Boucher fired

[Jasmine]

Crawford takes over ...

[Josh]

I think we all knew he wouldn't be back next season. This is likely a chance for them to see if Crawford can do any better at the helm, which I doubt (and don't expect him back next season either).

[Matt the Aussie]

The timing of this is off though. We've sucked for a long time, why do this now and not end of year? If they seriously think Crawford is the answer (long term) then I dunno what to say...

[matchesmalone]

It's a goddamn shame. Boucher is one hell of a coach.

he timing makes sense I think. Watch/listen to the media with Dorion after the trades. The media is shook. He is on the hot seat. People are asking tough questions, he is getting defensive. Now it appears that they were expecting to have won games and at least put themselves in a playoff race, so that Stone or Duchene might have been willing to re-sign. But because they failed to do so, and had to trade these players, Boucher is the goat.

Craw won't be the long term choice I'm sure, but you don't really want to bring a new guy into this mess, wait for the summer. Kleinendorst the next head coach?

[Josh]

What’s Kleinendorst up to now? He was let go in Belleville after last season, Troy Mann is the head coach there now.

[matchesmalone]

Oh Christ, I'm way out of the loop. I was thinking Kleinendorst was still coach down there. But yeah, he doesn't seem to have been doing anything for the past season, so I dunno.

[Matt the Aussie]

It's a goddamn shame. Boucher is one hell of a coach.

he timing makes sense I think. Watch/listen to the media with Dorion after the trades. The media is shook. He is on the hot seat. People are asking tough questions, he is getting defensive. Now it appears that they were expecting to have won games and at least put themselves in a playoff race, so that Stone or Duchene might have been willing to re-sign. But because they failed to do so, and had to trade these players, Boucher is the goat.

Craw won't be the long term choice I'm sure, but you don't really want to bring a new guy into this mess, wait for the summer. Kleinendorst the next head coach?

I guess what worries me the most about this statement is that it implies Dorion and co. have only just realized how badly the pooch has been screwed in March of 2019...

Our next coach is gonna be some unknown guy with a promising NCAA record, or the winner of the Swiss or German League, or...basically someone cheap.

[thedaigle1]

What’s Kleinendorst up to now? He was let go in Belleville after last season, Troy Mann is the head coach there now.

Coach K was--not--good at all last season in Belleville. I dunno if Mann is doing so much better because Randy Lee is out now and/or because the Senators have so many more quality prospects this season. Mann immediately sets himself up as NHL coach of the future though. I expect the rest of the discussions to revolve around the old alumni still in the organization like Kelly, Neil, and Donovan. Luke Richardson and Matt Carkner are also two local guys who have done some minor-league coaching that I would expect to hear about.

[matchesmalone]

Haha well maybe Kleinendorst is the perfect fit then. Someone more attuned to developing players than winning. I know the argument would be "yeah but we don't wanna develop a losing mentality" like Edmonton or Florida or Colorado. But this is where I think Dorion has done well. I'm still on the fence about him somewhat. Can't they just demote him back to chief scout? And hire a different GM? I dunno, he's clearly a mastermind at scouting, drafting and developing, but trading, signing, and everything else, I'm not sold on. Obviously the Duchene trade was horrible, but lets see how he tries to dig himself out of this hole.

I was talking with some friends about how impressive a franchise like San Jose has been, and looks like Chicago is trying to follow suit, at slowly rebuilding piece by piece, like keeping a ship in good working order by replacing a piece here and there. Remember 3-5 years ago when everyone said San Joe was nearing the end of its window? Marleau, Burns, Pavelski and Thornton getting too old, but they have brought along Meier, LaBanc, Hertl in the meanwhile, and added in Kane and Karlssin and now look like a legit contender again.

Dorion is going the other way, tearing the ship down and rebuilding the whole thing from ground up. Imagine the confidence (arrogance) you'd have to have in your drafting and development to just say, "ok, we're going to take our entire prospect pool, and put them into our NHL lineup."

