contender later. Buffalo, in the same situation, could have re-signed Miller, kept those veterans who wanted to stay, drafted 1st overall this season and hoped for the best. Tim Murray took the other option. He set the house on fire.

And Ottawa’s choice may just reflect the reality of a mid-sized market team without a Pegula to stand on. (Sorry.) Eugene Melnyk surely had no appetite for four or five years of basement finishes and terrible financial returns in the name of a complete rebuild. Bryan Murray, in the twilight of his career, would surely rather go for it than be the Overseer of Rebuild: Phase One. All of this is fine. You do the best with the cards you’re dealt.

But here we are, just three years later, and the returns of the mini-rebuild are pretty much exhausted. Zibanejad is a good player with lots of room to grow, though not someone you build around. Noesen and Silfverberg are gone in the Bobby Ryan trade. Matt Puempel is in the minors, shaping up nicely as a complementary scorer. Ottawa now looks to several mid- to lower-tier prospects, like Mike Hoffman, while preaching the importance of the pipeline. Cody Ceci and Curtis Lazar are promising, but nobody is winning championships on their backs. Ottawa’s status as a middle-of-the-pack team is secure.

Contrast this with Buffalo, where everything not tied down is out the door for draft picks. Tim Murray not only has quality picks, but also quantity. I think he gets to make a sour face at the podium 12 times in the first two rounds over the next two drafts. This is in addition to Buffalo already selecting twice in the first round last season, and already having excellent young players like Grigorenko to build around. You could see a scary Buffalo team in a few years…

…or maybe you won’t. Ask Oilers or Islanders fans how that goes. Rebuilds are not a sure thing, and a few years is a long time to wait to find out. As a fan of hockey, I wouldn’t be particularly interested in soul-crushing awfulness for that long. And make no mistake that it’s going to be a painful few years in Buffalo.

But the point is that, even though a rebuild is not a sure thing, it’s a shot: an opportunity that comes along maybe once every decade. Rare is the opportunity where ownership, the fans, and management are aligned in their willingness to be terrible in the service of eventual greatness. When Ottawa had their chance, they didn’t take it. Even this year, given the opportunity to trade Chris Phillips – an old, soft, poor-possession third pairing defenseman – Bryan Murray decided to re-up for two more years. It’s just sort of sinking in for me…Ottawa is comfortable with being mediocre.

So we are what we are: a bubble team at best, who hopes for lightning in a bottle come playoff time, and who are at least another 3-4 years from the next opportunity to rebuild. We may bother a higher seed and occasionally go to the second round. We’ll bring in decent prospects like Lazar to replace the players we lose to free agency or ineffectiveness, but we won’t have these players at the same time, and we won’t have blue-chippers. I think the best we can hope for is to compete for a cup in…what, 2022, five years after the rebuild we launch in three years, if we decide to go for it then?

This isn’t a criticism of management, understand. Ottawa doesn’t have the money or the patience for a rebuild. And I saw a good comment on Twitter about how Ottawa still has a lot of flexibility and interesting opportunities in the offseason this year. (And, Jah-bless, we still have Karlsson.) But it’s about managing expectations. I, for one, feel much more comfortable heading into every season hoping for a low playoff seed at best and just enjoying hockey for what it is. What other choice do we have?

Ottawa may or may not make prudent, measured moves on or before the trade deadline on Wednesday – only time will tell. But one thing is for sure: Bryan Murray sure as hell has no motivation to be either prudent or measured. Not totally unlike a banana republic dictator, the last challenge to Bryan Murray’s rule – his nephew, Tim – has been removed. Conditions have been created wherein Murray has no obligation to look out for the next generation. After all,the next generation now works for Pegula’s Sabres.

Look at how carefully Robin Lehner’s development was managed. It was important to not only give him an established starter under whom to study, but when the organization traded for Ben Bishop, they also gave Lehner competition. The job was not automatically his to inherit.

The principle, to some degree, applies here. How do you keep a GM from pushing in all of the organization’s chips and going for it, even if the team has only, say, a 20% chance of making the playoffs? Having an heir apparent on the team is useful, because that person can be a voice for restraint. Even better if that voice belongs to family. Bryan wouldn’t screw over Tim for one last shot at a Cup before he retires, would he?

But now, to whom is Murray accountable? On the last contract if his career, with a stockpile of prospects at his disposal, and a Stanley Cup conspicuously missing from his resume, the elder Murray may be compelled to mortgage the future for one last shot.

Is that even a mistake? I’m of two minds. On one hand, with the prices commanded at the deadline, the odds that Ottawa will come out net positive on any transaction is incredibly slim. Also, I’m not convinced a Chris Stewart or Matt Moulson turns a mediocre team into a contender.

…while on the other hand, I think Ottawa’s real chance to become a contender was back during the great sell-off. While Ottawa did well to draft three times in the first round, the fact that veterans like Phillips, Neil, Anderson, and Spezza stuck around means they didn’t get to do what Tim Murray is doing now in Buffalo: bring in a generation of top tier players to develop together. Having missed that chance, then what the hell: why not trade a scoring specialist prospect like Matt Puempel, who may never make the NHL, for a rental? Swing for the fences.

Whatever the case, Bryan Murray is king in Ottawa now. The only challenge to his rule has been exiled (not the right word,considering the billions Tim has to play with in Buffalo…) and even if Bryan sets the franchise on fire, he’s a year or two removed from transitioning to an advisory role. Secession planning has been thrown to the winds; let’s hope Bryan Murray isn’t set on going out in a blaze of glory.