Player Discussion Ridly Greig (LW) 28th Overall

[ReginKarlssonLehner]

Norris looked great in the AHL at left wing - I have zero doubt he would succeed as a 1LW or 2LW if needed.

Why do people like to flat out make stuff up?

He never played a single game at wing in the AHL.

Started off as 3rd line C and played 2nd line C or 1st.

Never played wing. You ok, Sweatred?

 

[JD1]

I believe Ottawa has the best U-25 (under 25 y/o) talent in the league.

However, ownership and management is the worst in the league IMO, and comfortably.

So the worst mgmt in the league assembled the best u25 talent in the league.

Let that sink in for a minute

That's an HF Hall of Fame contradiction right there

 

[JD1]

You say Greig is not good enough at faceoffs but I can’t figure out what facts you are using to come to that conclusion. There is also a fair bit of analytical evidence that face offs are not nearly as important as many would have you believe.

5 on 5. Not that significant.

On the PP and PK they are huge.

 

[Sweatred]

Why do people like to flat out make stuff up?

He never played a single game at wing in the AHL.

Started off as 3rd line C and played 2nd line C or 1st.

Never played wing. You ok, Sweatred?

I’m not making anything up - I went to a game and he played wing with Brown at Center … any idea on the number of face offs he took that season?

 

[Micklebot]

So the worst mgmt in the league assembled the best u25 talent in the league.

Let that sink in for a minute

That's an HF Hall of Fame contradiction right there

I don't think we have the worst managetgroup but Idk if it's a contradiction to suggest what he did, Edm probably assembled the best under 25 talent in the league at the time when they had Hall, McDavid, Draisaitl, RNH, Nurse and Klefbom all under 25 and their management is terrible.

Bad management can get good young talent, it's getting that talent to develop into a good team that's the tough part.

 

[ReginKarlssonLehner]

I’m not making anything up - I went to a game and he played wing with Brown at Center … any idea on the number of face offs he took that season?

He never played on same line as Brown save for PP.

He alternated wingers with Brown in the form of Abramov, Batherson, Formenton, Carcone and I believe Klimchuk. I watched some games avidly after the fact.

Bottom line, he did not play LW at all. I dont think he ever played left wing.

 

[GCK]

5 on 5. Not that significant.

On the PP and PK they are huge.

Yes that’s absolutely true. The best faceoff guy we have in the system is Kastelic but he’s not a future PP guy. Between Norris, Pinto hopefully and Kastelic I think we are good for special teams draws.

 

[Micklebot]

Yes that’s absolutely true. The best faceoff guy we have in the system is Kastelic but he’s not a future PP guy. Between Norris, Pinto hopefully and Kastelic I think we are good for special teams draws.

Don't forget, Tkachuk takes a ton of PP faceoffs (leads the team by a country mile and happens to be quite good at it), and will likely continue to do so.

If Paul sticks around, he might continue to be a guy taking draws on the PK.

Special teams face-offs don't need to be taken by a center, which is why I don't see face-offs being a big sticking point for whether a prospect ends up being a center for us or not

 

[ReginKarlssonLehner]

Yes that’s absolutely true. The best faceoff guy we have in the system is Kastelic but he’s not a future PP guy. Between Norris, Pinto hopefully and Kastelic I think we are good for special teams draws.

Do you know who's top 5 in the league in faceoffs and over 62%(!!!!!) on PP faceoffs this year?

That's right, home town kid and future Sens saviour: Claude Giroux.

 

[Xspyrit]

So the worst mgmt in the league assembled the best u25 talent in the league.

Let that sink in for a minute

That's an HF Hall of Fame contradiction right there

lol! It has been explained a lot, not my fault if you can't follow...

- Pierre Dorion is an excellent scout, I have always said as such. He wouldn't be where he is today if he wasn't. He deserves some credit for the Sens drafting, never said the opposite.

