Very doubtful The Bally Sports bankruptcy alone is going to hurt the league wide.

What do you mean?

A lot of the NHL sports teams run through Bally Sports. So with their bankruptcy quite a few teams are going to hurt revenue wise with no TV revenue.

Didn't Bettman say yesterday it would only rise $1mil...

Bettman always over estimates the cap. TV viewer ship is down 24% in the US. A down Canadian dollars also hurts the cap.

Yup the new cap is supposedly $83,500,000 over the $82,500,000 this past season.

He said there's a chance it could rise $4.5 million if the players pay the remainder ($50 million) of their debt back to the owners this year. He didn't say it will happen, just that it could.

Even if it doesn't, he said there's a chance they might make it rise by more than $1 million regardless.

If the cap goes up by 4.5 M$, it's very bad news for Ottawa

They can't get out of their rebuild and every other competitive would improve even more.

It would be good for Ottawa because otherwise we're stuck with Forsberg and Sogaard in net.

Dorion traded Gustavsson for Talbot... We're not going anywhere until the DJ Dorion do their damage

And while you hope they'd find a better solution in net, other teams improving will more than negate any improvement we do

Finally, Forsberg is totally fine. Sogaard has great potential, it's the team system that is utterly flawed, not goaltending

We've been through how many goalies in the last few years? Dozens and it's always the same story, they are left out to dry too often

Sens have the personnel to be a contender right now. Getting Chychrun and Norris for a full season next year will be huge.

I have zero confidence in the GM + coaching staff duo

If they're gone, I'll be hopeful again

I'm not sure what you're expecting from Dorion, he gets you Giroux, Chychrun, DeBrincat leaving no roster holes on paper and you're pissing at him.

I guarantee the Sens would be in the playoffs right now if Norris and Forsberg didn't get injured and Chychrun was here earlier.

- he decided to sink or swim with DJ when it's clear that it's not the right coaching staff

- Trades a 3rd + 7th to get rid of Murray's contract that he overpaid a lot since day 1 as he was already the most injury prone NHL player. Retains 25%, trade Gus for Talbot who makes just 1 M$ less than Murray. The right decision would have been to go with Forsberg/Gustavsson/Murray with Murray at least 50% on IR/LTIR

- Trades Paul for Joseph + 4th, which pisses Connor Brown who then wants out. Brown was traded AFTER we learned that Formenton and/or Batherson were possibly involved in the Team Canada scandal. One injury to Norris, we have a big hole at center and as a result, worst bottom-6 in the NHL, which lowers the efficiency of the whole team (top-6, D squad and goalies)

- Trade for DeBrincat with a 7th OA pick (+2nd + 3rd) when he should have used that asset to get Chychrun who was the real need. With the rest of available AAV, trade for Bjorkstrand or any good 2-way forward

- Lost picks to repair another mistake in Zaitsev. Plus all the dead money affecting the cap and salary expenditure. Del Zotto for example

- Draft Tyler freaking Boucher with a 10th OA pick. Should have drafted Wallstedt (or any other good prospect) or use that pick to acquire D help

- Sign Hamonic and Gambrell instead of leaving these spots and AAV for a real top-4 D-man and a good bottom-6 forward

That's just recent stuff, thing is Dorion has done damage for years, starting with the Zibanejad trade. Asset management and pro scouting has been terrible. Sure, he makes good moves that deflect the attention away from all this but it's not like he never gave good assets for these trades (Karlsson, 7th OA, ~11th OA pick)

A move like Giroux was exactly what this team needed for years but we got lucky there as Giroux wanted to play home. The lack of good vets has hurt the team for years though, now we are surprised the team is often lost on the ice?

1: His hands are probably tied until new ownership comes with coaching.

2: I cannot believe you would rather be paying $6.25 million for Murray then to not have him on the team and pay 25%.

3: The Paul/Joseph trade was a B- move but its not terrible because at least we don't have to pay an often injured third liner until he's 35.

4: This is just being petty, everyone was happy with the trade at the time and I would gladly do it again. I'm sure if Chychrun was on the table for that offer Dorion would have taken it.

5: All of the bad salary moves happened before Melnyk died and all of the fixing up happened after, there's definitely a correlation there.

6: Definitely a head scratcher but we really can't know if it was the right pick for another 4 years.

7: If there was a better player available he would have used the money differently.

1. DJ is a good guy, players like him but he should be an assistant coach. Problem is the GM has not realized for years that in terms of hockey systems, we are severely lacking. A lot of teams are capable of playing reasonably good team defense despite having a lot less talent than us. Playing better team defense also improves your offense. It is holding us back

2. No. Moving from Murray is fine, but retaining 25% + give 2 picks + trading Gus for Talbot makes it horrible asset management overall. Talbot is not even better than Murray (Murray is better when healthy) and makes only 1 M$ less than Murray is making in Toronto. Plus, Murray gives wiggle room due to him being injured at least 50% of the time

3. What? Paul missed 2 games this season, 2 games last season and 0 games in 2020-21. Paul is a vastly superior player and can carry a line and make your bottom-6 much harder to play against. It was reported that his term would have been a few years less in Ottawa.

4. I'm not petty at all, I want to win and while the trade was good in a vacuum, this is not what we needed. Paul + Brown + Chychrun was more what we need than DeBrincat + Joseph + Hamonic

5. We often blame Melnyk (I used to do that) but look at how Dorion spent a LOT of money (Zaitsev, Murray, Gudbranson, Stepan, Dadonov, Tierney, White, Del Zotto, Josh Brown, etc)

6. It would take a miracle for Boucher to just become a Curtis Lazar

7. We traded a 3rd for Hamonic BEFORE the end of the 2021-22 season. He's making 3.0 and should be on the 3rd pair at most. Dorion painted himself in a corner by occupying the spot and money that should have been used towards a better D-man

On your DeBrincat trade point, you say the Sens would be better off having Paul, Brown, and Chychrun over DeBrincat, Joseph and Hamonic but thats just not accurate because the Sens literally have DeBrincat AND Chychrun AND Joseph AND Hamonic.

Tyler Boucher is a long term prospect, most scouts are saying he could be a solid NHL player just not for a few years.

You should have quoted me lol, I have been inactive on CF so I just opened my last notification, which was this thread

No you understood correctly

If we sign DeBrincat to a 8.0+ contract, we're going to complain about this guy and his contract non-stop. Mark my words

I'd take Paul and Brown over DeBrincat and Joseph

Chychrun over Hamonic all season, no Hamonic is addition by subtraction


Boucher is looking like a bust, maybe a 4th liner at some point but like I said, it would take a miracle for Boucher to just become a Curtis Lazar