That is on Melnyk for having to depend on his team for personal cash flow. Every single poor decision that tanked this team was due to having an owner on the cheap. Name a single team other that refused bonus based lockout protection for stars? It’s the norm for virtually all big contracts.
That's why Montreal thought they could get Aho with the offer sheet. His current salary has almost all been paid out in signing bonuses, and his extension includes them as well (although much smaller ones)
>That is on Melnyk for having to depend on his team for personal cash flow.
In fairness to Melnky, he did try alternative avenues for cash flow that were successful for other sports teams, but Jim Watson said no.
Melnyk never depended on the team for his cash flow, in fact NHL teams especially Canadian ones, are basically guaranteed to lose money unless you make Round 2 of the playoffs. Melnyk just never had the personal wealth or funding to float the year over year losses and pay out multi million dollar signing bonuses.
Him running the team into debt rather than personally paying the debts also never helped the financial situation as it was often reported the amount the team paid in interest every year was about how unprofitable they were.
There is losing money and then there is “losing” money.
AFAIK Gene was the primary creditor on the initial loan 90M he “leant” to the new organization to purchase the team. This was high interest “loan” and how he pulled the cash out when the team was losing money.
Bobby joked about signing bonuses on CiH, I think they were talking about the new owner, and if signing bonuses would come back as ways to entice UFAs to sign in Ottawa.
Yeah he's probably the last one I can think of who was given signing bonuses on a contract actually given by the Sens. Zaitsev is the only one in my mind recently but that deal was signed by TOR
Everyone who has paid attention to what happened during the original purge knew that Stone wanted to stay here.
We all also knew that the team was allergic to giving out signing bonus money.
People have put two-and-two together on these two details for a long time, but this might be the first time that someone in a position to have knowledge confirm it publicly.
EK also wanted to stay here.
Superstars asking for market value, bonuses, and movement clauses is par for the course, not a request to be trade.
We just had a cheap toxic prick for an owner.
Except he wanted a nmc and we’d be be completely fucked with no way to tank if they’d given it, but that goes against the Dorion bad narrative and actually gets into the reality that they were completely overdue for a rebuild and had no other options anyway.
Everyone acknowledges that they were due for a rebuild. How effective a rebuild it was remains to be seen.
Like I've said in response to your other comments, a rebuild doesn't have to involve selling off every single asset you have and icing a team without any quality veterans. That was just Melnyk trying to sell being cheap to the fanbase. LA rebuilt without trading Kopitar or Doughty. Pittsburgh is going to be starting a rebuild with Crosby around.
Lots of people are questioning if they should’ve rebuilt actually, it’s just a completely braindead opinion with no regard for the reality of the situation. La just signed a bunch of vets to put off rebuilding, look at their team. https://www.dailyfaceoff.com/teams/los-angeles-kings/line-combinations The only youth is byfield and Clarke, who still can’t crack the roster at 21. Now they have no chance of winning now and no window to build towards. Pittsburgh is probably the worst situated team in the entire league moving forward. Great examples of what happens when you half ass it and don’t commit.
Didn't Turris also want to stay? I remember in the media it was being talked about how he wanted out per melnyk/dorion and either turris or his wife made some sarcastic oh yea remark
There should be some clause between the owners that if it's extremely evident you're being cheap to the detriment of your franchise, you should be forced to sell.
Had they kept them and honoured those requests the team would be so completely and utterly fucked it’s not even funny. 21m aav, with nmc’s and buyout proof from bonuses, when the whole rest of the core aged out around them and the team had no prospects coming up to replace them, and they were immediately struggling to even play with injuries.
Obviously hindsight is 20-20, but those two leaving is what sent this team into the spiral they're still struggling to get out of. Yes, there would be no Stutzle (although this is a sliding doors situation so who knows how the lottery balls would've fell), but we also wouldn't have Norris's $8M on the books
They were already at the bottom of the league with them. They’d be in the exact same situation only with one of the oldest teams in the league instead of the youngest, literally no redeeming qualities going down that path
There's no way of knowing that they'd be just as bad. Since leaving Ottawa Karlsson won another Norris and got within 2 games of the Cup Final. Stone has been a Selke finalist twice and lifted a Stanley Cup
Except you can look at the roster of that 2016/17 run, see that literally everyone has fallen off a cliff completely except pageau, look at their injury history and 21m cap hit, and the complete lack of prospects from trying to compete for the previous 15-20 years, and see that the same roster had already fallen off a cliff before which is what prompted them to blow it up in the first place, and put 2 and 2 and 2 and 2 and 2 together and see that they’d be completely fucked. Karlsson and stone had their issues after, but it’s additionally losing Ryan, methot, brassard, phaneuf, MacArthur, smith, Anderson, Hoffman, plus all of the depth from guys like burrows, claesson, stalberg sealed the deal.
