February 29 2008

Timelines seem to be all the rage right now. Permit me to give you an Ottawa Senators nine-month timeline.

Last June the general manager of the Senators was John Muckler. Under Muckler's leadership the Senators reached the Stanley Cup final. A month after their elimination at the hands of Anaheim the owner of the Senators Eugene Melnyk, apparently dissatisfied with the near miss,, fired Muckler and promoted head coach Bryan Murray to the job.
Murray then decided that a veteran team didn't require a veteran coach and promoted assistant John Paddock to the job.

The Senators then started the season 15-2. the entire front office was wearing itself out patting themselves on the back. The Senators came into Montreal on November 19th and beat the Canadiens 4-2. It seemed clear that the Senators were capable of being runaway winners of the Eastern Conference. From Montreal the Senators went to Buffalo and things began to fall apart. They lost in Buffalo. They lost 7 games in a row and the team has not recovered. Systems set in place by the former coach now turned general manager disintegrated. In panic mode the new coach started to overuse his key players. Goaltender Ray Emery's lack of respect for team
rules went mostly unaddressed. They became a team-divided. Last week the rookie coach was mercifly fired. Friday night the Senators lost first place in their division to the Canadiens.

Many think with team captain Daniel Alfredsson 35 years of age that the Senators may have blown their last shot at a Stanley Cup.

to every action there is a reaction. The domino effect of an owner firing a general manager who had engineered the Dany Heatley trade; drafted Chris Kelly and Andre Meszeros; signed free agent Brian McGratton and hired head coach Bryan Murray to coach a team that reached the Stanley cup final has been a disaster.

Montreal fans will recognize history repeated. Ron Corey, like Senators owner Melnyk was a non-hockey person with just enough information to royally screw things up. It's taken nearly a decade to recover from Ron Corey in Montreal. The fallout from the last nine months in Ottawa probably will have the same longterm effect.