Unparalleled Success 2024-2025

Team: 2023-24 Ottawa Senators

Initial Creation Date: Dec. 12, 2021

Published: Dec. 13, 2021

Salary Cap Mode: Basic

Zaitsev and Murray's deals expire (thank god), Bobby Ryan's buyout cap is finally gone and Ottawa suddenly has just under 12,000,000M in cap space. Giroux's hypothetical deal expires too and as I mentioned, he signs for less because of regression + taking the huge payday in his first 2 years. Colin White's buyout somehow gives us +625,000 cap space for this specific season. Not sure if it's an error in the buyout calculator but we'll take it.

Refer to part 1 for 2022 trade deadline moves. Ottawa should have a ridiculous amount of 20 year old prospects from that draft that have just spent two seasons developing. This is where we sell the farm and bring in a top pair RHD or a starting goalie. Bringing in a goalie depends on whether or not one of Sogaard or Gustavsson has established themselves as a starter. At this point they will be 25 and 26 years old which is when goalies begin to peak. In this scenario we'll assume one of them is an NHL starter. (More than likely one of the two pans out)

We should still have a ton of cap space left for deadline moves. This team is ridiculously stacked so I don't even know what you'd trade for.

Cap outlook for the next few years is reasonably manageable too. If we somehow manage to win the draft lottery this year, it's hard to picture a scenario where we aren't challenging for president's trophies and making deep playoff runs starting as soon as 2023. Dorion looks like a complete idiot right now because his signings and trades keep blowing up in his face. If he's somewhat competent for the next few years and Uge delivers on his promise of spending to the cap for 5 straight seasons, we may actually be in for unparalleled success. Even better if all these rumours end up materializing and we get a new owner + a front office with proper financial support/extra staff.

In all likely hood, Uge is still the owner and this new arena never happens. However, one can dream and the entire point of armchair gm is to dream.

I can't remember a time where there was this much smoke around the Sens ownership. Pretty much every reputable sports news site has dropped an article talking about it. Go read Sportsnet's from a couple of days ago they do a great job of breaking down everything that's swirling around this team right now. Katie Strang is rumored to be working on an absolute bombshell of an article (similar to the Arizona one) about the dysfunction of the Sens front office/ownership. Can you imagine a scenario where the article is so crushing that Melnyk ends up being forced to sell? The new owners would make a bid on Lebreton land and we could have a brand new downtown arena for these epic cup runs.

Signing Giroux, getting a new owner and landing a top 2 pick is all fairly unlikely, but entirely possible. Whether or not any of the three happen, chances are we're in for some great years. One can only dream.