[Signing] Sens sign Brady Tkachuk (7 yrs, $8.214 mil AAV)

[TheoFleury]

Wrong thread

[1qqaaz]

Wrong thread too I guess

[Matata]

I doubt Treliving will even be able to get MT to the table for less than $10M/yr. I don't doubt MT sees himself as an 8x $11M-12M player and he'd rather sit out than compromise.

[TheGoldenTrout]

Originally Posted by Scroopy Noopers

Unfortunately due to my location I catch a lot of these games. The guy is all over the ice clobbering people. He’s quick and mean.

The numbers aren’t a miscount.

Nothing unfortunate about watching the Sens play. Highly entertaining, up tempo hockey!

[TheGoldenTrout]

Originally Posted by Poe969

Horrible contract. The sens beat the leafs and he didn't get a single point, kid was invisible!

I think the sens will surprise a lot of people this year and Brady will be a huge reason. They might even attract some decent UFA'S in the future.

Twitter report from a Philly reporter today saying that the only place the Giroux would consider going is Ottawa. Haven't heard anything like since, since...maybe ever! In fairness he is from the area....

[TheoFleury]

If I'm Ottawa, I'm taking a run at giroux and Monahan. Giroux still a really good player and Mony is solid too. Would fast track the rebuild and create a pretty scary top 6

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[Jiri Hrdina]

Fast tracking re-builds is why no Canadian team has won the cup since the Habs.

[TheoFleury]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

Fast tracking re-builds is why no Canadian team has won the cup since the Habs.

That's pretty simplified. I'd argue it's more from making bad moves in general, then a fast tracking philosophy. Hamilton trade #1 was a great move, and the definition of fast tracking. You should always be trying to improve. Fast tracking moves like sending out futures to augment the fringes of your roster is what kills you. Trading picks for average goalies in hopes they can be a #1. Trading picks for guys like harmonic. That's the #### that kills you.

Ottawa has Stuetzel, Tkachuk, Batherson, Norris, Chabot and some others. That's a solid foundation. If they get a chance to add some quality veterans in the top of the lineup for a reasonable price, they should probably consider it.

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[TheoFleury]

Canada's teams have reputations for meddling owners, insane fans and overbearing media. These franchises have also hired some of the worst GMs available. Poorly run franchises are not attractive to players. Even if that other stuff went away, it's still canada. High taxes, ####ty weather and no chance for any anonymity at all. A lot of guys don't like that stuff. To simplify it as 'fast tracking' as the reason is pretty disingenuous. There's a whole bunch of reasons. 94-04 was pretty tough for Canadian teams for obvious reasons. To just go back to Montreal as a starting point makes no sense

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[Blaster86]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

Fast tracking re-builds is why no Canadian team has won the cup since the Habs.

Yeeeup.


Every single Canadian market has hyper-critical media that will not allow a team to rebuild without stirring up. Fans will usually take that bait and start to get riled up. Then either owners feel the lack of play-off revenue or feel the empty building or are just themselves giant fans and start to meddle or in some cases all three.

So suddenly a team hits on two or three players (Pettersson and Hughes. Tkachuk, Monahan and Gaudreau. McDavid and Draisatl. Laine and Scheifle. Marner, Reilly and Mathews. Tkachuk and Stutzle. Suzuki and.... well he isn't young but Price) and suddenly every owner goes "we did it, we're there! Sign all the UFAs!" and then every single Canadian team anchors themselves to just dog #### contracts. Some more than others, but they all do it. So instead of taking a few down years and filling up the prospect pool to keep filling in spots with cheap ELCs as your better players get their second contracts, you end up with giant holes because you over-paid vets in the silly season. It's hard as hell to build a cup winning team and Canadian teams make it even harder by constantly trying to compete at times where they need to take whatever core they have out back and have them shot.

I can make snide comments about the Flames needing to take their current core out and shooting them, but the realistic fact is the Canucks are only 4 years removed from finally cutting bait on the lifeless corpse of the 2011 team and only did so because the Sedins retired. If you wait long enough you're going to be able to smack each Canadian team with these jokes, like a vicious circle of suck. Ottawa is just beginning their "We're ready to compete!" When they have no business even looking at that yet. The Canucks are in the middle of it. . Jets are right on the cusp of their downswing where they'll hold on too long. Leafs are probably closer than anyone thinks to it. Oilers are just perpetually there. Who knows what Bergevin is doing in Montreal.

Being a fan of a Canadian team is rough. We will constantly suffer because as fan bases we will never actually sit through a rebuild and support a team financially. So owners will never sit through a full rebuild, they'll always look for band-aids to try and eek into a 8 - 4th spot.

TL;DR: It's all our fault!

[TheoFleury]

Originally Posted by Blaster86

Yeeeup.


Every single Canadian market has hyper-critical media that will not allow a team to rebuild without stirring up. Fans will usually take that bait and start to get riled up. Then either owners feel the lack of play-off revenue or feel the empty building or are just themselves giant fans and start to meddle or in some cases all three.

