yes sure on his part, however how is it not bad asset management for the sens to let a 25 year old RFA, who, in his year and a half with Ottawa, had a 29 goal, 50 point pace over a full 82 game season, walk away for nothing. Brady Tkachuk (I understand he isn't as streaky, has a longer sample size and offers other things) hasn't put up that point pace yet in his career, and some posters on this forum are talking about him getting 8 mill a season.
Also I do agree it was a horrible business move on his part. I could see him needing to take a deal similar to Galch in order to even play NHL hockey this year, but none of that changes the fact that Ottawa also made a bad business decision in not qualifying him. At least in my opinion.
If covid never happened, I would agree and the Sens most likely would have went through arbitration and settle for 1 year even if they didn't like the salary. But since the market has completely changed, there's no way a team was going to pay what Duclair wants
If reports are true (of course it's hard to really know as we don't have access to all the information), Ottawa was offering something like 4.25 x 3 years (and it was probably their highest offer) and Duclair wanted 5.5 x 5 years minimum. So at that point, there's no agreement possible. It was arbitration or nothing
Given Duclair track record, the Sens understandably didn't want to commit long term with Duclair and be stuck with a 5 years contract with an AAV too high if he goes back to his inconsistent ways. There's way too much risk with that kind of player.
Yeah the Sens could have qualified him, go through arbitration and then forced to "overpay" him. Then trade him at the deadline if he has a good season or let him walk for nothing at the end as he would become UFA
There's absolutely no guarantee that a Duclair with a 5.0 AAV would be tradeable this year with all the context. Tyler Johnson who has been a much better player for a while just passed through waivers without any takers
Instead of the headache, the Sens turned around and spent that money (and more) for a significant upgrade in Dadonov.