It was one of the first truly tough decisions of the salary cap era.
The Senators wanted to keep both but knew it would be tricky under the confines of the league salary cap. We all know how it played out. Muckler signed Wade Redden. Zdeno Chara ended up with a division rival in Boston. Chara has since won a Stanley Cup and is a perennial Norris Candidate. Wade Redden is buried in the AHL after signing a ridiculous deal with the New York Rangers.
To this day, Sens fans still curse John Muckler for choosing Redden over Chara. But based on what Muckler has to say in the following passage from Behind the Moves, that may not tell the whole story.
"The salary cap is really tough. You've got some tough decisions as a general manager when you're going to have to let some very good hockey players go, like the Chara situation. I had Redden and Chara's contracts expiring the same year...I started negotiations with both of them with the idea of taking the first one who agreed to terms, whoever he was. What I really wanted to do is to sign both of them at the same price, which I was unable to do. Chara would not give us a number. so he walked. Everybody thought that we wanted to do this or that we picked Redden over him. That wasn't the case, it wasn't the case at all." -John Muckler
So while Muckler has taken some heat on this decision over the years, it sounds like the Chara camp may have forced his hand a little bit.
With that said, from my own conversations on the subject, I can confirm that this was not an easy decision for Chara. He loved his time in Ottawa and there were reports of the big man crying in the Sens offices while saying his goodbyes.
Regardless of how you look at the decision, it was a move that Sens fans will always look on with regret. What do you think about the Chara/Redden situation now and how did you feel at the time?
What other moves stand out as missteps by the Ottawa Senators?
alexi kovalev signing
gonchar signing
and going on what muckler said, chara took his ball and went home because his best buddy hossa was traded.
haha What were you thinking Chirp?! This article was a biiiiig mistake. I think we've all revisited Chara/Redden enough over the last few years lol
- drafting Lee over Kopitar or Marc Staal
- trading Hossa for Heatley, trading Havlat and Smokey for Tom Preissing, Josh Hennessey, a 2nd rd pick and Michal Barinka?!
- trading Laich + a 2nd for Bondra
- Signing Kovalev to a two year 10 million dollar contract
- Signing Gonchar to 3 years/5.5 mill per
- Trading Tim Gleason for Brian Smolinski
- drafting Patrick Eaves in the first round in 2003
What else?
So true! I hate our home and away jerseys. Our heritage jerseys are awesome, but our 2007-present white, red, and black jersey's with the "Sens" as the front crest are all horrible.
I wish they would go back to the classic 2d logo and jerseys with horizontal stripes across the sleeves and bottoms of the jerseys. The classic look is just so much better than the crap we have now.
Take Montreal, Chicago, Detroit, Boston, and NYR's jerseys for example. Those 5 original 6 jerseys are probably some of the nicest in the league and they've hardly ever changed.
Trading Demitra to St Louis (pretty ridiculous that he couldn't crack the sens line up)
Trading Straka as part of a throw in
Then the obvious Hossa, chara, havlat
Lastly, removing Murray as coach after running to the finals, who's to say where they'd have ended up the following year with him behind the bench.
1/ M.Havlat for T.Preissing, pick, J.Hennessey and Barinka
2/ Demitra for Olsson
3/ Laukennen & Tugnutt for Barrasso
4/ B.Laich for P.Bondra
5/ 2nd Round Pick & Bochenski for a Fat Pylon --oops, I mean Arnason
I contemplated throwing in Heatley/Hossa deal, but Heatley gave us a few good years then he turned into Michalek, so I wouldn't say its the worst.
Although some of these moves were tough to forecast at the time, looking back on them now, these were given loser trades for Ottawa.
Could be worse though, you could make epic failure trades like Toronto!
"Hey, I realize Redden may have just come off a season he'll probably never duplicate again and his talent will start to decline and he doesn't have the freakish abilities of Chara but he accepted my offer first! What was I going to do? My hands were tied!! Besides, he's got a great first pass!"
