from Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet,
- Sportico confirmed Tuesday what a lot of us suspected, that the Ottawa Senators are preparing for a sale.
The NHL has tiptoed around this inevitability since Eugene Melnyk died last March — both out of sensitivity to his daughters and the practicality of the situation. Sportico valued the team at $655M, but that’s a lowball....
- St. Louis GM Doug Armstrong played human shield for his team on Tuesday, giving them a day off from annoying reporters after five straight losses. “It's 10 per cent of the season, so I don't want to overreact, but we certainly can't underreact too,” he said. One of the first things he did was back coach Craig Berube. That’s relevant because Armstrong waited a little longer than many of his peers would before extending Berube last season.
“I told the players the coach is not going anywhere because he came from the American Hockey League where he coached young players and made them better, and he coached veteran players and made them win here. So he can do both.”...
- I don’t believe Toronto’s brain trust is in any rush to make a coaching change, and the preference is not to. Sheldon Keefe and Mike Babcock are making around $7M this season, but it goes beyond the finances. There is recognition, however, that if things don’t get back on track, decisions could get made for them.
The team is 75 per cent owned by telecoms, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned in eight years of working at one, it’s that they don’t like people to be comfortable when things aren’t going well. Wayne Simmonds going down to AHL Toronto to make room for Pontus Holmberg screams like some kind of paper move, because if Simmonds was going to the AHL for any length of time, it would be a much bigger story. We’ll see what comes out of it.
more on the first two topics plus other Thoughts...
via Elliotte Friedman tweet,
Still branded as 32 Thoughts, but this time it's 23. Aiming for shorter bursts twice per week. Hope it's acceptable to the audience:
The sale of the Sens has me feeling a little mixed. All these years, Melnyk was criticized for being super cheap and not wanting to spend on the team. They routinely lost talented players because they wouldn't surround them with enough other talented players. Then ironically, Eugene passes, they spend money on players, and are talking about selling.
I can see the business tactic here to spend more money, increase the value of the team, and sell it. But it's strange to do that after Eugene passes, especially when he had been so adamant about not spending money.
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