Ottawa fans have lost hope in Eugene Melnyk. There’s no getting it back

There’s something missing in the reaction to this week’s latest round of Eugene Melnyk drama, and it should make you feel terrible for Ottawa Senators fans.

The situation began with last week’s announcement that the Senators would be parting ways with their charitable wing, The Sens Foundation. That situation raised eyebrows, and there were a few days of back-and-forth over what exactly it might mean, and who could be at fault. Then came a devastating report from The Ottawa Sun’s Rick Gibbons, accusing Melnyk of meddling in the foundation’s giving while his own charity organization raised $1 million for organ donation while only putting $5,000 to good use.

The charity story is still unfolding, and there may be further layers. Melnyk will be called on to offer an explanation. He might even have one.

At this point, though, that hardly seems to matter. I watched the reaction to Monday’s report unfold in Ottawa, on Twitter and local radio and the various places where fans gather. There was outrage, and disgust, and more than a little confusion. There was an inspiring effort to raise money for charity that brought in $18,000 and counting. There was anger. There were the usual wild rumors and the typical hot takes.

But here’s what was missing: Any sense of shock. Any surprise. Anybody saying “No, this story can’t be right, they wouldn’t do that. Not our team. Not our owner.”

It’s the Eugene Melnyk era. Nothing is off the table, and nothing feels impossible, not even some ill-defined plot to rip off his own charity that borders on cartoonishly evil. Nobody that I could see was stepping up to defend the guy because Melnyk has spent years burning his credibility with the fan base to the ground.

That credibility is gone now. Not diminished, not running low – gone. And when that happens, there’s no rebuilding it.

I know because I’ve been there, having grown up as a Maple Leafs fan in the Harold Ballard era. If you were a Blackhawks fan in the Bill Wirtz years, you know it too. If you’re an NBA fan in New York, an NFL fan in Washington, you’re living it right now. There are probably a few others, but only a few. The NHL has always had owners who temporarily lost part of the fan base, like Darryl Katz in Edmonton or Stan Kroenke in Colorado; that’s bad, but the trust can be rebuilt. There have been outright disasters, like John Spano; those are embarrassing, but they tend to be short-term problems. It’s rare that an owner can get to that Ballard or Wirtz zone, where they’ve completely decimated the fans’ faith without any exit plan in sight.

It’s the worst possible place to be as a fan. It’s literally hopeless. And it’s where Senators fans find themselves these days.

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Not all Cups count the same. Where will this year’s rank?

The NHL has made it official: They’re going forward with a plan to finish the season with 24 teams, and they’re going to do everything they can to make sure we see a team win the Stanley Cup in 2020.

Great. Will it count?

You’re going to hear a lot of talk about asterisks this summer. Some fans are going to insist that any results from here on out don’t count because the pandemic and the pause have left us with something completely different than anything we’re used to. Others will argue that hockey is hockey and of course it counts. Others will want to wait and see.

Time will tell which side wins, but the reality is, that’s always been the case. Not all Cups carry the same historical weight and some are viewed differently than others. Fans can always find a reason to diminish a particular championship if we look hard enough. So maybe the right question here isn’t “Will it count?” but rather “Just how much will it count?”

Let’s see if we can sort this out. Today, we’re going to start at the very top of the Stanley Cup scale with the championships that not even the most cynical fan can dispute, and work our way down to the ones that are easier to discredit. Along the way, we’ll try to figure out where exactly history will end up viewing this year’s championship.

Tier 1: Any Stanley Cup that your favorite team won, obviously

We need to start here because otherwise, everyone is going to read this post and just get madder and madder as they go, and I’d certainly never want that to happen. So let’s be clear: this whole piece is entirely about everyone else’s Stanley Cups. Those are the ones that are on shaky ground. Any that your favorite team has won? Those are exceptions. Perfect, impeccable exceptions.

Tier 2: The dynasty

Hockey fans tend to be caustic and jealous, especially when we see somebody else being happy, so we’ll jump at any opportunity to hand-wave away some other team’s glory. But that’s just about impossible to do when that glory keeps repeating itself year after year. By the time a team has won four or five Cups in a short span, there comes a point where even the most embittered rival fan has to go: “Yeah, fine, they might be OK.”

