There is 2 things to understand when comparing Murray and Dorion
- Salary cap has evolved. Murray also looked very restricted by budget issues but it didn't look as major back then when the cap was (much) lower.
- Melnyk is a PR disaster, Murray kept him in check. Now Melnyk is more central to the franchise.
The team peaked 2002-2007 but what was he really left with?
Alfredsson? Alfie was kept until he was 41 y/o, played 1 year elsewhere then retired
Heatley? He was kept 2 more years but then asked for a trade publicly, which put the team in a tough spot but the Sens dodged a huge bullet there because Heatley was primed for a steep decline 2 years, making current Ryan's contract like a bargain. They got younger cheaper Michalek who was a good Senator for years.
Spezza? He was kept 7 more years and was traded older 2-3 years before his decline too
Fisher? Got a 1st and a 3rd for him
Vermette? Got Leclaire and a 2nd, which turned in Lehner, which turned in Colin White.
Meszaros? Traded him for Kuba, Picard and a 1st. Meszaros is a bit similar to Ceci actually, fast start to his NHL career, then became "average". Let's see if Dorion can get that kind of package for Ceci
Phillips? Neil? Kept until retirement
Volchenkov? Kept him 3 more years, good decision to not extend him, he ended up bought up halfway through his next contract
Redden? kept him 1 year but declined faster than Heatley. Good decision to let him go.
Schaefer? Preissing? They were out of the league very fast
Emery? Gerber? no comment needed.
So what were those magical assets that Murray started with? Thing is the
Sens had a terrible prospect pool. I Suggest you compare the prospect pool he had in 2007 vs the one Dorion had in 2016...
Drafting (and developping) is the most important thing for a NHL franchise and even more for a smaller market like Ottawa who is really not a desired destination for UFAs and who is operating on a smaller budget so they need good young players on ELC or RFA contracts.
I'll copy/paste a post that I have made in the past regarding this subject :
"There's absolutely nobody I miss more right now than Bryan Murray in my non-personal life. His teams were competitive with awful coaching and awful goaltending (until Anders0n). He had to deal with a lot of drama out of his control (Emery off-ice issues, Heatley disgruntled primadonna who put the team in a very bad spot to trade him (Murray still managed to get a top asset like Michalek), Spezza that can't deal with Canadian market pressure, Corvo asking to be traded out of a Canadian market, Redden sudden fall off a cliff after the death of his mother, etc). He also had to deal with budget restraints, even though the cap evolved, the Sens were not able to follow the dance (sounds familiar?). There's a reason he had a great reputation and was so much respected in the NHL community.
It's a results oriented business so let's take a look at it. After a very successful stint as a coach for the Senators (100-46-18 record for 2005-06 & 2006-07, winning 4 rounds in just 2 years, reaching the SCF), he was the Sens GM from 2007-08 to 2015-16. Here are some team stats for that period of time :
- Team record : 339-278-87
- 19th (out of 32 teams) in P% with 0.543
- Made the playoffs 5 times out of 9 years, winning 1 round (12-21 record)
- 2.74 GF/GP, 13th (out of 32 teams)
- 2.83 GA/GP, 22nd (out of 32 teams)
Those results are not great but they're average, there's no way to look at it and say it was "disastrous" (except if you have irrational bias) and even more considering the contexts he had to deal with (budget and players issues). I always blamed him for not hiring better and more experienced coaching staff, but how much could he really spend on that anyway?
But all that being said, the most important issue was the prospect pool that he had at the beginning of his tenure.
Prospects of 2007
1. Nick Foligno
2. Brian Lee
3. Kaspars Daugavins
4. Josh Hennessy
5. Brian Elliot
6. Igor Mirnov
7. Ilya Zubov
8. Cody Bass
9. Tomas Kudelka
10. Vitaly Anikeyenko
Prospects of 2006
1. D Brian Lee
2. F Alexei Kaigorodov
3. F Josh Hennessy
4. F Nick Foligno
5. F Igor Mirnov
6. D Kirill Lyamin
7. G Jeff Glass
8. F Ilya Zubov
9. D Michal Barinka
10. D Vitaly Anikeyenko
11. F Arttu Luttinen
12. F Kaspars Daugavins
13. F Shawn Weller
14. G Kelly Guard
15. F Alexander Nikulin
16. D Tomas Kudelka
17. G Brian Elliott
18. F Cody Bass
19. D Eric Gryba
That's absolutely awful. Out of all these guys, only Foligno and Elliott had decent NHL careers.
He's also the reason why the team had so much success in 2016-17, he's the one who built that team, that Dorion (following Melnyk orders) managed to destroy in not even a year.
From 2008 to 2016 (9 drafts), Murray and his staff drafted :
Erik Karlsson
Mark Stone
Thomas Chabot
Mika Zibanejad
Mike Hoffman
Ryan Dzingel
Jakob Silfverberg
Jean-Gabriel Pageau
Cody Ceci
Robin Lehner
Zack Smith
Jared Cowen
Chris Wideman
Mark Borowiecki
Stefan Noesen
Patrick Wiercioch
Shane Prince
Marcus Sorensen
Curtis Lazar
Derek Grant
Fredrik Claesson
Matt Puempel
Max McCormick
As well as those guys who are still prospects :
Christian Wolanin
Filip Chlapik
Colin White
Christian Jaros
Marcus Hogberg
Gabriel Gagne
Ben Harpur
Francis Perron
Joey Daccord
Andreas Englund
If Muckler had just 50% of that draft success, the Sens wouldn't have declined in the first place. Players regress, get injured, get older or just leave for all kind of reasons. A market like Ottawa, who is probably among the least desired destinations for UFAs, need to be able to inject talented youth when needed, something Murray didn't have the luxury to do thanks to Muckler awful drafting and trading."