- However, the key piece for the Sens drafting is Trent Mann, who was not a Dorion hire, but one from his predecessor. Several other scouts were already in place since the scouting department was revamped in 2007. Dorion walked into a very good situation/foundation that Murray built

- Sens drafting is detrimental to any Senators success and this is not something new. That's how you assemble a good U-25 pool. Trading actual good players in their prime can also help (as explained in the 2nd link below)

- You've seen these before? lol if you think that I am not in the vast majority who think Dorion has been subpar as a Sens GM. People opinion usually vary between really bad and the worst. Also, there's plenty of other threads criticizing Dorion, I haven't even read 10% of these

Management - Just another ranking! GM Pierre Dorion WORST moves #1

- ok so instead of repeating the rest I will just provide a link of a post that explains this pretty well (post #41) :

Management - Are you confident in the rebuild? Draft analysis and discussion

Congrats to Dorion for not screwing up on every trade I guess (Karlsson, Brasssard, Pageau vs Stone, Zibanejad, Duchene (twice), etc) and congrats to Dorion for not screwing up on Tkachuk, Stutzle and Sanderson lottery picks.

But seriously, full credit for Connor Brown and Artem Zub. At least he was able to get a solid veteran (while takeing a cap dump) and sign another future solid veteran with 0 NHL experience.


All that being said, why do these things always need to be explained over and over again? Is it because of sort of Alzheimer or intellectual dishonesty? As a Dorion defendor, you surely seen/read these posts before, no?

 

[Xspyrit]

I don't think we have the worst managetgroup but Idk if it's a contradiction to suggest what he did, Edm probably assembled the best under 25 talent in the league at the time when they had Hall, McDavid, Draisaitl, RNH, Nurse and Klefbom all under 25 and their management is terrible.

Bad management can get good young talent, it's getting that talent to develop into a good team that's the tough part.

Yes there is also more than just having a good u-25 group. You need coaching, goaltending, chemistry, health, veteran support, depth, smart cap management, etc, etc, etc.

It's kinda hard to assemble a Cup contender with pretty much only drafting.

What happened to Formenton.

And Connor Brown and Tim Stutzle?

Formenton is not only a fast skater on the team, but in the league.

 

[Burrowsaurus]

So the worst mgmt in the league assembled the best u25 talent in the league.

Let that sink in for a minute

That's an HF Hall of Fame contradiction right there

No it really isn’t.

 

[The Devilish Buffoon]

EDIT: Didn't realize this was a Ridley Greig discussion, disregard

 

[Micklebot]

Three #1 picks, a #3, a #9, and a 1st rounder.

Big difference from what we've had to work with, and that's also ignoring that McDavid was a generational player.

Sens management is very far from the best, but these suggestions that they are the worst are clearly just an attentional bias. We focus on our team so everything is magnified. We scrutinize moves that don't even register on our radar when other teams do them. People often say "any other GM would be fired for move X" while ignoring that there are GMs who have done far, far worse, many times.

I get that it's just hyperbole, but that's the only way it can be taken seriously: as hyperbole. Below average? So far, undoubtably. Bottom third? Likely, yeah. The worst? No chance.

Yeah, they had high picks, where as we traded of some elite players drafted by the previous gm (and had some high picks).

Every teams circumstances are different, but the league is designed to give bad teams high end young players, if you are a really bad team, for the most part you're going to accumulate some good under 25 players

Don't get me wrong, I think it's hyperbolic to say we have the worst management, a look at MTL makes me think that's unlikely. My point was just bad management often leads to needing to rebuild, which leads to trading off veterans and drafting high. That's not to say every team that rebuilds is poorly managed, or that a bad gm can't screw up a rebuild, just that the system is designed to prop up bad teams.

 

[SensontheRush]

Don't forget, Tkachuk takes a ton of PP faceoffs (leads the team by a country mile and happens to be quite good at it), and will likely continue to do so.

If Paul sticks around, he might continue to be a guy taking draws on the PK.

Special teams face-offs don't need to be taken by a center, which is why I don't see face-offs being a big sticking point for whether a prospect ends up being a center for us or not

Furthermore, with the way refs are waving players out of the dot willy-nilly, having wingers that are strong in the faceoff dot is a real advantage.