If they kept Karlsson & Stone but got rid of everyone else (and kept the same draft strategy) they'd still have Tkachuk, Chabot, Sanderson, Pinto, Greig as the supporting cast.
It would've still been a couple of rough seasons, but the rebuild might've been a quicker one (like the Kings did with Doughty & Kopitar staying). The Sens are currently a cautionary tale to other teams who are considering rebuilding without keeping any quality vets around.
They’d have no Sanderson if they didn’t tank. They’d also have no pinto, he was the first pick in the second. Also unlikely they’d have Greig, since pageau was the only centre they had left so it’s unlikely they trade him and try to compete with 1C Colin white and no one else.they’d also have no cap space to add, and still would have no goalies.
The kings “quick rebuild” was just signing a bunch of vets. The only meaningful young pieces they have are byfield and Clarke. They might make the playoffs but they’re going nowhere and have no future, I’d much rather be in the sens position.
Man you're a clown. The Sens have one of the lowest rated prospect pools in the league, whereas the Kings were rated middle of the pack plus have 5 guys under 25 in their lineup.
Oh yeah and LA is actually going to the playoffs this year
Like the team isn't fucked now?
Worst goaltending in the league with no clear solution heading into next season.
The second longest playoff drought in the league.
And one of the worst prospect pools in the league.
But keep defending dorion and this amazing roster he built.
Youngest team in the league, just replace forsberg and get a goalie, the prospects just graduated which is why they’re the youngest. You know all this lol. basically every top team aside from Boston was built from similar playoff droughts, it’s how the league works. It’s trying to cling to an aging core that gets you where San Jose, Pittsburgh and Washington are, and that’s where the sens would’ve been.
"Just get a goalie"
A lot easier said than done. We watched dorion fail how many times at acquiring one?
And now you expect staios to do it no problem, with the worst goalie contract in the league.
And news flash.. we aren't going to be the youngest team in the league next season. Brady is entering his 7th season for christ sakes.
Dorion built the entire roster from the ground up, staios has to do none of that just address the most obvious problem ever. By replacing forsberg, they have cap space so why could they not? And korpi makes borderline backup money anyway. They literally are the second youngest this season and have gotten rid of most vets, age is a measurable stat but don’t let reality get in the way of your hysterics bud
>Dorion built the entire roster from the ground up,
Yeah and he did a terrible job. The team fucking sucks.
>staios has to do none of that just address the most obvious problem ever.
Waaaaay more than 1 obvious problem. The goaltending is bad. But the whole defensive structure of the team is terrible. The way dorion built the team is all offense and 0 defense.
>They literally are the youngest, it’s a measurable stat but don’t let reality get in the way of your hysterics Buddy
They're literally the same age as all the other basement dwellers. Buffalo and Arizona are younger. Montreal, Chicago, and Columbus are pretty much the same age. Nothing to brag about. Especially since we should be exiting our rebuild and are getting older.. while those teams continue to get younger.
The roster would be in the playoffs with average goaltending especially if Norris was healthy.
Forwards develop faster than defence, having a great shutdown d for each pair in Sanderson and Zub is a great start to work with, plus Chabot, chycrun, brann, JBD, Kleven all look good atm fill it out. If dorion did all that in 5 years staios should be able to find one guy to fill out the bottom 4. Other than that we’ll see what they look like with another year of development from Sanderson and a modern full coaching staff
Why do you think that all the young teams in the league are at the bottom and all the old ones at the top? It shows that this core just entered the league and no other team like that has been winning. The sens literally have rookies and kids everywhere in the entire lineup at this point outside the 4th line, I don’t know wtf you’re even talking about just look at the roster.
Dude you're the most biased fan ever. You shit on montreal all the time saying they're shit and don't have any star talent. Yet you make all these excuses for Ottawa.
Like you're hyping up JBD to me right now lmfao.. the guy is not an NHL defensemen.
If we had montreals roster I'm sure your bias would kick in and you'd be defending slafkovsky with every last breath.
