DUCHENE, STONE LIKELY GONE IF TEAM CAN’T WORK OUT EXTENSIONS
Senators’ recent history with pending free agents doesn’t bode well for top forwards
The everyday questions pitched to Mark Stone and Matt Duchene — about whether they’ll sign long-term extensions with the Ottawa Senators — are routinely fouled off, unanswered, over and over again.
“Everything I do is going to be between myself, (my agents) and the team,” Stone said again Friday when pressed about the tense negotiations with the hard deadlines closing in fast.
After scoring twice in Thursday’s 4-0 win over the Anaheim Ducks, Duchene said he was “digesting ” any and all background information he could, including the latest controversial comments from Senators owner Eugene Melnyk.
We’ll get to a refresher course on some of the recent signings, trades and salaries that Duchene is chewing on in a moment.
In case you somehow missed the Wednesday statement from Melnyk — which has only further added to the angst among Senators fans — he pledged to spend “close” to the salary cap beginning in 2021, when the youngsters of today are hopefully skating into their prime years.
By and large, the Senators’ drafting record has been good, including the Thomas Chabot home run, and the current crop of young talent is among the NHL’s best. At the same time, though, the promises of keeping the kids down the road is a deflection from how the Senators have painted themselves into their current corner.
It doesn’t take a CSI: Ottawa investigative team to realize that it’s the recent ownership commitments and attitudes toward keeping stars and attracting new ones that are weighing so heavily on Stone and Duchene.
If Stone stays, he will become the Senators’ next captain. But Stone also has grown up in the organization, seeing first-hand what has happened with the three previous captains — Daniel Alfredsson, Jason Spezza and Erik Karlsson — along with former alternate captain Kyle Turris.
All of them either walked out or were pushed out the dressing-room door amid squabbles with ownership about the financial commitment toward winning as their own unrestricted free agency loomed in the background.
The most recent contract the Senators handed out to a star pending unrestricted free agent was the seven-year, US$50.75-million deal signed by Bobby Ryan in October 2014.
The Senators have made some medium-term investments in depth players who could have left as free agents, including a fouryear extension to defenceman Marc Methot in 2015 and to forward Zack Smith in 2017, but the most recent impact unrestricted free-agent signed from outside the organization was Clarke MacArthur in 2013.
Tied into all of the above, trading has become a tricky dance for general manager Pierre Dorion. In most of the big trades in the last few years, the Senators have either shed salary or dealt away players who were due for significant raises.
Take, for instance, the July 2016 deal that saw Mika Zibanejad go to the New York Rangers for Derick Brassard. Brassard made $3 million in 2016-17 and $3.5 million in 2017-18. Zibanejad earned $3.25 million in 2016-17, but he was also due a big raise as a restricted free agent following the season. Eventually, he signed his current five-year, $26.75-million deal with the Rangers in July 2017.
When the Senators lost their way last season, Brassard was traded to Pittsburgh for goaltending prospect Filip Gustavsson, currently developing with Belleville in the American Hockey League.
While the Senators took on an additional $2 million in salary in the three-way trade that brought in Duchene and sent Turris to Nashville in November 2017, a significant reason for the deal was the Senators’ inability to sign Turris — a pending unrestricted free agent — to an extension. At the time, of course, Duchene had one year remaining on his existing contract.
Then came the turmoil of last summer, when the Senators traded away both Karlsson and Mike Hoffman to the San Jose Sharks.
Yes, there are future prospects and draft picks coming in the Karlsson deal, including promising centre Josh Norris, a former San Jose first-round pick. In the short term, though, Karlsson’s $7.5-million salary this season was replaced by the combined $3.8 million that Chris Tierney and Dylan DeMelo will earn.
Meanwhile, the $5.65 million due to Hoffman this season and next has been replaced by Mikkel Boedker’s $4-million salary for this season and next.
The above number-crunching is only a snapshot of what has occurred here in the last few years and there are countless other issues involved for Stone and Duchene as they digest the full picture before making their decisions on whether to sign.
If they don’t commit here, the Senators will have no choice but to trade them.
Accordingly, as the Feb. 25 trade deadline fast approaches, every game could potentially be the last one either plays in a Senators uniform.