 

[Big Muddy]

I don't think we have the worst management group but Idk if it's a contradiction to suggest what he did. Edm probably assembled the best under 25 talent in the league at the time when they had Hall, McDavid, Draisaitl, RNH, Nurse and Klefbom all under 25 and their management is terrible.

Bad management can get good young talent, it's getting that talent to develop into a good team that's the tough part.

Agreed. And you still need a few good vets (good players that make solid contributions) over the age of 25 years as well.

 

[JD1]

lol! It has been explained a lot, not my fault if you can't follow...

- Pierre Dorion is an excellent scout, I have always said as such. He wouldn't be where he is today if he wasn't. He deserves some credit for the Sens drafting, never said the opposite.

- However, the key piece for the Sens drafting is Trent Mann, who was not a Dorion hire, but one from his predecessor. Several other scouts were already in place since the scouting department was revamped in 2007. Dorion walked into a very good situation/foundation that Murray built

- Sens drafting is detrimental to any Senators success and this is not something new. That's how you assemble a good U-25 pool. Trading actual good players in their prime can also help (as explained in the 2nd link below)

- You've seen these before? lol if you think that I am not in the vast majority who think Dorion has been subpar as a Sens GM. People opinion usually vary between really bad and the worst. Also, there's plenty of other threads criticizing Dorion, I haven't even read 10% of these

Management - Just another ranking! GM Pierre Dorion WORST moves #1

- ok so instead of repeating the rest I will just provide a link of a post that explains this pretty well (post #41) :

Management - Are you confident in the rebuild? Draft analysis and discussion

Congrats to Dorion for not screwing up on every trade I guess (Karlsson, Brasssard, Pageau vs Stone, Zibanejad, Duchene (twice), etc) and congrats to Dorion for not screwing up on Tkachuk, Stutzle and Sanderson lottery picks.

But seriously, full credit for Connor Brown and Artem Zub. At least he was able to get a solid veteran (while takeing a cap dump) and sign another future solid veteran with 0 NHL experience.


All that being said, why do these things always need to be explained over and over again? Is it because of sort of Alzheimer or intellectual dishonesty? As a Dorion defendor, you surely seen/read these posts before, no?

Dude

It was what you wrote

The worst mgmt team assembled the best talent

If you don't get why that's kind of a funny statement...well .... There's not much I'm going to do to explain it to you.

 

[Agent Zuuuub]

Dude

It was what you wrote

The worst mgmt team assembled the best talent

If you don't get why that's kind of a funny statement...well .... There's not much I'm going to do to explain it to you.

we've been tanking for 5 years.

 

[Dan Patrick]

Ridly Greig?

 

[Hale The Villain]

So the worst mgmt in the league assembled the best u25 talent in the league.

Let that sink in for a minute

That's an HF Hall of Fame contradiction right there

Have the Sens scouting staff for most of that, which is separate from management.

Also it would be a travesty for the Sens not to have one of the best U25 groups in the league after going through a scorched earth rebuild and trading Karlsson, Stone, Duchene, Brassard, Hoffman, Pageau, etc... and sucking for half a decade and reaping the high draft pick rewards that come from that.

 

[Xspyrit]

we've been tanking for 5 years.

And I'd like to be shown if there was ever a rebuild in NHL history where a team had talents like Karlsson, Stone, Duchene, etc in their prime to trade...

Not to mention we already had Chabot, Batherson, Formenton, etc on board when we started tanking...

Not to mention Dorion had already downgraded his asset Zibanejad to Brassard the prior season

Dude

It was what you wrote

The worst mgmt team assembled the best talent

If you don't get why that's kind of a funny statement...well .... There's not much I'm going to do to explain it to you.

It was perfectly clear and easy to understand. It only sounds like a contradiction if you think that Dorion has been a good GM or that you need to be a good GM to accumulate lottery picks. Like Hale The Villain says best "The Sens having a bright future is in spite of Dorion, not because of him."

I reiterate

I believe Ottawa has the best U-25 (under 25 y/o) talent in the league.
However, ownership and management is the worst in the league IMO, and comfortably.

Maybe not everyone would say the worst but which team has a worst combo than MELNYK + DORION ???

