4th line is pretty lacking and the goaltending is average but there are plenty of teams that we can say that about them. Ottawa will have a serious chance at the playoffs

If the 4th line is your biggest issue, I'll take that all day! Plus Ridly Greig might make the team and spice up that line.

Biggest weakness: Ottawa fans. They don't show up, so the ownership sells off the best players. I know, there's all sorts of chatter that things will be different now. I'll believe it when I see it.

Attendance has been down because we've been a bottom 5 team the past 5 years. Look at attendance before that. 17k+/game - more than most teams. The buzz around the city right now is off the charts and I'd expect the attendance to reflect it

4th line is fine, better than most 4th lines, the biggest Q for OTT in the coaching,. Smith constantly was outcoached last year, even loosing last change advantage many times

I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt. Can't do much when you had Zach Sanford and Adam Gaudette playing in the top 6 most of the time and only 1 Dman who can do anything. Next year will be his first real test, especially in the first 20 games. He's never had this many toys to work with

whether you have 12 McDavids and 6 Makars and 2 Brodeur, dont mater if the coach is crap, and Smith is crap.

centers are young and inexperienced, 4th line, bottom pair is pedestrian, and goalies are very meh. Weegar is also a sold spot. The guy is an advanced stat wizard but he makes a ton of bad plays that the stats cant capture.

Leblanc said that business have started reaching out to buy tickets, season tickets are up 25% so far and the phones have been busy. There’s going to be way more fans this year

500 new corporate seat holders and a 25% increase in season ticket sales just in the last few weeks alone. Almost as if the fanbase was never the problem, it was the owner alienating local businesses and fans. Ottawa's always had a great fanbase, they've just had the morale pounded out of them by a piece of trash owner who was ruining the team. Prior to the start of the rebuild Ottawa was a middle of the pack attendance team, even being in the top 10 at times

Defense, goaltending, bottom 6

3rd line is def not an issue

excuse me? explain to me how a top 4 of Chabot-Weegar, Sanderson-Zub is anything but a strength. That bottom 6 is better than most teams. And their goaltending consists of a guy who was in the allstar game last year and went on to go 13-0-3 after that to finish off the season, and a guy who put up a .917 and a winning record on a team that everyone says is the reason matt murray didn't succeed...

The third line of Pinto, Mathieu Joseph and Formenton is awesome. Speed, skill and tenacity. Your bottom six comment does not make much sense to me.

It's hilarious how clueless people are when it comes to the sens. They will be shocked next year

I live in the city and know it well. At an average of $66, Ottawa's ticket prices are a fraction of other Canadian teams. And they still can't come close to a sell-out unless the Habs come to town. The Leafs charge $125 on average and sell out every game. Montreal is $115 and sells out most games. Vancouver ($99), Winnipeg ($95) and Edmonton ($86) and Calgary ($77) all have bigger and more consistent attendance. So it's easy to blame Melnyk's penny-pinching as the reason fans stayed away. The flip-side is just as likely true: Melnyk pinched pennies because experience had taught him that Ottawa fans simply aren't reliable.

Hmmm, you sound like Trump trying to convince people to invest in one of his hotels. What do you think Leblanc was going to tell the media? "Hey, we just made this awesome trade but no one seems to give a sh*t?" Ottawa's a government town and half of the public service doesn't even leave home to go into the office yet. I'll believe it when I see them taking the covers off the sections in the upper deck.

Every single year in the salary cap era up to 2017 the sens have averaged OVER 18,000 fans per game. Then the rebuild started and covid hit so anyone with a brain could predict what would happen next. Look at Chicago's attendance this past year.. Would you say they have a bad fan base? The sens fanbase is as strong as any other

If you know the city so well you'd know they took the covers off a couple months after putting them on lol

OK, I'll play along. The Canadian Tire Centre has 19,153 seats and the average ticket price in Ottawa is $66. If the Sens sell EVERY ticket for EVERY game (41), that $51.8 million CANADIAN. According to CapFriendly, the cash needed to cover the players currently under contract (NHL and AHL) is $67.15 million USD (or $87.51M Canadian). So, again, assuming the Sens sell every single possible seat for the whole regular season, they are $35.7M in the hole. The Sens also have "Hockey Operations to cover (arena expenses, travel, support staff, scouting....) which typically runs about $20M to $30M per team. Let's say they're really good at cost controls, so $20M. Now you're at $56M in the hole even when the rink is 100% capacity. Now, the Rogers TV deal and rink board ads will fill a lot of that, but not all. As I noted above in another comment, fans in other Canadian cities are paying a lot more for equal levels of mediocrity, and their attendance is markedly better than in Ottawa: Toronto $125 average ticket price; Montreal $115; Vancouver $99; Winnipeg $95; Edmonton $86 and Calgary $77.

As infuriating Melnyk was as an owner, he wasn't an idiot. By having a "floor" team and a 60% gate, he knew he could keep the team alive and neither make a profit nor cost himself much money. His daughters' trustees will have a fiduciary obligation to do the same. Unless or until the team gets bought by a crazy-rich oligarch, or Ottawa fans actually open their wallets by an additional 40% or more, this team is simply not viable in the long term. As a taxpayer here, I am cringing at the idea of the "downtown arena" because I know it will ultimately be the city that ends up paying for the white elephant.

You're right, like most Ottawans, I just can't be bothered. Besides, from where I live, it's almost faster for me to get to the Bell Centre than to the Toolbox.

I don't know if I agree with your financial analysis. I think you are underestimating their non-ticket sale revenue by a long shot. But even with the ticket sale revenue, I think those average ticket prices are very inaccurate. The upperbowl probably averages around $66 for the sens. Same with the other teams - the cheapest ticket in the leafs rink is probably $125. Then you have to think of the prices of the lower bowl ($150 - 250 for sens, $300+ for leafs) and suites/club bell. I think it's wayyyyyy higher than $66 average lol. But it's not just about year-to-year profitability of the operations. That hardly matters (mostly just to cover costs). Look at the value of NHL teams when they are first bought vs. the value they grow to be. Melnyk bought the team for $92M (which included the rink). The team is now worth $550M at minimum. That's not bad for a franchise that's only 30 years old. Read a book bro

Sorry, Bro, but the numbers come from Forbes and its valuation of the NHL franchises.
(https://www.bardown.com/ranking-the-average-ticket-price-for-the-canadian-nhl-teams-from-highest-to-lowest-1.669444)

According to the 2021 Forbes valuation, the Sens run about a $30M US deficit.
https://www.forbes.com/teams/ottawa-senators/?sh=1b2cac342814

Sorry for all the hard arithmetic, Bro.