UNCERTAINTY LINGERS FOR SENS
One-year deals for both Stone, Ceci
The Ottawa Senators added US$11.65 million in salaries on Friday, the largest single day boost to the payroll in almost 19 months.
Rather than be a cause for celebration, however, the oneyear contract extensions to right winger Mark Stone and defenceman Cody Ceci have served only to continue the status quo situation of uncertainty surrounding the future of the organization.
Stone’s $7.35 million deal — an agreement reached before a scheduled arbitration meeting Friday — is perplexing.
The salary is appropriate, given Stone’s statistics and his position as the club’s top forward, but the one-year deal doesn’t push the puck much further down the ice.
A long-term extension would have sent a message to Senators fans that the organization is interested in keeping at least some type of veteran core to help with the youth wave. (It’s entirely possible, of course, that a lengthy deal was offered, but Stone chose to adopt a wait-andsee attitude, holding on for signs of hope to emerge before committing.)
The Senators can renew talks with Stone’s agents after Jan. 1 on an extension that would avoid unrestricted free agency.
“We’re happy to have Mark under contract,” Senators general manager Pierre Dorion said in a release issued by the team. “Mark is a great leader in every sense; a character person, passionate competitor and talented two-way player. Signing him is the first step in a process that allows us to continue to negotiate a long-term deal in the new year. We look forward to having a long and successful relationship with Mark.”
That said, Senators fans are essentially where they were before Friday in wondering about Stone’s future: unsure. Stone is now in the same position as captain Erik Karlsson and No. 1 centre Matt Duchene. All three are 10 months away from unrestricted free agency and potential trade candidates before next season’s trade deadline.
The Senators went into training camp last September with Kyle Turris in that spot. It was a distraction that remained until he was traded to Nashville as part of the three-way deal with Colorado that brought Duchene to Ottawa.
As such, tomorrow’s franchise direction remains cloudy.
Only three players — Bobby Ryan, Marian Gaborik and Zack Smith — have contracts that extend beyond the 2019-20 season.
Ryan has been attached to Karlsson in trade talks and it remains possible Gaborik could be bought out of the three years and $14.625 million that remain on his contract.
So much remains up in the air — including the fact coach Guy Boucher is headed into the final year of his contract.
If you buy into the theory that owner Eugene Melnyk is chopping dollars left and right while cleaning out the cupboards in preparation to sell the franchise — the speculation on that front never cools down completely — the Senators’ approach this summer makes a degree of sense.
Should that be the case, a new ownership team would arrive with the freedom to make the big money decisions about the future of the squad. Maybe, just maybe, maintaining Stone as a franchise centrepiece would be part of that ownership’s grand plan.
That may be little more than wishful thinking for Senators fans, who continue to show their deep love for Melnyk by raging against his penny-pinching approach on social media.
Melnyk, however, has insisted, over and over again, that he’s not going anywhere.
With him at the helm, though, the people charged with making decisions are handcuffed.
Stone, who has long served as a model for the franchise — a late round pick who was developed properly — is still here.
For now.
Unless something changes rather quickly, though, the 201819 season could be his last with the Senators.