So suddenly a team hits on two or three players (Pettersson and Hughes. Tkachuk, Monahan and Gaudreau. McDavid and Draisatl. Laine and Scheifle. Marner, Reilly and Mathews. Tkachuk and Stutzle. Suzuki and.... well he isn't young but Price) and suddenly every owner goes "we did it, we're there! Sign all the UFAs!" and then every single Canadian team anchors themselves to just dog #### contracts. Some more than others, but they all do it. So instead of taking a few down years and filling up the prospect pool to keep filling in spots with cheap ELCs as your better players get their second contracts, you end up with giant holes because you over-paid vets in the silly season. It's hard as hell to build a cup winning team and Canadian teams make it even harder by constantly trying to compete at times where they need to take whatever core they have out back and have them shot.

I can make snide comments about the Flames needing to take their current core out and shooting them, but the realistic fact is the Canucks are only 4 years removed from finally cutting bait on the lifeless corpse of the 2011 team and only did so because the Sedins retired. If you wait long enough you're going to be able to smack each Canadian team with these jokes, like a vicious circle of suck. Ottawa is just beginning their "We're ready to compete!" When they have no business even looking at that yet. The Canucks are in the middle of it. . Jets are right on the cusp of their downswing where they'll hold on too long. Leafs are probably closer than anyone thinks to it. Oilers are just perpetually there. Who knows what Bergevin is doing in Montreal.

Being a fan of a Canadian team is rough. We will constantly suffer because as fan bases we will never actually sit through a rebuild and support a team financially. So owners will never sit through a full rebuild, they'll always look for band-aids to try and eek into a 8 - 4th spot.

TL;DR: It's all our fault!

2013 was the most excited I've seen this fan base since 2004. Fans will embrace rebuilds. Canadian fans are actually pretty knowledgeable about the game and its cyclical nature. It's the owners fault imo. Nothing else matters but that playoff gate revenue. Fans hate that ####

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[Blaster86]

Originally Posted by TheoFleury

2013 was the most excited I've seen this fan base since 2004. Fans will embrace rebuilds. Canadian fans are actually pretty knowledgeable about the game and its cyclical nature. It's the owners fault imo. Nothing else matters but that playoff gate revenue. Fans hate that ####

Oh fans understand the cyclical nature and don't stop cheering for teams. We do stop paying the $200 required to go see a game, when we know they team's more likely to get #### kicked.




edit- also, as Canadians, I think we severely overrate the intelligence of the average fan.

[TheoFleury]

Originally Posted by Blaster86

Oh fans understand the cyclical nature and don't stop cheering for teams. We do stop paying the $200 required to go see a game, when we know they team's more likely to get #### kicked.

When there's no hope. If the team is bad but making shortsighted moves that are obviously aimed at just getting in... well people notice that

People will pay to see young, exciting, hardworking players with potential... It's actually an easy sell imo

What they don't want to pay to watch is a collection of average players who are overpaid that have no hope of improving and have no chance of delivering. What's the point in that?

Get a good GM with a vision to build a hockey team from the ground up. Fans actually love that. Who doesn't like watching young players come in and grow right in front of your eyes?

The caveat is you need a good GM with a plan that he can sell the fanbase on... and he has to stick with it. Seems that is really tough to find. Probably an ownership thing

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[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by Blaster86

...Being a fan of a Canadian team is rough. We will constantly suffer because as fan bases we will never actually sit through a rebuild and support a team financially. So owners will never sit through a full rebuild, they'll always look for band-aids to try and eek into a 8 - 4th spot.

TL;DR: It's all our fault!

I have come to accept this over the last few years, and find I am actually a much happier person as a result of this enlightenment. People who get irrationally angry and frustrated because their favourite hockey team is not building like they think they should strike me as fairly miserable. It is much better to accept that this is the culture: this is how it goes in Canada precisely because of what Blaster86 has pointed out above. The truth of the matter is this: a Canadian team is not going to win a Stanley Cup in the near future, and this because team owners and their managers are far too frequently too impatient to see through a proper rebuild to its completion.

It won't happen in Vancouver; not in Calgary; not in Edmonton (hahahahaha!); not in that other terrible city—the name of which I cannot remember; not in Toronto; not in Ottawa; not in Montreal. This is our lot—so why not just enjoy what we have? Glorious, exciting, dramatic, fast and intense professional hockey.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by TheoFleury

When there's no hope. If the team is bad but making shortsighted moves that are obviously aimed at just getting in... well people notice that

People will pay to see young, exciting, hardworking players with potential... It's actually an easy sell imo

It is an easy sell for a year our two or three. But rebuilds are long, arduous, often plagued by more steps back than steps forward, and fans as a group are far, FAR more impatient than your average CalgaryPucker.

What they don't want to pay to watch is a collection of average players who are overpaid that have no hope of improving and have no chance of delivering. What's the point in that?

There are certainly fans out there who won't pay for this, but I think you are drastically over-rating the more casual, less-invested fans, which form a much larger and more valuable segment of the market.

Get a good GM with a vision to build a hockey team from the ground up. Fans actually love that. Who doesn't like watching young players come in and grow right in front of your eyes?

