I think performance was also a big part of it.
Bryan Murray was this team's GM for years.
- Young players were given a very wide berth to establish themselves, basically to the point of waiting until the next young player came and took his job.
- If vets were acquired, it was typically short term (deadline deals, 1-2 year deals).
- Everything was very safe and steady. I would also go so far as to say that asset management was a primary focus over on-ice performance.
Obvious that it was. I don't think people really understand what asset management means. In two of the "worst Murray trades" according to the mass, the Sens actually did really well with asset management.
- Andrej Meszaros was a 23th OA pick
- Meszaros produced 110 pts in 246 games with the Sens and 9 pts in 34 playoffs games
- Turned Meszaros into Kuba, Picard and a 1st
- Kuba (paid less than Meszaros) produced 116 pts in 261 games with the Sens and 2 pts in 7 playoffs games
- Picard produced 29 pts in 92 games with the Sens
- The 1st (+Dean McAmmond) turned into Chris Campoli and Mike Comrie
- Campoli produced 45 pts in 150 games with the Sens and 2 pts in 6 playoffs games
- Comrie produced 7 pts in 22 games with the Sens
- Turned into a 2nd and Ryan Potulny
- Drafted Matt Puempel with the 2nd (as well as an another one)
- Potulny produced 8 pts in 13 regular season games with Bingo and then 26 pts in 23 games in the playoffs for a Calder Cup. He was KEY
ALL THAT with a 23rd OA pick
- Turned a 2nd round pick (64th OA) in 2013 into Ben Bishop
- Ben Bishop won 11 games with the Sens (helping them qualify for the playoffs 2 years in a row when Anderson was injured), 10 with the B-Sens
- Ben Bishop turned into Cory Conacher and a 4th round pick (Tobias Lindberg)
- Cory Conacher produced 25 pts in 72 games with the Sens and 3 pts in 8 playoffs games (big goals)
- Tobias Lindberg turned into a portion of Dion Phaneuf
ALL THAT with a 64th OA pick
Now that the system has been fully replenished in terms of young assets (young players and prospects), the team will focus in turning into a real contender... even if they have to move younger assets (Silfverberg, 1st, Noesen, Lindberg, 2nd, Zibanejad, 2nd)
It's hard to argue with his production. 43 points in his first 49 games, literally from the 1st game of the season all the way to the last game in January.
He was the 16th (tied) leading scorer in the entire league after he played his last game in January. Ahead of Crosby, Kopitar, Ovechkin, Duchene, Kucherov, Thornton, O'Reilly, Sharp, Hoffman, Spezza, Eriksson, Giroux, Stamkos, H. Sedin, etc, etc...
In a season in which we only had
five total players score over a PPG during the year, can you tell me why that 4-month stretch wasn't elite?
I always loved facts
I don't see how this is any different than the middle of last season, or the end of last season. Or the offseason.
Or how it's specific to Bobby Ryan, for that matter.
Lots of posters are obsessed with paying cheap for prime years, then getting rid of them in that window where they are still very good (ie selling high). Taking asset management to the extreme. It's like they think anyone over 30 is completely useless. I don't see anything wrong with holding onto good players.
HF mentality = good asset management apparently... but as usual, a bit far from reality
Zibanejad already played 4 seasons for the Sens on low salaries. Now they will get 3 years of Brassard for BARGAIN salary as well. So that's already 7 seasons of return on the investment. God knows what will happen after that.
Maybe Zibanejad is a player they identified as someone they didn't want to pay too much based on points production so they traded him before it happens.
I'm not saying that we are contenders yet. I don't belive that we are.
What I do believe is that with the players that we have signed long term, making an eventual push 3 or 4 years from now will be too late. Now is the time.
We can't afford to waste another 3 years of Karlsson's prime hoping things will just work out on their own, and that all of the help that we need to take the next step will come from within.
Do they really want to win, or not? Moves like this tell me that they are serious about becoming a contender, and I'm much happier with that then the indecisiveness we've seen these last 5 or so years.
Very good post. But disagree with the last part when you say "indecisiveness we've seen these last 5 or so years"
They were not indecisive, the team just was not at the stage of development fans would have liked them to be. They started a rebuild in 2011 by starting to ship out the older players until they finally were one of the youngest teams in the league and certainly the least experienced. Then players like Ryan, Phaneuf and now Brassard and Kelly joined. And other have gained experience. They are now entering the phase of maturity. Results in the next 5 years will determine if the rebuild under Murray was a success or not.
The parts of success the team had in the last 5years (3 playoffs, one round win, one 99 pts season) created a hasty hope that the team was a stage that they were still not in reality. We all got caught.