A couple of rebuild strategies I remember discussing on the old forums:

1. I talked about specifically regarding LA, Chicago and Pittsburgh around the time they started winning all their Cups - they start the rebuild addressing goaltending and defense first. Goalies take 5-7 years to show any return on investment at the NHL level, and 7-10 years to approach prime. For defensemen those numbers are more like 3-5 and 6-8. For forwards it is closer to 2-4 and 4-7.

LA was lucky enough to essentially begin their rebuild with Kopitar, but they also picked Quick and Bernier high in '05 and '06, and then for the next few years used their high picks on Hickey, Teubert and Doughty. Pittsburgh took Whitney in '02 (the year after trading Jagr) and then Fleury in '03 and Letang in '05, along with Malkin, Crosby, Staal from '04-'06.

Dorion looks to be following this strategy. He's loaded up on goalies the past couple years, adding Gustavsson, Daccord and Mandolese to insulate Marcus Hogberg. And now he's established the future of the blueline with Chabot and Brannstrom.

2. Another strategy I remember talking about, regarding St. Louis around 2010 specifically, although I'm sure there are better examples since then. It was clear with St. Louis because before the cap they were a high-salary veteran team and they had some troubles adjusting to the cap. They ended up replacing most of their roster in a short period, and they built a core around guys like Pietrangelo, Backes, Perron, Berglund, Oshie and were able to be a playoff team fairly quickly. But then it wasn't until the second wave of the rebuild that they got Tarasenko, Schwartz, Parayko and started to be a real contender. And this brings me full circle back to the losing mentality concern.

The Sens will contend for Lafreniere or Lundell next season, but beyond that they should start to compete for playoffs, with Tkachuk, White and those guys coming in now getting to their 3rd year breakout by then. And so now, in the meantime, we have all of these high picked in the next couple drafts, and we don't have to rush those players, so we can develop them properly and build a deep system and a strong AHL team. And then two to three years down the road, if there are players who seem to have checked out and developed a losing mentality, we trade those guys for new pieces. So basically next season is an experiment, or a sacrifice if you prefer, where we throw in all the prospects, and see who sinks and who swims.

[Josh]

Haha well maybe Kleinendorst is the perfect fit then. Someone more attuned to developing players than winning. I know the argument would be "yeah but we don't wanna develop a losing mentality" like Edmonton or Florida or Colorado. But this is where I think Dorion has done well. I'm still on the fence about him somewhat. Can't they just demote him back to chief scout? And hire a different GM? I dunno, he's clearly a mastermind at scouting, drafting and developing, but trading, signing, and everything else, I'm not sold on. Obviously the Duchene trade was horrible, but lets see how he tries to dig himself out of this hole.

I was talking with some friends about how impressive a franchise like San Jose has been, and looks like Chicago is trying to follow suit, at slowly rebuilding piece by piece, like keeping a ship in good working order by replacing a piece here and there. Remember 3-5 years ago when everyone said San Joe was nearing the end of its window? Marleau, Burns, Pavelski and Thornton getting too old, but they have brought along Meier, LaBanc, Hertl in the meanwhile, and added in Kane and Karlssin and now look like a legit contender again.

Dorion is going the other way, tearing the ship down and rebuilding the whole thing from ground up. Imagine the confidence (arrogance) you'd have to have in your drafting and development to just say, "ok, we're going to take our entire prospect pool, and put them into our NHL lineup."

A couple of rebuild strategies I remember discussing on the old forums:

1. I talked about specifically regarding LA, Chicago and Pittsburgh around the time they started winning all their Cups - they start the rebuild addressing goaltending and defense first. Goalies take 5-7 years to show any return on investment at the NHL level, and 7-10 years to approach prime. For defensemen those numbers are more like 3-5 and 6-8. For forwards it is closer to 2-4 and 4-7.

LA was lucky enough to essentially begin their rebuild with Kopitar, but they also picked Quick and Bernier high in '05 and '06, and then for the next few years used their high picks on Hickey, Teubert and Doughty. Pittsburgh took Whitney in '02 (the year after trading Jagr) and then Fleury in '03 and Letang in '05, along with Malkin, Crosby, Staal from '04-'06.

