St. Louis Blues Fans Should Be Thankful We Aren’t Ottawa Senators

The St. Louis Blues and Ottawa Senators were both on the cusp of reaching the Stanley Cup Final in recent years. Things have changed quickly for both, but in completely opposite ways.

The St. Louis Blues and Ottawa Senators were both on the edge of potential glory in recent memory. The Blues ran out of gas in the 2015-16 Western Conference Finals. Ottawa could not fend off the Pittsburgh Penguins in seven games in 2016-17.

In the time from then on, the two teams have headed in polar opposite directions. Fans of the Blues should thank their lucky stars they are not in Ottawa’s shoes.

The Blues have spent their summer of 2018 restocking their NHL lockers and keeping the talent pool just underneath intact. Conversely, Ottawa is apparently having an Oprah-esque sale where everyone gets a piece of their team. That last statement is a bit over the top, but you get the idea.

Everyone comes at these situations from different angles. The case was made on local sports radio, regarding the St. Louis Cardinals, that being in the middle is the worst place to be. If you are not on the edge of winning a title, but not bad enough to retool through high draft picks, then you’ll never make it to that next level.

You can argue that point. The truth is in many sports, hockey included, building your team through the draft is the way most champions were made. So, when the Blues have had missteps, there were many loud fans wanting the organization to blow things up. That is easier said than done and results are not what so many would want.

We need only look at the mess Ottawa has created for themselves right now. In terms of market size, St. Louis is ahead of Ottawa, but in the overall sense, you would probably call both mid-major markets. So, they are on similar levels overall.

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Despite this, the Senators are basically imploding only two seasons after missing out on the final. Ottawa was within one game of making the final and playing against Nashville. In fact, the Sens had a 2-1 series lead over Pittsburgh but lost two in a row and then again in a seventh game. Ottawa would miss the playoffs the following year.

If that sounds familiar, it’s because the Blues followed a similar path, if only stretched out a bit more. We all know the Blues got to the conference finals in 2015-16. They lost to San Jose, partly because the Sharks were better, but also because St. Louis used up too much unnecessary energy in the two preceding rounds.

St. Louis did not completely falter the next season, but needed a coaching change to salvage a playoff spot before losing in the second round to the Nashville Predators. Like Ottawa, they missed the playoffs last year. That’s where the similarities end.

The Blues have restocked this summer and Ottawa has fallen apart.

The Senators were forced to trade Mike Hoffman after reports came out regarding alleged online abuse from Hoffman’s fiance toward Erik Karlsson‘s wife. While the Senators were probably shopping Hoffman anyway, the price dropped by quite a bit when teams knew they were going to have to deal.

Many Senators fans were enraged the team kept their draft pick at the 2018 draft and that they used it on Brady Tkachuk. St. Louisans think he’ll be good, but Ottawa fans wanted a different player or to trade the pick for more assets. They got neither.

Add all that on top of rumors that Karlsson is almost a sure bet to leave the team, either via trade or free agency and you have an epic mess. The Senators are clearly in rebuild mode faster than anyone could have imagined.

Derick Brassard, Kyle Turris, Hoffman and likely Karlsson are all gone from that 2016-17 squad. That’s four of your top five scorers from that year. Their production has not really been replaced.

Matt Duchene is a fine player, but he will be a free agent after this season too. Many pundits think he will leave Ottawa’s capital soon.

So, while fans love to take the “blow it up” approach online, do you really want to suffer through that kind of embarrassment? Do you want have an owner denying reports he is trying to sell? Do you want to lose a Norris Trophy defender and go from one game away from a final to a potential basement spot in the league?

Ottawa might be setting itself up for years of frustration. Look at Edmonton. They now have one of the top five players in the league due to their rebuild, but are no closer to being a contender than when they started so many years ago.

Blues fans don’t want to really go through the blow up phase. It’s a lot more painful and frustrating than one would imagine and those that remember when the team was sold in the mid-2000’s can attest to that.

Be grateful that the ownership is committed. Be thankful that we have a general manager willing to make offseason moves to improve without trading off all future assets in the process.

Next: Blues Likely Not Done In Trade Market

I would much rather a summer like the Blues are having in 2018 and deal with a letdown later, if it comes, than go through what Edmonton has or what Ottawa is likely to go through.