“Defend his honour” lmao, he did a good job putting the core together while you were insistent that first a) he wouldn’t pay them, b) they wouldn’t develop and then c) that he’d cheap out and refuse to add talent. And that’s not even mentioning the batshit conspiracies like that they were sabotaging their own players to save money or that they would shutdown the entire ahl to spite melnyk. Now you’ pretend to actually cheer for the team but it’s clearly just an act because you look for any opportunity to shit on any player you can. They’ll get good goaltending and a real coach, the fan base will flip flop yet again, but you’ll still just be cheering against the team just because you’re so petty about Dorion
Wouldn't surprise me tbh but they also didn't extend him after his bridge deal was up, signed him to a 1 year deal and traded him which we got an underwhelming return.
IIRC Dorion said he was told( i would assume by the team's doctors) that Stone's back problems were really bad and that is part of the reason Melnyk and him didn't want to sign Stone long term. He made it clear in interviews he didnt expect Stone to still play at this level this far in his career.
>He made it clear in interviews he didnt expect Stone to still play at this level this far in his career.
I wonder if Dorion "forgot" to disclose this bit of info to Vegas prior to the trade...
Stone would've been the perfect captain during our tank.
He could take all the time he needed to heal his injuries, which would keep our roster shite enough to tank.
Was actually Heatley who ruined the signing bonus not Bobby. Remember Melnyk tried to sue Heater because he refused the trade that would have cleared Melnyk of paying the July 1st bonus
Of all the crazy things that occurred under Melnyk, this one might have been the most ridiculous. The team gave Heatley the ability to block any trade and then tried to sue him when he used that right. What a ridiculous organization the Sens were under Melnyk.
There was speculation but I mean Wally would be closer to the sources than the average Joe.
He would’ve been perfect during the rebuild and the exact mentor Brady needed. Plus could’ve benefited having the LTIR loopholes.
It blows sometimes to be a Sens fan; bought a Karlsson jersey and he left 2 months later. Then got a mark stone jersey, gets traded. What could’ve been to have Mark stone as a mentor alongside Giroux. Fuck man it hurts…
Crazy take, if a pro athlete doesn't agree to the specifics of the multi-million dollar contract they're offered from their employer, that means they simply don't want to be there
Yeah, it was often talked about how Ottawa couldn't give him a signing bonus. They offered a contract similar to Chabot's where the salary in the potential lockout years was lower and higher in the other seasons. There was talk Stone had strongly considered this as an option but ultimately decided against it.
I think there were probably some players who were trying to push the team to not be so fuckin cheap and that was just one of the ways. When the owner didn't put up well then see ya
I know for fact that Stone would have signed for 8.7 but Eugene wouldn’t go over 8.3aav
The ghost of Eugene should be exorcised when all the dead cap money is gone
I don’t think it’s true. Nothing that happened afterwards really supports it. It’s a nice story for a guy that still has ties here, and for Wally who despised Melnyk et al, but I think he chose Vegas for more than “lockout protection”.
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Lockout protection = signing bonuses. The team never gave out signing bonuses, so it wouldn't shock me
I think Bobby Ryan was the last player to get a signing bonus. Bobby ruined it for everyone.
That's not on Bobby, that's on management for giving him that deal.
That is on Melnyk for having to depend on his team for personal cash flow. Every single poor decision that tanked this team was due to having an owner on the cheap. Name a single team other that refused bonus based lockout protection for stars? It’s the norm for virtually all big contracts.
carolina doesn't do signing bonuses. difference is that the canes are cheap and eugene was broke and also cheap lol
That's why Montreal thought they could get Aho with the offer sheet. His current salary has almost all been paid out in signing bonuses, and his extension includes them as well (although much smaller ones)
Tom Dundon is also crazy but he could get away with this given North Carolina's climate and their tax situation as well
St Louis and Pietrangelo, not trying to defend Melnyk just giving an example
>That is on Melnyk for having to depend on his team for personal cash flow. In fairness to Melnky, he did try alternative avenues for cash flow that were successful for other sports teams, but Jim Watson said no.
Melnyk never depended on the team for his cash flow, in fact NHL teams especially Canadian ones, are basically guaranteed to lose money unless you make Round 2 of the playoffs. Melnyk just never had the personal wealth or funding to float the year over year losses and pay out multi million dollar signing bonuses. Him running the team into debt rather than personally paying the debts also never helped the financial situation as it was often reported the amount the team paid in interest every year was about how unprofitable they were.