That was the worst personnel move in the franchise's history, bar none. Extremely short-sighted and based solely on the small sample set of the Sabres series in '06. Who accepted the offer first shouldn't have mattered. Muckler presumably thought that was some sign of loyalty to the franchise when in reality it was probably Redden saying "I know I'm going to start to suck so I'm not going to look this gift-horse in the mouth - where do I sign!!".
Worst. Move. Ever. Or at least in the Sens' little world it was. How you let that mountain-man walk to a divivion rival for nothing is beyond me. I'll take Muckler's drafting fails and his decimation of the farm system becaue I know he wanted to create a culture of winning at the Pro level and he did get them to the Cup finals. But this move was an utter failure of leadership and foresight which are the exact qualities a good GM is supposed to possess. Murray would never have made that mistake.
Can you imagine the outcome of the '07 finals if the Sens' blueline looked something like this?
Phillips - Chara
Volchenkov - Corvo
Meszaros - Preissing
I like our chances a lot better against 'Penner - Getzlaf - Perry' and company under that scenario....
Ugh, what a sh*t call that was.....
But I'm over it now, as you can tell.
: )
http://prohockeytalk.nbcsports.com/2012/08/18/heatley-sues-ex-agent-partners-for-11-million/
You hit the nail on the head with that one. That one move was the worst in Sens history, IMO.
Chara left Mr. Muckler partly because of what you did to Hossa.
Every time I see Chara & Hossa on the ice in another teams' uniform.. I curse you every time.
You were a fool Mr. Muckler..
Hey Heatley, Karma is a bitch... and it did bite you... So sorry, NOT.
Chara...although he loved(loves) the city and the fans he wouldn't resign here.
Then there were some bad 1st round picks
LEE and O'BRIEN
But promoting guys instead of others always burns my ass - this year we'll have Hoffman and Peterssen in the AHL and we'll drag around guys like Condra(guy can't put it in an open net + he doesn't hit so whats the point)+Daugavin s, and O'Brien all year. GRRRRRRRRR
I agree that this may be the single biggest mistake this organization ever made. Most of the subsequent bad moves were based off this mistake.
DING DING DING
There goes the jackpot
Condra is there in a DEFENSIVE role. O'Brien played pretty well towards the end of the season.
Hoffman and Petersson to be effective should play in the top 6.. not the bottom 6.
Hoffman & Petersson, I don't think, are penalty killers either.
http://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/2012/08/17/erik_karlsson_ottawa_senators_all_goal/#.UC6nNVNzsu0.twitter
Havlat deal was also another blunder. Priessing was a nice piece but that's about it. Muckler didn't have to move him and could have let him play out his last season to see if he could get more.
Picking Lee so high when a kid named Staal was on the board.
Drafting is an unknown... a gamble... a hope... you can't fault a team for getting the short end of the stick. Every team has more misses than hits at the draft.
As much as we hate the way it ended, the guy gave this team the only 50-goal scorer in its history. In fact, probably ranks as one of the best trade this team ever made.
The Ottawa Senators became an elite team under Muckler's watch. Hate his Redden/Chara decision but overall, he turned this team around.
Again, any draft pick is a gamble. That said, Daigle was a unanimous 1st overall pick at the time. Every single team would have picked him with their first pick. Where Daigle was picked wasn't a deception, is inability to adapt his skill to the NHL was.
As simple as it sounds, the Hossa situation has everything to do with why Chara "didn't give a number". Even though he loved playing in Ottawa, his friend and countryman's departure meant that he knew it was now all about business. He would also have to wonder if he did sign, if Muckler could be trusted.
Hardly...at the time I wouldn't of swapped Hossa for Heatley straight up...I honestly can not think of a single time that I would have preferred Heatley than Hossa. Also...this trade is 100% the reason that Chara signed elsewhere.
Quoting SENSible Voice:
As shitty as that situation was, I agree completely...He had grown to hate the game and lost interest.
The only one I can honestly say that I disapproved of at the time it happened, is the Redden/Chara decision. I hated Redden for his soft play and thought Chara should have been the obvious target of negotiations.