I mean, I'd really like to know, "dude"

 

[mianjo]

They should set up a thread for Ridley Greig

 

[PlayersLtd]

Yes there is also more than just having a good u-25 group. You need coaching, goaltending, chemistry, health, veteran support, depth, smart cap management, etc, etc, etc.

It's kinda hard to assemble a Cup contender with pretty much only drafting.



And Connor Brown and Tim Stutzle?

Formenton is not only a fast skater on the team, but in the league.

What am I missing? You're trashing Dorion in one breath and in another listing 5 things teams need which happen to be what we have and can irrefutably be attributed back to him.

As the tide turns right before our eyes to suggest that all he has done is draft well just isn't true. For one, blowing up the team back in 2018 in it's own right was a necessary but nonetheless gusty move. Do you give him any credit for taking the scorched earth approach that appears to be paying off now?

I genuinely wonder what people with this position will say if we happen to go deep in the playoffs in the next few years, or heaven's forbid win a cup... Will you walk it back or will you complain about the suit he wears to the parade?

Don't get me wrong, PD is not without his faults but his incompetence is hyperbolized around here like it's a sport and the proof that he's better than his reputation is quite clearly in the pudding.

 

[Xspyrit]

What am I missing? You're trashing Dorion in one breath and in another listing 5 things teams need which happen to be what we have and can irrefutably be attributed back to him.

Well, like in every corporation where big dollars are in play, this a business of results. Maybe the goaltending and chemistry are there right now but still too many ingredients of the RECIPE missing to have a good team, as evidenced by the results. 0.409 P% on the season (26th) and 0.563 P% since when we turned things around on December 2nd (17th). As you could see the last 2 games, we're not contender level yet.

I certainly wouldn't say that our depth and coaching are "great" or that our cap management has been smart

And please, I am not TRASHING Dorion. I have never insulted him like many have done before. I am rightfully criticizing his work as a NHL GM (I maintain that he is under qualified for the position)

As the tide turns right before our eyes to suggest that all he has done is draft well just isn't true. For one, blowing up the team back in 2018 in it's own right was a necessary but nonetheless gusty move. Do you give him any credit for taking the scorched earth approach that appears to be paying off now?

Well, it'd be naïve to think that this was not Melnyk decision... And what do you mean a GM should get credit for doing that?

I gave him credit for Connor Brown and Artem Zub in the last page. Outside of firesale trading (which is the easiest thing to do for a GM, hard to screw up, but Dorion actually did on a few guys), compare the lists of GOOD and BAD Dorion moves

What are we missing?

I genuinely wonder what people with this position will say if we happen to go deep in the playoffs in the next few years, or heaven's forbid win a cup... Will you walk it back or will you complain about the suit he wears to the parade?

Please explain what is not legit about criticizing Dorion? I haven't even mocked him (or barely) for the "we are a team" PR disaster. Why is there so many people defending him that much? Is it just because he looks "friendly"? lol there's only 32 GM jobs available, it should be for the best pro hockey managers. If he fails or not, he will still be friendly to me.

If the Sens won the Cup in 2017, would you have attributed it to Dorion? Would it have been because he traded Zibanejad + 2nd for Brassard + Dahlen for Burrows?

Going deep into the playoffs is almost the bare minimum required to not be a failure... I mean, he took the whole franchise wealth and went into a VERY LONG scorched earth rebuild. Making the playoffs a few times and winning a few rounds would not be enough. Next year will be his 7th year as the Sens GM. Murray only had the luxury to "rebuild on the fly", yet we made the playoffs 5/9 times and won 3 rounds. Dorion has been in a much more favorable position... and his team isn't going anywhere yet (even though he inherited a wealth of assets)

Don't get me wrong, PD is not without his faults but his incompetence is hyperbolized around here like it's a sport and the proof that he's better than his reputation is quite clearly in the pudding.

Frankly no idea what this means

 

[Ice-Tray]

we've been tanking for 5 years.

Not really. We bombed two years and sold off everyone because of it.

Then we started from the bottom and built a team from the studs for the next three years.

It’s a pretty great example of how one can frame the last 5 years in several ways depending on how much one wants to distance oneself from context and some of the more nuanced facts.