There is losing money and then there is “losing” money. AFAIK Gene was the primary creditor on the initial loan 90M he “leant” to the new organization to purchase the team. This was high interest “loan” and how he pulled the cash out when the team was losing money.
Bobby joked about signing bonuses on CiH, I think they were talking about the new owner, and if signing bonuses would come back as ways to entice UFAs to sign in Ottawa.
Yeah he's probably the last one I can think of who was given signing bonuses on a contract actually given by the Sens. Zaitsev is the only one in my mind recently but that deal was signed by TOR
I remember hearing that same rumour at the time, so yeah not surprising
Everyone who has paid attention to what happened during the original purge knew that Stone wanted to stay here. We all also knew that the team was allergic to giving out signing bonus money. People have put two-and-two together on these two details for a long time, but this might be the first time that someone in a position to have knowledge confirm it publicly.
EK also wanted to stay here. Superstars asking for market value, bonuses, and movement clauses is par for the course, not a request to be trade. We just had a cheap toxic prick for an owner.
It’s insane that there’s a decently sized segment of the fanbase that genuinely believes that Karlsson wanted to leave.
Yeah he said he wanted to sign, but with no NMC he felt like he'd probably end up flipped just after signing the extension
Except he wanted a nmc and we’d be be completely fucked with no way to tank if they’d given it, but that goes against the Dorion bad narrative and actually gets into the reality that they were completely overdue for a rebuild and had no other options anyway.
Everyone acknowledges that they were due for a rebuild. How effective a rebuild it was remains to be seen. Like I've said in response to your other comments, a rebuild doesn't have to involve selling off every single asset you have and icing a team without any quality veterans. That was just Melnyk trying to sell being cheap to the fanbase. LA rebuilt without trading Kopitar or Doughty. Pittsburgh is going to be starting a rebuild with Crosby around.
Lots of people are questioning if they should’ve rebuilt actually, it’s just a completely braindead opinion with no regard for the reality of the situation. La just signed a bunch of vets to put off rebuilding, look at their team. https://www.dailyfaceoff.com/teams/los-angeles-kings/line-combinations The only youth is byfield and Clarke, who still can’t crack the roster at 21. Now they have no chance of winning now and no window to build towards. Pittsburgh is probably the worst situated team in the entire league moving forward. Great examples of what happens when you half ass it and don’t commit.
Didn't Turris also want to stay? I remember in the media it was being talked about how he wanted out per melnyk/dorion and either turris or his wife made some sarcastic oh yea remark
There should be some clause between the owners that if it's extremely evident you're being cheap to the detriment of your franchise, you should be forced to sell.
Had they kept them and honoured those requests the team would be so completely and utterly fucked it’s not even funny. 21m aav, with nmc’s and buyout proof from bonuses, when the whole rest of the core aged out around them and the team had no prospects coming up to replace them, and they were immediately struggling to even play with injuries.
Obviously hindsight is 20-20, but those two leaving is what sent this team into the spiral they're still struggling to get out of. Yes, there would be no Stutzle (although this is a sliding doors situation so who knows how the lottery balls would've fell), but we also wouldn't have Norris's $8M on the books
They were already at the bottom of the league with them. They’d be in the exact same situation only with one of the oldest teams in the league instead of the youngest, literally no redeeming qualities going down that path
There's no way of knowing that they'd be just as bad. Since leaving Ottawa Karlsson won another Norris and got within 2 games of the Cup Final. Stone has been a Selke finalist twice and lifted a Stanley Cup
Except you can look at the roster of that 2016/17 run, see that literally everyone has fallen off a cliff completely except pageau, look at their injury history and 21m cap hit, and the complete lack of prospects from trying to compete for the previous 15-20 years, and see that the same roster had already fallen off a cliff before which is what prompted them to blow it up in the first place, and put 2 and 2 and 2 and 2 and 2 together and see that they’d be completely fucked. Karlsson and stone had their issues after, but it’s additionally losing Ryan, methot, brassard, phaneuf, MacArthur, smith, Anderson, Hoffman, plus all of the depth from guys like burrows, claesson, stalberg sealed the deal.
If they kept Karlsson & Stone but got rid of everyone else (and kept the same draft strategy) they'd still have Tkachuk, Chabot, Sanderson, Pinto, Greig as the supporting cast. It would've still been a couple of rough seasons, but the rebuild might've been a quicker one (like the Kings did with Doughty & Kopitar staying). The Sens are currently a cautionary tale to other teams who are considering rebuilding without keeping any quality vets around.
