Let The Rebuild Begin

Bryan Murray at today’s presser.

” I feel for the fans.”

“If we continue to drop games going forward, there are a lot of players I will consider moving.”

On “The Euge” – “He’s realistic.“

Murray added that he’s considering bringing up Robin Lehner. Given the way the Senators are playing, you might as well start with him.

It’s also clear that he’s gone as GM at the end of the season.

The rest was valedictory. He mentioned that when he came on as a GM the organization was short in depth and their drafts were not up to scratch.  They’ve done a good job in the last few years of selecting people in the draft for the future.

Robin Lehner will play in Bingo for the weekend and then he may be brought up if things don’t go well between the pipes.

He’s not yet at the “blow it up” stage, at least publicly.  But it seems that the Senators are already in transition towards a total rebuild with a new GM and a new head coach.

Could both roles be filled by St. Michael’s Majors head coach and GM Dave Cameron, who has done a brilliant job coaching Team Canada at the World Juniors?

Since Cameron already works for “The Euge”,  why not?

 

 

30/50 vs 25/50

This page from  www.playoffstatus.com shows what’s what.  The Senators need to win 30 of 50 if they expect (a 94% chance or greater) to make the playoffs.  If they fall five short and win 25 of 50 their chances of making the playoffs falls to a tiny 9%.

Five games.  That’s it.  Given how they’ve played, what  do you expect to happen?

 

How Bryan Murray’s Firing Will Go Down

Lil’  Tim will be the one doing the dirty work…..

 

A look back at the 1994 NHL Draft

Behold all the picks from the 1994 NHL draft  that have played one NHL game:  Who has played the most?

Daniel Alfredsson.

Which teams did best? Detroit, San Jose,  New Jersey and Ottawa, in that order.

Of these teams, which has not won a Stanley Cup in the meantime?

The one that is in that list by accident.

Who was coach and GM in Detroit?  Bryan Murray. The team had mixed results in each of his four seasons.

Long list after the jump…

 

Retweet

Senturion #sensrebuild #sensrebuild #sensrebuild #sensrebuild #sensrebuild #sensrebuild #sensrebuild #sensrebuild #sensrebuild #sensrebuild #Sens

from Katimavik – Hazeldean, Ottawa

BTW:  Erik Karlsson, Natalie Portman. Separated at Birth?

 

On The Future Of Ottawa Senators Scouting

Behold the Ottawa Senators Scouting Organization,

My opinion on same after the jump.

European scout

Vaclav Burda is chief European scout, who puts on the most miles. According to LinkedIn, he’s an Independent Sports Professional, a consultant.

George Fargher

Amateur Scout

George Fargher is responsible for amateur scouting for western Canada.

Archie Henderson

Professional Scout

Archie played for the Washington Capitals, Minnesota North Stars, and Hartford Whalers. but spent most of his time in the AHL. Check out his fight with Bob Probert on Youtube. Archie scouts professional talent, at the NHL and AHL level. The likes of Matt Carkner arise from the work of Archie.

Bob Janecyk

Amateur Scout

Goalie scout. Born 1957. I still remember his time with the Kings.

Greg Royce

Amateur Scout

Covers the OHL, some WHL and QMJHL. A longtime scout for Phoenix. One of the younger North American scouts.

Trent Mann

Amateur Scout

Quebec League, primarily Maritimes.

Bob Lowes

Amateur Scout

Western Hockey League, primarily in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Occasionally European scouting. Relatively new.

Jim Clark

Professional Scout

Jim spent nine seasons with the Columbus Blue Jackets organization. He’s likely one of the guys in the stands scouting CBJ folks.

Anders Forsberg

Amateur Scout

Via The Sens Forum:

“Bryan Murray, of course, was general manager of the Detroit Red Wings in the early 90s. During this time he worked with Detroit’s legendary European scout Hakan Andersson.

For those of you who don’t know who Hakan Andersson is, I must digress, he is one of the greatest, and certainly the most celebrated NHL amateur scout of all time. He is giving much or all of the credit for Detroit drafting Nicklas Lidstrom, Tomas Holmstrom, Pavel Datsyuk, Henrik Zetterberg, Johan Franzen and Ville Leino, to name a few. I remember reading a story in a Sports Illustrated not too long ago about the 89 draft, when Andersson was just a no-name scout looking to make a name for himself and get into the business, he went the first two rounds trying to convince Jim Devallano to take a chance on a Swedish defenseman named Nicklas Lidstrom, but to no avail (this was back when drafting any European was considered high-risk). finally, by the third round, Andersson was practically begging Detroit’s GM and chief scout to pick him, and they finally did.