Dorion looks to be following this strategy. He's loaded up on goalies the past couple years, adding Gustavsson, Daccord and Mandolese to insulate Marcus Hogberg. And now he's established the future of the blueline with Chabot and Brannstrom.

2. Another strategy I remember talking about, regarding St. Louis around 2010 specifically, although I'm sure there are better examples since then. It was clear with St. Louis because before the cap they were a high-salary veteran team and they had some troubles adjusting to the cap. They ended up replacing most of their roster in a short period, and they built a core around guys like Pietrangelo, Backes, Perron, Berglund, Oshie and were able to be a playoff team fairly quickly. But then it wasn't until the second wave of the rebuild that they got Tarasenko, Schwartz, Parayko and started to be a real contender. And this brings me full circle back to the losing mentality concern.

The Sens will contend for Lafreniere or Lundell next season, but beyond that they should start to compete for playoffs, with Tkachuk, White and those guys coming in now getting to their 3rd year breakout by then. And so now, in the meantime, we have all of these high picked in the next couple drafts, and we don't have to rush those players, so we can develop them properly and build a deep system and a strong AHL team. And then two to three years down the road, if there are players who seem to have checked out and developed a losing mentality, we trade those guys for new pieces. So basically next season is an experiment, or a sacrifice if you prefer, where we throw in all the prospects, and see who sinks and who swims.

Man. You keep making me want to believe that there's a real possibility the Sens will be successful. I want to be thinking about these things too! I want to be making proposals and looking at possibilities and coming up with strategies. I just can't do it with Melnyk gutting every aspect of this franchise.

But I'm really glad you still can. I want to believe. I know that, in the right hands, it could be done.

[thedaigle1]

Can't they just demote him back to chief scout? And hire a different GM? I dunno, he's clearly a mastermind at scouting, drafting and developing, but trading, signing, and everything else, I'm not sold on.

I find this so fascinating because to me amateur scouting is the great unknown where you have so little data to work with and you're making decisions in the dark. Meanwhile with decisions at the pro level, GMs have access to an infinite amount of data before making a trade or signing a contract. To me Dorion is like a chef who makes incredible souffle and subsequently burns toast.

[matchesmalone]

I dunno, it feels to me like as director of scouting he was just the guy chopping and preparing the ingredients, then as gm he's the head chef.

[Josh]

You’re both right.

As scouting director, he was a vegetable chopper. But not just any vegetable chopper. He had the finest julienne in the industry.

Now promoted to head chef, he’s burned those perfect veggies, spoiled the meat, and served the entire dish cold.

And he forgot to wash his hands.

[Matt the Aussie]

It's a different mindset for sure, to go from projecting future talent to managing current talent.

To be honest, I'm pretty impressed with what Dorion achieved over the deadline with 3 guys who weren't going to stay. However, he does himself zero favours when speaking in public because he sounds like a fool.

In terms of the fan base...I don't think I'm alone in saying that Stone was the hammer blow. Maybe you can get away with saying Karlsson was just gonna be too expensive, or you say he definitely goes UFA and we needed SOMETHING from him. The fact that he hasn't signed an extension yet in San Jose plays right into that narrative.

Stone cost less overall, and he did the extension the same day as being traded for a reasonable price. If you aren't going to spend money on even a guy like Mark Stone, then what WILL convince you to spend? Even if you know he would be terribly overpaid by year 5, you still do it. Look at Bobby Ryan.

[matchesmalone]

I know the Melnyk situation looms large in Ottawa, but Dorion has been pretty clear that it was never a money thing with either Stone or Duchene, and there is good reason to believe him. It was just a matter of the players not wanting to wait around through the rebuild. Both are in the primes of their careers. They're going to get roughly the same money wherever they go, so why would they want to sign somewhere they're going to be out of playoff contention next year for sure, and the picture is still pretty hazy for the next few.