I disagree in that Muckler didn't have to move Havlat. Havlat wanted to try UFA.. so you knew he was gone. My issue is -- who should have gotten a lot more than he did.. He was bad at trading, and he was even worse at drafting.
The key players to that elite team were on the Sens BEFORE Muckler took over. All he did was trade away picks/prospects to get that team a Cup...
Alax daigle i CAN understand with all the hype but Bryan didn't want to play for Ottawa we still drafted him? Who is that guy if he was projected that high
Don't get my started on Mathieu chouinard 12 overall.
And lee
Worst drafting ever!
And then all the bad trades
Hell even the offer that people were throwing to get daigle. And we refuse. Come on I'll try to find it there but one of the offer was like Peter foresberg hextall. And like 2-3 roster player!!! For one player? Man I don't know. I know he was sepose to be that good but still!!!!
!
I hate talking about the past and im happy about the future now
IMHO
Haha harder than it looks!
The moment Hossa signed his contract, story goes he came into Muckler's office and said something along the lines of, "If I was North American, you wouldn't have thought twice before signing me to that contract." Muckler, who had already been talking to Atlanta, was convinced that the Heatley trade was a good idea after that comment.
Remember the deal well because it was really the beginning of "SensChirp".
So Muckler was a racist? Even better
This is the single most infuriating thing I have ever read. Really Muckler? Sorry, but anyone could see Redden was on a downswing and Chara was on the up.
In Chara you had a unique asset the likes of which may never be seen again in the NHL.
Screw you Muckler. Nothing in Sens history approaches this in terms of franchise screwups.
Chara over Redden is in a league of its own.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/hockey/dany-heatley-sues-ex-agent-others-for-11-million/article4487673/
Lol I did check comment 15 I had problems with the globe and mail site so I went to NBC sports
Sorry dude, missed that.
Dany Heatley must be the only person who DIDN'T make money on Canadian real estate between '08 and now. Those must have been some pretty shaky deals (i do see some were in the U.S.).
Dany Heatley must be the only person who DIDN'T make money on Canadian real estate between '08 and now. Those must have been some pretty shaky deals (i do see some were in the U.S.).
Lol no worries man I don't post often im kinda a here and there poster lol ya like sandy said karma is a bitch dany
LMAO
THE DANY HEATLEY SALAD ($4,000,000)
sour grapes
rotten eggs
moldy cheese
whiney oiler and vinegar dressing
I agree HOWEVER, the pick we got turned out to be Patrick Weircoch, so it may turn out to be a bit better than it seems - time will tell.
I don't think thats why he left here, I think it merely stems from him being unhappy with the direction the organization was going and with the success of Clouston in his first year, he probably thought the direction wasn't going to favour him.
I bet he wishes he didn't ask for that trade now - he has been on a steady decline ever since leaving...likel y will never get anywhere near his days in Ottawa
I agree with all of your comments in this post Voice. People say bringing muckler in as GM was such a terrible decision, but that's easy to say in hindsight. And you raise the good point of getting to the cup finals and having a great record while he was GM.
While i'm not at all pleased with many of the decisions that he made I don't hate everything he accomplished. I started watching sens hockey in 2003 so i don't know what happened before that so i think someone might be able to argue that he was just along for the ride while the team was already built to win. in that case i would certainly listen.
They aren't easy to find - ask Philly.
have no fear, Rockin Robin is gonna take over soon enough, just watch! people say hes immature, but the guy is an unreal competitor and would give his left nut to get out there and battle for a win.
i just wish we got logan c for him
Posts # 6,8, & 12 mentioned it. What's surprising is how you missed it that many times. And I stopped checking at 12.
there is no denying the majic they had
plus when you look at heatley's stats, you can't help notce he has represented Canada 10 times over his career
oh well probably never happen
I also happen to think that John Paddock behind the bench didnt help the spiral after the finals. great start, sure, but god damn he burnt out our top line something fierce
The stud winger to feed Spezza we are all looking for is on the blue line.
the video is of all Karlssons points this year 14 minutes of it, very cool video, sorry if this was posted before I did not see it.
