Lost Spezza, Alfie, Heatley and pissed off Redden. 2 Failed trades, straw face collapse. Turned a juggernaut into a poo-naut, averaged 2 coach firings a year, the city came to hate the owner under his management and he left us with Pierre Dorion.
The white-man can make you laugh at a cocktail party days for me are over. You gotta do more then pretend to beat up Lindy Ruff - Bryan Murray was 90% performance and he had to be the center of attention, and 10% results.
Seemed great, was a fan of his coaching, hated his GMing
Spezza came into the organization with way too much hype. He wasn't a franchise center but was judged and treated like one and that wasn't really fair to him. He was a good 1st line center but not elite. Ottawa biggest mistake was never acquiring a proven very good 2nd line center or another 1st line center during Spezzas prime years...so yeah that falls on the GM...but he didn't lose Spezza; Spezza lost him self by taking on too much and eventually cracking from all the pressure. Some guys just know how to lead and some simply don't have it and I feel Spezza was on of those guys. Its not a bad thing, at all, it becomes that when the player refuses to accept that..
Heatly wasn't lost, Heatly just wasn't suited for the new NHL and he was too one dimensional, yes he put up good goal totals for a couple seasons in SJ but he was a player on a decline with who if he didn't score didn't really do much else.
Redden should have never been kept over Chara and I think Murray publicly stated how baffled he was by that move. IMO and that is just my opinion I feel Redden to be one of the most over rated Sens players ever when it comes to our drafted players in the top 3. He put up numbers but he never was game changer, then again that whole 1995 draft was nothing to brag about. I mean Chara became the captain of a original 6 team and won a cup. Redden declined every year and became heavily overpaid.
The whole Alfie fiasco is rather something I'd like to forget. What was Murrays involvement in the team at that time ? Didn't he get diagnosed with cancer in 2014 ?
Yes, agreed he made some good and bad moves but he is still the only coach/gm to take the team to the finals....
Murray didn't turn a juggernaut into a poo-naut...one early playoff exit after another when the team was actually considered to be a cup favorite did