So The Ottawa Senators Are Very Much, As We Say In The Biz, Fucked Come Next Free Agency
Earlier this morning the Ottawa Senators re-signed Mark Stone for 1-year at $7.35M. While it’s only a 1 year deal, the value on that contract will make Stone the highest paid player on the Sens next season. Just in case anybody was curious as to what the price was to make somebody actually want to stay in Ottawa right now. So now with Mark Stone signed for one more season in Ottawa, that will make him an unrestricted free agent on July 1, 2019. Other players currently under contract with Ottawa who hit UFA on July 1, 2019?
Matt Duchene and Erik Karlsson. Maybe you’ve heard of those guys before. They’ve also got a bunch of other guys hitting various different forms of free agency next summer but those are the 3 big names.
Their 3 best players all hitting the unrestricted market at the same time. Now obviously all of this relies on the assumption that Karlsson and Duchene would even still be on the Senators’ roster by the time next summer rolls around. Which seems about as unlikely as Pete Chiarelli never making a shit trade again for the rest of his career. But still. If they somehow don’t unload Karlsson or Duchene before free agency next summer, holy shit. Could you imagine having to try to figure out a way to bring even 2 of those guys back in the same summer? On top of that, there’s still a chance that depending on what ends up happening with Cody Ceci in arbitration this summer, he could go right back to arbitration next summer as well. So if you thought this summer was a goddamn circus show up in Ottawa already, just wait until what next summer could possibly have in store.
It’s just so hard to believe that this was the same team that was 1 win away from playing in the Stanley Cup Final in 2017. I’m having trouble right now coming up with any sort of comparison to that drop off. 1 win away from playing for the Cup to one of the biggest dumpster fires in the league with no real hope in sight. Sheesh. I genuinely feel terrible for Senators fans right now. Luckily it doesn’t seem like there are too many of them considering their playoff attendance numbers.
P.S. – Shoutout to Mark Stone. Always a fan of seeing guys get rich. He’s been a consistent 20-25 goal/60 point scorer for the last few seasons now. Definitely deserved that pay bump.