It was posted before but not really emphasized. Great watch, Karlsson is simply amazing. Also shows how great Spezza is as well. Forget setting people up, I want to see spezza score 50 with that shot of his.
1) I will kill somebody
2) Any way we can get the BSens to play their games at ScotiabankPlace and pay the city of Binghamton $$$?
3)Will there be a resurrance of Texas hold-em again?
Watching this video there is no doubt they made the right call giving karlsson the Norris
How about that Michalek goal V. Washington though.. completely forgot about that one. Should have been up for goal of the year
Also, Spezza and alfredsson are amazing
I praise you for not sinking to the level of posting fake trade rumours just to keep your visit count climbing. Thumbs up to you Dave.
And: thanks!
They take half the year away before coming to an agreement, we vow not to go to a game for the rest of the season. They loose a year, won't see us the next, ect.
I would definitely be wiling to keep my money in my pocket for as long as they lock us out.
Anyone with me?
Watched it a few times, Karlsson Alfie Spezza are amazing together.
Loved the Karlsson goal where he shot at the net blocked and came back to him, went around the net and buried it, Spezza and Alfies goals were sick.
Get your shit together players and owners, we are primed for a new season of exciting hockey, don't keep us waiting.
Bring it on.
Easier said than done.
But you see it isn't the Sens Owner or GM that is spending stupid and giving those ridiculous contracts. That is what got the league to where it is now..
Yeah Kovalev for 2 yrs & Gonchar for 3 yrs -- but that's not the 100M for 14 yrs. Or the 200M for 2 players for something like 13 yrs after your team lost money last season.
This lockout falls on the heads of NJ, NYR, Buff (big money at mid-level players), Philly, now Minny.. teams like that who push up the price by trying to outdo each other and overspending.
Close the loopholes in the current CBA. Roll back the cap to 65M.. the floor to 45M. Leave them there. No more offer sheets.. that's another way to overpay.. The rest should fall in line..
Teams that more or less 'wisely' run their team are being ruined by those that don't. That is the bottom line.
Interesting comments from Muckler. Matches (mostly) what I had heard as well. The version I heard (by someone basically impartial) was that Muckler was trying to sign both but dealing with each as if they were the one he wanted. Chara's camp wanted a number from Muckler but Muckler kept saying he didn't have a solid number. Then Redden agreed to terms and Chara's camp found out and was furious that apparently there was a number.
In a way I admire Muckler for trying to sign both somehow but it seems like he went about it in a bad way (according to rumor of course).
I really don't recall any significant outrage among fans at the time. Plenty of people wanted to keep Chara instead and of course everyone would have loved to keep both, but it's not like everyone in creation said at the time that Chara was the better player. So while it clearly was a disaster in hindsight, it's hard to call it the dumbest thing ever done by a GM.
P.Demitra for Christer Olsson
Honestly, I am not sure how this trade even happened or why. Maybe Demitra was just a player that couldn't find his groove until later in his career or perhaps it was because he just didn't fit in here...
When I look at the numbers and really think what could've been, this could go down as the worst trade to ever transpire for Ottawa. Each season he showed slow but steady improvement with Ottawa however only managed 26 points over his first 3 seasons in Ottawa, being sent up and down between the AHL and NHL in that period. Once traded, it took another season and a half before it finally seemed to click in St.Louis in the 97-98 season. In his career he managed to get 768 points in 847 GP which included a 90+ point season and two 80+ point seasons - WOW - not to mention multiple 60+ seasons.
I just wonder if Ottawa grew impatient or just didn't see what apparently was there - talent. You have to wonder if he could've become a staple in this city and how good he and Alfredsson could've been together OR how much influence he could've had on Havlat or perhaps even Hossa, influencing them to take bit less. You also have to wonder where the franchise would be if he was still here, given the talent they have now and the talent they once had. Could he have been a difference maker to making Ottawa a Stanley Cup winner or would they be right where they are - we will never know, but it makes you think.