Examples: The 1970s Canadiens, the 1980s Islanders and Oilers.

Tier 3: The quasi-dynasty

Similar to the above, this team won multiple Cups, although maybe not quite as many and there was enough space in between them that we can argue over whether they deserve full-fledged dynasty status. Still, at a certain point, that feels like splitting hairs — these teams are good.

Examples: The 90s/00s Red Wings, Avalanche and Devils. Probably the cap-era Blackhawks and Penguins too, unless you think the parity era has lowered the bar.

Tier 4: The two-time winner

Not quite a dynasty, not quite a one-and-done. These teams are confusing and need to pick a lane. Stop doing this, everyone. Either stop at one and let someone else have a turn or go all out and win three or more. Shoot or get off the point.

Examples: The 1974 and 1975 Flyers, the 1991 and 1992 Penguins, 2012 and 2014 Kings

Tier 5: The dominant one-and-done

OK, so this team didn’t win multiple Cups. But they were very good, in both the regular season and playoffs. Ideally, they won a Presidents’ Trophy along the way or at least came close.

The proper way to deal with a fan of one of these teams is to acknowledge how stacked the roster was and how well the team came together at the height of their powers. Then pause just long enough for them to let their guard down, before adding “I guess it’s kind of disappointing that they didn’t win more than one” and then immediately exiting the conversation.

Examples: The 1994 Rangers, the 1989 Flames, maybe the 2018 Capitals if we grandfather in those three Presidents’ Trophies from the Ovechkin era.

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Mailbag: Relegation, Toronto expansion and my ideal hockey broadcast

Thanks to the assorted lockouts, every couple of years I try to get into European football when there are no NHL games to watch. Mostly, it doesn’t really last but I am kind of fascinated by the concept of relegation and occasionally wonder what that would look like in hockey. For all of the crazy ideas that you have thrown out there over the years, as far as I am aware, you have never written about relegation and I’d love to get your take on how that might work (or not work!) in the NHL.

– Mitch J.

Any time I do anything about ideas I’d like to steal from other sports – and I do that often – somebody will bring up relegation. I’m not a soccer fan, so I don’t have a strong grasp on how it all works, but based on my limited understanding, I’m fascinated by the concept. Every year, a team or teams at the bottom of the standings get banished to the equivalent of the minor leagues, while other teams are elevated to take their place. It adds an entire new level of drama to the race to stay out of last place. In hockey, if your team is terrible you might get rewarded with a new superstar in the draft. In soccer, you might get kicked out of the league.

Would I want to see that in the NHL? Are you insane? Of course not, I’m a Maple Leafs fan. Asking a Leafs fan if they support relegation is like asking a snowman if they support saunas. I’m not even going to pretend that I don’t know with absolute certainty how that would end up.

What is your all-time NHL commentary crew? Let’s go with PxP, color, between the glass, studio host and two or three studio analysts.

– Tyler A.

Hoo boy. OK, let’s stipulate that this is all based on my personal experience as a fan – I’m not trying to do some sort of objective leaguewide survey here. That said, my team is obviously going to start with Bob Cole and Harry Neale in the booth. Cole’s voice is the soundtrack to my hockey story, and I’m not sure he ever paired as well with anyone as he did with Neale’s dry wit.

Between the glass, I’ll take current-day Ray Ferraro. My host will be James Duthie, although I’d be happy with Ron MacLean too. And my analysts would be any of Bob McKenzie, Elliotte Friedman or Chris Johnston as the insider, Kevin Weekes or Mike Johnson as the former player/Xs and Os guy, and Brian Burke as the crusty old guy with stories. Mix in Jim Ralph doing the occasional comedy bit and every broadcast starting with a Tim Thompson montage and I’m a happy viewer.

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Puck Soup: The hockey world finds its voice... for now

In this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- A devastating week leads to a league and its players finally speaking up
- So where were these voices when we were talking about Bill Peters or Akim Aliu?
- How much credit should the players and teams get for their statements?
- The league moves forward towards resuming play
- Rumors that a summer playoffs could become permanent
- And the three of build our best rosters in a challenging draft draft; you can vote on the winner here

>> Stream it now:

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>> Or, listen on The Athletic or subscribe on iTunes.

