You're making the assumption Paul resigns in Ottawa. 3.15 in Tampa might cost Ottawa 3.75-4 area. Winning, climate, taxes all favor TB.

Take Petry

I'm not making any assumption. I can't change a player salary in a trade.

Besides, while it's totally unimportant here, rumor was he was asking for 3.25 AAV to stay in Ottawa, IIRC

That'd take a bit of time to dig (another website) and like I said, not important

Connor Brown is out for the year with a blown ACL (6-8 months). Would he have not been injured in Ottawa? Who knows? Would a 3rd line of Joseph/Paul-Pinto-Brown be preferable to what we have now? Probably... honestly, Motte has turned into left handed version of CB anyways... production is similar right now too...

Also, what would a veteran RHD realistically cost? Marino went for the equivalent of Brannstrom and a 3rd? Would I have done that, absolutely yes... would you be able to sign Zub next year because of it? Probably not...

Most likely not. The butterfly effect is undeniable



I like Joseph but Paul > Joseph and it's not close

Also, yes Paul-Pinto-Brown would have been one of the best 3rd line in hockey, vastly superior to Motte-Pinto-Joseph

Motte is not a CB version, maybe a 4th line version? There's a reason why one has 69 career points while the other has 216

The thing is you could have matched up Paul-Pinto-Brown against any line and come out on top often. Can't do that with anything we have in the bottom-6 right now



Weird, you don't see the update? Or maybe you were already writing this while I was editing

It was prior to update/whilst editing.

What-if's and maybes at this point. The team has the top-9 talent regardless. The team is lacking any sort of structure in both offensive and d zone...

Regardless of the of the moves made and Connor Brown wanted out/test free agency regardless. The 2nd was a part of a bigger package for a D-man that never materialized. Paul for Joseph, at the time, made sense. Joseph's production was going to drop because he wasn't always going to be playing with Tkachuk and Norris. He was always pegged as a 3rd liner. Also a good friend of Chabot so it was a culture fit.

The team, on paper, looks really good. Dorion gave DJ a really good team and he's squandered his chance by sticking to his guys. It's time for a change.

Eh, I think that Ottawa will end up being ok with the Brown trade in the long run, though I could end up being wrong. How I would view it, they got a 2nd back for a guy I personally expect to test free agency and also for a guy that ended up getting hurt a few games into the year and won't play the rest of the year. If he re-signs in Washington (which I hope he does), then I would lean more towards Ottawa retracting the trade in hindsight, but I think it's actually ended up alright for the Sens as it is.

Fair enough but disagree that the team looks good on paper. It does but not entirely. IMO, we are lacking 2 good 3rd line Wingers and a Top Pairing RHD to be really a top team

Tkachuk - Norris - Batherson
DeBrincat - Stutzle - Giroux
?????? - Pinto - ??????
Motte - Kastelic - Joseph

Chabot - ??????
Sanderson - Zub
Brannstrom - JBD

All the guys not listed above (Kelly, Watson, Brassard, Gambrell, Hamonic, Holden, Zaitsev) should not be above 13th forwards or 7th D-men

Would the team look any better with Formenton on line 3? Yes, but he's not signing anytime soon and may not sign anything with an NHL ever again (still TBD). Joseph is fine on line 3. Kelly is more than serviceable as a 4th liner. Watson is done, Brass hasn't worked but was depth anyway, Gambrell was depth and we all know it.

The D was absolutely going to be the soft spot on this team. We all knew it, Pierre knew it, DJ knew it. I told myself at the time that the Hamonic acquisition only made sense if Zaitsev was gone to begin this season. I honestly think there was a deal somewhere to be made but the price sky rocketed for one reason or another. Top 4 RHD are hard to find and cost a pretty penny. A cost I don't think PD is willing to pay right now. Although the price for Marion should've been paid...

I think we're all banking hard that both JBD and Thomson take the next step (JBD is here to stay now so 1 out of 2 aint bad).

The other issue is that this is year 5 of being out of it by the end of November. Things were supposed to be different and something has to change.

Management and coaching is what needs to be changed

But as the team is being for sale now, no choice to wait for that situation to be resolved first...