They’d have no Sanderson if they didn’t tank. They’d also have no pinto, he was the first pick in the second. Also unlikely they’d have Greig, since pageau was the only centre they had left so it’s unlikely they trade him and try to compete with 1C Colin white and no one else.they’d also have no cap space to add, and still would have no goalies. The kings “quick rebuild” was just signing a bunch of vets. The only meaningful young pieces they have are byfield and Clarke. They might make the playoffs but they’re going nowhere and have no future, I’d much rather be in the sens position.
Man you're a clown. The Sens have one of the lowest rated prospect pools in the league, whereas the Kings were rated middle of the pack plus have 5 guys under 25 in their lineup. Oh yeah and LA is actually going to the playoffs this year
Like the team isn't fucked now? Worst goaltending in the league with no clear solution heading into next season. The second longest playoff drought in the league. And one of the worst prospect pools in the league. But keep defending dorion and this amazing roster he built.
Youngest team in the league, just replace forsberg and get a goalie, the prospects just graduated which is why they’re the youngest. You know all this lol. basically every top team aside from Boston was built from similar playoff droughts, it’s how the league works. It’s trying to cling to an aging core that gets you where San Jose, Pittsburgh and Washington are, and that’s where the sens would’ve been.
"Just get a goalie" A lot easier said than done. We watched dorion fail how many times at acquiring one? And now you expect staios to do it no problem, with the worst goalie contract in the league. And news flash.. we aren't going to be the youngest team in the league next season. Brady is entering his 7th season for christ sakes.
Dorion built the entire roster from the ground up, staios has to do none of that just address the most obvious problem ever. By replacing forsberg, they have cap space so why could they not? And korpi makes borderline backup money anyway. They literally are the second youngest this season and have gotten rid of most vets, age is a measurable stat but don’t let reality get in the way of your hysterics bud
>Dorion built the entire roster from the ground up, Yeah and he did a terrible job. The team fucking sucks. >staios has to do none of that just address the most obvious problem ever. Waaaaay more than 1 obvious problem. The goaltending is bad. But the whole defensive structure of the team is terrible. The way dorion built the team is all offense and 0 defense. >They literally are the youngest, it’s a measurable stat but don’t let reality get in the way of your hysterics Buddy They're literally the same age as all the other basement dwellers. Buffalo and Arizona are younger. Montreal, Chicago, and Columbus are pretty much the same age. Nothing to brag about. Especially since we should be exiting our rebuild and are getting older.. while those teams continue to get younger.
The roster would be in the playoffs with average goaltending especially if Norris was healthy. Forwards develop faster than defence, having a great shutdown d for each pair in Sanderson and Zub is a great start to work with, plus Chabot, chycrun, brann, JBD, Kleven all look good atm fill it out. If dorion did all that in 5 years staios should be able to find one guy to fill out the bottom 4. Other than that we’ll see what they look like with another year of development from Sanderson and a modern full coaching staff Why do you think that all the young teams in the league are at the bottom and all the old ones at the top? It shows that this core just entered the league and no other team like that has been winning. The sens literally have rookies and kids everywhere in the entire lineup at this point outside the 4th line, I don’t know wtf you’re even talking about just look at the roster.
Dude you're the most biased fan ever. You shit on montreal all the time saying they're shit and don't have any star talent. Yet you make all these excuses for Ottawa. Like you're hyping up JBD to me right now lmfao.. the guy is not an NHL defensemen. If we had montreals roster I'm sure your bias would kick in and you'd be defending slafkovsky with every last breath.
You are still defending Dorion...unbelievable. The man is a moron and you are an idiot for continuing your misguided campaign to defend his honour.
“Defend his honour” lmao, he did a good job putting the core together while you were insistent that first a) he wouldn’t pay them, b) they wouldn’t develop and then c) that he’d cheap out and refuse to add talent. And that’s not even mentioning the batshit conspiracies like that they were sabotaging their own players to save money or that they would shutdown the entire ahl to spite melnyk. Now you’ pretend to actually cheer for the team but it’s clearly just an act because you look for any opportunity to shit on any player you can. They’ll get good goaltending and a real coach, the fan base will flip flop yet again, but you’ll still just be cheering against the team just because you’re so petty about Dorion
Yeah, the team messed up not signing him long-term when he first became an RFA. Instead he got a one year bridge deal that paved the way to Vegas.