The caveat is you need a good GM with a plan that he can sell the fanbase on... and he has to stick with it. Seems that is really tough to find. Probably an ownership thing

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That is a big part of it, but not all of it. Success in the NHL takes a very long time, often proceeded through fits and starts, and requires a judicious sampling of luck. It is a near impossibility to plan on being bad enough at the right time, and then to attain the right odds in the right draft to select the right player. Pittsburgh did not plan to draft Sidney Crosby. Washington did not plan to draft Alex Ovechkin. Tampa did not plan to draft Victor Hedman. They were all incredibly fortunate to add these players when they did for free.

[GreenLantern2814]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

I have come to accept this over the last few years, and find I am actually a much happier person as a result of this enlightenment. People who get irrationally angry and frustrated because their favourite hockey team is not building like they think they should strike me as fairly miserable. It is much better to accept that this is the culture: this is how it goes in Canada precisely because of what Blaster86 has pointed out above. The truth of the matter is this: a Canadian team is not going to win a Stanley Cup in the near future, and this because team owners and their managers are far too frequently too impatient to see through a proper rebuild to its completion.

It won't happen in Vancouver; not in Calgary; not in Edmonton (hahahahaha!); not in that other terrible city—the name of which I cannot remember; not in Toronto; not in Ottawa; not in Montreal. This is our lot—so why not just enjoy what we have? Glorious, exciting, dramatic, fast and intense professional hockey.

That terrible city who’s name escapes you has probably done the best job of all the Canadian franchises, when it comes to patient, prudent roster building and team construction.

I’d hire Chevaldayoff to run the Flames in a heartbeat.

[TheoFleury]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

It is an easy sell for a year our two or three. But rebuilds are long, arduous, often plagued by more steps back than steps forward, and fans as a group are far, FAR more impatient than your average CalgaryPucker.





There are certainly fans out there who won't pay for this, but I think you are drastically over-rating the more casual, less-invested fans, which form a much larger and more valuable segment of the market.





That is a big part of it, but not all of it. Success in the NHL takes a very long time, often proceeded through fits and starts, and requires a judicious sampling of luck. It is a near impossibility to plan on being bad enough at the right time, and then to attain the right odds in the right draft to select the right player. Pittsburgh did not plan to draft Sidney Crosby. Washington did not plan to draft Alex Ovechkin. Tampa did not plan to draft Victor Hedman. They were all incredibly fortunate to add these players when they did for free.

Appreciate the response, I respect that POV. I guess what I'm getting at is you at least have to adopt the right philosophy from the outset and stick with it. What I see in Calgary (IMO) right now is a GM who doesn't think more than one season ahead and doesn't seem to have a plan to escape this holding pattern. It's not acceptable to keep doing the same stuff over and over, tinkering mostly on the fringes of your roster, and actually expecting different results. Fans are a mix of angry and apathetic mostly. Hope has largely left the building. Soooo... how do you fix that?

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[Jiri Hrdina]

Originally Posted by GreenLantern2814

That terrible city who’s name escapes you has probably done the best job of all the Canadian franchises, when it comes to patient, prudent roster building and team construction.

I’d hire Chevaldayoff to run the Flames in a heartbeat.

I agree. They were able to use pure happiness of the fan base to have a team back to have a very patient re-build. Though there was a time where the fans were getting upset with the lack of more aggressive movements. But they are now set up to compete for a number of years. Which should be the goal. You need several cracks and a long contention window.

[TheoFleury]

Originally Posted by GreenLantern2814

That terrible city who’s name escapes you has probably done the best job of all the Canadian franchises, when it comes to patient, prudent roster building and team construction.



I’d hire Chevaldayoff to run the Flames in a heartbeat.

Ya he's actually done a pretty good job. Scared to make a trade sometimes but when your scouts are finding quality players in the draft all the time, I guess you don't need to as much. It was remarkable how he managed to turn that defense from top 5 to bottom 10 pretty much overnight though.

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[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by TheoFleury

Appreciate the response, I respect that POV. I guess what I'm getting at is you at least have to adopt the right philosophy from the outset and stick with it. What I see in Calgary (IMO) right now is a GM who doesn't think more than one season ahead and doesn't seem to have a plan to escape this holding pattern. It's not acceptable to keep doing the same stuff over and over, tinkering mostly on the fringes of your roster, and actually expecting different results. Fans are a mix of angry and apathic mostly. Hope has largely left the building. Soooo... how do you fix that?

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Well, I think your read on the GM is off, and I don't think there is necessarily anything to "fix." The team will either make a seismic-shifting trade like for Jack Eichel, or they will follow the natural course of team competitiveness and enter a rebuild in a few years. Unlike a lot of posters, I happen to think that the cycles cannot really be manufactured, and need to run their courses in order to see meaningful change. The cycles are products of time and random circumstances. As far as I can see, every "rebuild" over the last twenty years has been a matter of course, and not a result of planning.

I know I see things much differently than a lot of posters here, so take it for whatever it is worth.