Either way, looking back on it now, you have to summarize this as one of the more lopsided trades in Sens history. RIP Pavol.
But you see it isn't the Sens Owner or GM that is spending stupid and giving those ridiculous contracts. That is what got the league to where it is now..
Yeah Kovalev for 2 yrs & Gonchar for 3 yrs -- but that's not the 100M for 14 yrs. Or the 200M for 2 players for something like 13 yrs after your team lost money last season.
This lockout falls on the heads of NJ, NYR, Buff (big money at mid-level players), Philly, now Minny.. teams like that who push up the price by trying to outdo each other and overspending.
Close the loopholes in the current CBA. Roll back the cap to 65M.. the floor to 45M. Leave them there. No more offer sheets.. that's another way to overpay.. The rest should fall in line..
Teams that more or less 'wisely' run their team are being ruined by those that don't. That is the bottom line.
I agree those teams you mentions are the ones exacerbating the problem with the current bargaining agreement. My issue is that although the two sides involved knew this deadline was approaching they have not acted until a stoppage becomes immanent. They each feel like the other has more to loose from a lock out thus attempting to force each others hand. The biggest losers, as mentioned several times by Chirp, are we the fans.
I say let us try to force both THEIR hands. I bet one hundred thousand people with signatures on a petition agreeing to keep their money in their pockets for as long as the players are locked out would speed negotiations up a bit.
I agree with the above posters slamming the Havlat trade. Not so much for the return, but because that trade made it clear Muckler didn't understand who had the leverage in a cap world. He traded Havlat, who was making $2 mil in the last year of his contract, for pieces thinking he'd get nothing for him in the off-season. He was probably right about losing him for nothing, but he had a scoring winger in a contract year, and cap space in the off-season to go shopping or resign key free agents.
He also established the rule that no one could make more than the captain, creating an artificial cap of about $6 mil based on Alfresson's contract and then expected to get Hossa, Redden and Chara to all buy in. Dumb, in retrospect.
Karmas is a bitch Danny
Maybe I should sue my barber for telling me facebook was a sure thing? Looks good on ya dumbass
Including Pouliot, Skille, Brule, Bourdon etc.In fact I would argue that half the players taken in tha first round were essentially busts or have been thus far and only 7 players have been significant impact players. Clearly Kopitar and Staal jump out because they were taken right after Lee.
Tim Thomas has always been a Senator killer and after watching Karlsson's 78 points in 14 minutes video I noticed that Thomas gets really upset any time the Sens score on him especially if they were beauty goals with nothing to complain about. Given his mental breakdown since winning the cup I am thinking he really did have it out for the Sens in his mind for some reason.. Not sure exactly what it is.. maybe being Canada's capital. Good thing he is afraid of Myan mythology and is taking this year off :)
So if Bryan Murray were the GM at that time -- would he have picked Staal or Kopitar over Lee? Just saying.
I mean how can you run a draft with 2 full time scouts and a couple of part-timers... no wonder Muckler sucked at drafting.
Question I would like to ask Spezza.. why do you not shoot more? He has a great shot..
Watching that made me want to see the Sens again even more.. and Fehr & Bettman are going to stop that from happening..
Last season was awesome.. there had better be a next one soon..
I have to say that I don't really recall that draft in great detail. I seem to remember that Lee was a bit of a surprise pick but not completely off the board. And Kopitar was not really considered the gem of the draft going in either.
Really easy to bash just about any GM in hindsight. Some moves look bad the day they happen but a ton more look bad years later.
As for worst moments...
Ottawa selects (player name)...what? He's not on the list? Oh, OK...Ottawa selects (player name). Oh...Ottawa apologizes.
-Mel Bridgman, expansion draft.
true.
People only judge the Heatley/Hossa trade by how it ended. Which isn't really fair. You can't ignore how important Heatley was to the senators for those years, no matter how much you may want to.
Big Rig is doing really well from what I can tell. It's busy every time I've been in there. I'm sure it would/will be even busier on game days of course, but I don't think they're relying on game days to get them into the black.
Let's hope not anyway since it's a great place.
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