>> Get weekly mailbags and special bonus episodes by supporting Puck Soup on Patreon for $5.

Which player can make the best starting lineup of guys he was traded for?

Trading has returned to the NHL. Kind of.

As Pierre LeBrun reported last week, the seven teams whose seasons are over can now resume trading with each other. That doesn’t go far enough – the league should reopen trading for everyone – but it’s all we’re going to get for the next few months, so we’ll take it.

To welcome trading back into our lives, let’s have some fun with another roster-building game: What’s the best starting six you can make out of players who were all once traded for the same guy?

We’ve done version of this before with GMs, both for players acquired and those traded away. Fair warning: This is going to be a lot tougher. A typical GM has dozens of trades to work with, while no individual player’s trade total even hits double digits. Finding players who can give us a full lineup will be tough enough, let alone an especially good one.

Still, that’s no reason not to try. As always with this sort of thing, we need some arbitrary rules:

• Each player needs to be able to find three forwards, two defensemen and a goalie that he was involved in a trade for. We won’t worry about position beyond that, and we’ll let a few guys get away with dipping into the minors if we have to. But if you can’t fill all six spots, you’re out.
• If a player was traded for a draft pick that turned into a star player, that counts. But if a player was drafted with a pick that had previously been traded for someone, that doesn’t. In other words, you don’t get credit for trades that happened before you were even NHL property.
• Getting traded with somebody – i.e. on the same side of the trade – doesn’t put that player on your roster. They have to have been going the other way in the deal.
• A player must use at least three different trades to fill out their roster. That prevents someone like Eric Lindros from using one blockbuster for all their spots, which would go against the spirit of the thing. We want the guys who were traded more than once or twice.

One last note: This isn’t intended to be a comprehensive list. I’m sure there are some good candidates who slipped by me. After all, the only way to consider everyone would be to literally spend weeks clicking on every single player link on hockey-reference, and who would do that? (Feels like everyone is staring at him.) Yes, OK, that does sound like something I would do. But this time I didn’t. So if you can come up with a player I missed, post it in the comments.

We’re still roughly 60 days away from possibly watching hockey again. Let’s waste one of those days building some weird rosters …

Team Mark Recchi

Forwards: Rick Tocchet, John LeClair, Dainius Zubrus

Defense: Eric Desjardins, Kjell Samuelsson

Goaltender: Ken Wregget

We’re going to find some decent rosters built around relatively obscure players, but let’s start with a Hall of Famer. Recchi was traded five times in his career, but most of this roster comes from the first two – the controversial 1992 swap that sent him from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia and the 1995 trade that saw him go to Montreal in a deal that backfired badly on the Habs.

It all adds up to a strong entry; we don’t have any Hall of Famers, but every position is solid. Team Recchi also features decent depth, as we could also draw on Matt Carkner and Matt Lashoff, among others. It’s not bad. But is it the best? Let’s see what else we can find …

Team Craig Berube

Forwards: Jari Kurri, Doug Gilmour, Vincent Damphousse

Defense: Luke Richardson, Jamie Macoun

Goaltender: Rick Wamsley

I’m not sure Berube will end up being our best roster, but it’s definitely going to be my favorite, because I’m not sure we’ve ever seen a trading resume quite like his. He was an honest role player who served a purpose back in the enforcer days – I was a big fan, which didn’t work out well for me – but he was miles away from being a star. And yet, he somehow managed to be involved in three blockbuster trades in a wild eight-month span back in the early ’90s. And despite playing in the NHL for 17 years, those were his only three trades involving other players.

For our purposes, he gives us a forward line that features two Hall of Famers and combines for over 4,000 points, two solid defensive defensemen and a dependable goaltender (backed up by Peter Ing). That’s not bad for a guy who played 17 seasons and never cracked 20 points in any of them.

Team Bret Hedican

Forwards: Craig Janney, Dave Gagner, Byron Ritchie

Defense: Ed Jovanovski, Sandis Ozolinsh

Goaltender: Kevin Weekes

Two things I know about Bred Hedican. He’s one of the only NHL players who married somebody who could skate better than he could and he was really good at getting traded for big names who were kind of past their prime. Still, it’s a decent squad, especially that blue line. And we can probably get them some skating lessons at a discount.

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