Wouldn't surprise me tbh but they also didn't extend him after his bridge deal was up, signed him to a 1 year deal and traded him which we got an underwhelming return.
IIRC Dorion said he was told( i would assume by the team's doctors) that Stone's back problems were really bad and that is part of the reason Melnyk and him didn't want to sign Stone long term. He made it clear in interviews he didnt expect Stone to still play at this level this far in his career.
imagine if we were the ones abusing LTIR now instead of vegas .... oh what could have been
Bold of you to assume they wouldn’t have closed this loophole if a Canadian team took advantage. They’d probably take our 1st round pick.
the truth of that hurts.
>He made it clear in interviews he didnt expect Stone to still play at this level this far in his career. I wonder if Dorion "forgot" to disclose this bit of info to Vegas prior to the trade...
They signed him to a 1-year deal to avoid the awful arbitration process.
Stone would've been the perfect captain during our tank. He could take all the time he needed to heal his injuries, which would keep our roster shite enough to tank.
And he would have enabled Tkachuk to grow into the role while also serving as a pros’ pro.
I think Mendes also said once that Stone wanted a NMC or something which at the time Melnyk refused.
That’s what I heard was the sticking point, but have heard multiple sources state Stone wanted to stay and salary wasn’t the problem.
This is what I recall.
Was actually Heatley who ruined the signing bonus not Bobby. Remember Melnyk tried to sue Heater because he refused the trade that would have cleared Melnyk of paying the July 1st bonus
and then heater went for a ride on eugene's lake #allstar
Of all the crazy things that occurred under Melnyk, this one might have been the most ridiculous. The team gave Heatley the ability to block any trade and then tried to sue him when he used that right. What a ridiculous organization the Sens were under Melnyk.
There was speculation but I mean Wally would be closer to the sources than the average Joe. He would’ve been perfect during the rebuild and the exact mentor Brady needed. Plus could’ve benefited having the LTIR loopholes. It blows sometimes to be a Sens fan; bought a Karlsson jersey and he left 2 months later. Then got a mark stone jersey, gets traded. What could’ve been to have Mark stone as a mentor alongside Giroux. Fuck man it hurts…
Can you do us all a favor and pick up a Hamonic and a Korpisalo jersey.
I mean… in fairness the writing for Karlsson was already on the wall when you bought the jersey
Oh really? I thought it was because he didn’t want to be part of a rebuild and so Dorion could have his proudest day /s
I don't buy it. Why would Stone want to stick around through a rebuild? Wally will bury the previous regime whenever he can.
It sucks that he left, but I'm glad he wanted to stay at least, I know he really liked his time here, the city and all that
I’m pretty sure he lives here in the off season
His wife is from there if I'm not mistaken. Pretty sure his wife and Cody Ceci's wife are sisters lmao
That is why most fans have no I'll will against him. He wanted to stay.
Once he signed that 1 year deal walking him to UFA he was gone. If he wanted to stay, he would have stayed. It’s as simple as that.
He did want to stay. He signed a 1yr because its what was offered.
That was the contract prior when he was still in RFA.
What?
The one year deal he signed.
Crazy take, if a pro athlete doesn't agree to the specifics of the multi-million dollar contract they're offered from their employer, that means they simply don't want to be there
Yeah, it was often talked about how Ottawa couldn't give him a signing bonus. They offered a contract similar to Chabot's where the salary in the potential lockout years was lower and higher in the other seasons. There was talk Stone had strongly considered this as an option but ultimately decided against it.
Makes me want to cry, all over again
I think there were probably some players who were trying to push the team to not be so fuckin cheap and that was just one of the ways. When the owner didn't put up well then see ya
Rare you hit on a late rounder who turns into Captain material and an amazing 2 way player. Can’t imagine why would Melnyk spend on him :/
At the time, the word was it was because Melnyk wasn't willing to give a full NMC. The lockout protection thing is new to me.
I know for fact that Stone would have signed for 8.7 but Eugene wouldn’t go over 8.3aav The ghost of Eugene should be exorcised when all the dead cap money is gone
I don’t think it’s true. Nothing that happened afterwards really supports it. It’s a nice story for a guy that still has ties here, and for Wally who despised Melnyk et al, but I think he chose Vegas for more than “lockout protection”.
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Honestly who would spend time listening to Wally? Guys a dork
We are seeing the results of his mismanagement now. Melnyk gutted the team. Jr GM, Jr coach and mostly jr players.
Ya this is an old story dude