The past half-decade has been traumatic for Ottawa Senators fans. We went from witnessing our favorite team fall one goal short of making the Stanley Cup Final to seeing it fall into complete disarray from the moment the first Matt Duchene trade took place.
There were signs that the team could regress significantly the year after their Conference Final appearance, but we never could have predicted the off-ice antics and embarrassment from 2017 to 2022.
From uber-gate, to Melnyk threatening to move the team, a promise of unparalleled success, and several declarations that the rebuild was over (it never was), this fanbase has taken its fair share of punches over the years.
This year it looks like the Sens could finally be coming out the other side (despite a very middling start). New ownership is here, and the dark days of the Melnyk era should be over. The years of being an off-ice embarrassment are over (even if it’s still up in the air for the on-ice product). It’s for that reason that it’s felt like Sens fans have been in a fever dream for the past week. Fortunately, this week should see the stink of the Melnyk era finally erased.
The Pinto Scandal
The start of the regular season has been mixed for the Sens. They currently sit with a 4-4 record and have looked like very different teams from game to game. Nonetheless, there’s still reason to be optimistic. Unfortunately, before the season even started, Sens fans were forced to watch as their team entered training camp, preseason, and eventually the start of the season without Shane Pinto signed.
At one point, it looked like Pinto was going to sign after he was spotted in Ottawa around the start of October. However, after a few days, he flew back to his hometown. As it turns out, this was because of an investigation around a legal betting account he owned. Pinto has since been suspended 41 games (retroactive to the first game of the regular season) for violating the NHL’s betting rules.
While Pinto breaking the betting rules isn’t the fault of anyone in the Sens organization, there are some fans that are quick to forgive GM Pierre Dorion for his cap mismanagement because of this scandal. However, it has been made clear by reports from several insiders that the Dorion and the Ottawa Senators were not made aware of this investigation until early October. So, failing to get Pinto signed after signing Tarasenko and trading for Kubalik is fully on Dorion’s shoulders. It wasn’t a master plan to bring in these players and not sign Pinto. It was a cap management failure.
The Dadonov Trade Situation
Evgenii Dadonov wasn’t a Sen for long. He signed a three-year deal with the team in 2020, but only spent the bubble season with the team. The only memory most fans will have from his time with the team would be his contribution to the Sens’ massive comeback win over Toronto.
Dadonov was traded to Vegas in the summer of 2021 for Nick Holden and a draft pick. It was a pretty standard trade, and nothing seemed out of the ordinary. However, Vegas then tried to trade Dadonov to Anaheim at the trade deadline in 2022. Seems pretty normal, but the only problem was Dadonov had a limited no-trade clause, and Anaheim was on the list. Vegas insisted Dadonov had not submitted his no-trade list, but Dadonov’s agent fought the situation, and as it turned out, he had submitted his no-trade list, and the trade was voided. At the time it looked like the fault of Vegas. It looked like they were trying to force Dadonov to accept a trade to a team on his no-trade list. There were some rumors that Ottawa had screwed up the previous trade, but those were dismissed fairly quickly.
Unfortunately, it turns out Vegas has been pursuing justice for this situation for 18 months, and it sounds like the hammer is going to come down on Ottawa sometime this week. The NHL has completed its investigation and found proof that Vegas was given misinformation about Dadonov’s no-trade clause by the Ottawa Senators. Whether it was nefarious, negligence, or incompetence, the fault rests on the shoulders of Pierre Dorion once again. Whether the punishment is a fine or draft pick(s), this gaff should be grounds for firing on its own.
Remove the Stink of the Melnyk Regime Once and For All
I’ve never been a fan of Dorion. From the moment he made the Brassard for Zibanejad trade back in 2016, I’ve had little to no faith in him as a GM. He’s shown time and time again that he’s not equipped to handle such a high-level position. Most of the trades he’s made have been either outright bad (see the Brassard trade), unnecessary risks (the first DeBrincat trade), or severely luck based in their result (the Karlsson trade). Obviously, not every move he’s made over the years has been bad, but very few have been good.
So many fans point to drafting as Dorion’s biggest strength, and that’s probably true, but even that isn’t as good as it looks. Yes, the first round of the 2020 draft looks like an all-timer. Stützle was an obvious pick, but he went out on a limb drafting Sanderson that high, and getting Greig late in the first round looks like a steal. You have to give him credit for that. However, the next year he got high on his own supply and drafted Tyler Boucher 10th overall. Even with Dorion’s biggest strengths, for every hit he has, he has several obvious misses that most people could’ve told him weren’t going to work out. He drafted Pinto in the second round in 2019, but his first-round picks in 2018 and 2019 (Jacob Bernard-Docker and Lassi Thompson) look like busts.
All of this is to say, there has been reason to fire Dorion based on his track record for years. However, now that Dorion’s incompetence could result in the team losing a first-round pick, it’s no longer acceptable to keep him employed with the team. Even if new ownership brings in a middling GM, at least firing Dorion shows that incompetence is no longer acceptable. It also makes it easier to fire DJ Smith and bring in an NHL-caliber coach.
This week has forced Sens fans to relive some of their darkest memories from the past five years. It’s been a fever dream, but one that could truly mark the end of the Melnyk era. When Andlauer bought the team, it was reasonable for him not to make any drastic changes before he got his bearing. However, with how this week has played out, he has the perfect excuse to get rid of the last remaining pieces of the Melnyk era. Cut out the malignancies and start fresh.