So during his time as GM, Bryan Murray developed a personal relationship with Andersson and they are still friends to this day. In early 2008, Andersson’s friend Anders Forsberg was looking for a job, Andersson and Forsberg worked together in Sweden for the past decade. So Andersson recommended to Murray to hire Forsberg.

In the 2008 draft Forsberg was instrumental in convincing Murray to draft Erik Karlsson in the first round and likely played a large part in the drafting of 2 more Swedes in that draft, Andre Petersson and Emil Sandin as well as two more Swedes in the 2009 draft, Jakob Silfverberg and Robin Lehner in the second round.”

Bill McCarthy

Amateur Scout

A part time scout, based in Minneapolis. Primarily US high schools in the upper midwest.

Lewis Mongelluzzo

Amateur Scout

NCAA recruiting.

Nick Polano

Professional Scout

Part time scout. Pushing 70.

Mikko Ruutu

Finnish Scout

Jarko’s older brother, now the Senator’s Finnish scout.

 

Bryan Murray & The Ottawa Senators

Graeme at the 6th Sens wants Bryan and Tim Murray’s heads on a platter…

“Tough decisions have to be made and they’re ones that I no longer entrust to Bryan or Tim Murray (the likely incumbent GM once Bryan steps down). Given Bryan’s contract status, the bias that he developed for these players when he coached them and his perpetual ability to make reactive transactions, I no longer have the faith in the current brain trust to do the right thing. Even when this team is winning and things are going well, most fans that I know are guilty of waiting for the other shoe to drop. We’ve grown wary of these guys.

via If Bryan Murray Gets Turfed… | November.”

While I understand his point of view,  Graeme makes the mistake of  assuming the muddling tinkering with what you have position comes from General Manager Bryan Murray and not  from owner Eugene Melnyk himself. I’ve worked at the Tim Murray level in various companies,  and have been frustrated  by ownership from making real changes due to the need to deliver product with limited resources right here, right now.  There is nothing more dangerous than an owner who thinks he knows what he’s doing. and nothing kills the future more than the desire to deliver today.  Eugene Melnyk  strikes me as a very involved owner,  one who wants to put product on the ice and bums in the seats. A corporate guy doesn’t look three or four years down the road. Such folk look at the next couple of quarters and the current cash flow. It’s all about paying the bills.

The question really becomes: Can the Ottawa Senators survive as a business taking an LA Kings kind of approach?  Is Eugene Melnyk willing to take his lumps as the team rebuilds?  Are the fans willing to buy tickets and fill a stadium for a rebuilding team?

If it was a US city, I’d say ‘yes’, because hockey is viewed as entertainment there, not  as being cultural. Fans notice either deep runs or nothing. Ottawa has some of the Leafs/Habs disease, fans want a winner, and are less willing to make the drive to Kanata to see a team get shellacked for the years needed to rebuild.  Garrioch and Brennan stir up the fan base.  Leafs media sets the tone for behavior with the hockey equivalent of “next year in Jerusalem.”   It infects the media here as well.

The problem is deep and  endemic. Fans, media, team management and ownership have a role in the problem, and have a role in the solution. The lot has to do a lot of growing up,  the first group being the fans, who need to exhibit realistic expectations.

I suspect that it will be us bloggers who have to be grown up about it first.  You’re not going to get it from people who want to sell newspaper ad space.  It will be very hard to get it from team management selling product, until such time that the product they are selling is change.

Change of that magnitude can only come from ownership, and I’m not sure that ownership is ready. Until that happens you can have the secret  spawn of Steve Yzerman and  Scotty Bowman as GM with the result being a hill of beans.

 

Leafs vs. Sens Gameday Thread

Typical Leafs Fans Driving To Scotiabank Place

Bryan Murray’s  Tweedle Dees play host to Brian Burke’s Tweedle Dums tonight on the People’s Leafs Network nationwide.

Neither Brian should be happy about how their choices have worked out.  The shots from the pressbox will show:

• Bryan Murray’s face contortions, the ones that make him look like he was watching his only daughter pole dancing at Pigale on a payday Friday.
• Brian Burke’s ongoing improvisation of “How Daddy Makes Mommy Cry.”

Alexi Kovalev will  nonchalantly catch a falling baby with the blade of his stick during a breakaway, the result immediately being a Too Many Men On The Ice penalty and no shot on goal.  Don Cherry will totally ignore the Senators and instead wax on about Doug Gilmour and the Hamilton Ice Dogs.  Ron Maclean will talk about something practical, worthy and irrelevant.  Don will mention the notion of banning Leafs fans from Ottawa games being the equivalent of banning Jesus from Christmas.

The game, between two teams anxious for July 1st 2011, players and GM’s both, seems hardly to matter, but here is my best effort:

Sens 2   Leafs 0.

Update:  Sens 3 Leafs 0 FINAL.

Typical Leafs Fans Driving From Scotiabank Place