Mark Stone Returns To Ottawa

The Las Vegas Golden Knights (24-19-6) visit the Ottawa Senators (16-22-8) headlined by Mark Stone’s first game back in Ottawa against his former team.

It’s difficult to describe what Mark Stone’s departure did to the Ottawa Senators fan base.

It felt like it was the last straw for fans in the Senators’ tear down. Karlsson’s departure was premeditated and Duchene’s didn’t leave people nearly as sour because he was wasn’t even around for a full season.

However, when Stone was traded to the Las Vegas Golden Knights on February 25th 2019, it was an unprecedented gut punch to Sens fans, and to add salt to our wound, he immediately signed an extension with Vegas. Stone was the last big domino to fall in the tear down which left the Senators with a plethora of picks and prospects.

This trade hurt the fan base the most because there was an actual belief that he might want to stick around. That he was prepared to take over as Captain of this team and be the face of the franchise moving forward.

Senators fans were teased with a Stone-Tkachuk combo, which was one they could see wreaking havoc on the league for years to come. They had clearly developed a chemistry on and off the ice, with Tkachuk staying in Stone’s house for his rookie season.

Stone would have been the perfect piece to build around up front, and all signs pointed to him being an excellent leader in the locker room and on the ice.

Unfortunately, that didn’t pan out. Stone stated that he wasn’t prepared to sign up for a rebuild at this point in his career, which is totally within his right.

Ottawa would have had to offer him more than the $9.5 million per season that Vegas put forward, which is a tough decision to make as a General Manager.

Pierre Dorion should be given full marks for all of the trades he made a year ago, mainly the Karlsson trade which gets better with each passing day. With that being said, his comments after the Stone trade angered quite a few people.

To paraphrase, he claimed that it was his proudest day as GM when he traded Stone, meaning he was very satisfied with the return. But the context made it seem like getting rid of Stone was what made him proud, which was ridiculous timing for a quote like that.

Personally, I think that quote sums up exactly what made the fans angry with this team over the past 3 seasons, and that’s the lack of communication from management to fanbase.

While I do agree that Erik Brannstrom will turn out to be a fine player, that should not have been a happy day for Dorion. He lost one of the best players this franchise had ever seen.

To summarize, Mark Stone demonstrated everything that is the Ottawa Senators. He was underrated, underappreciated, and flew under the radar as the best two-way forward in the game.

I was looking through the Golden Knights twitter feed, and their fans seem to want a Captain named. Every single commenter wanted Stone as their captain, and he’s been with the team for just under a year. That should tell you everything there is to know about the impact Mark Stone has.

January 16th, 2020 will be a tough day for Senators fans, as Mark Stone and his Las Vegas Golden Knights are playing their first game under Peter DeBoer after Gerard Gallant was fired.

The Sens, meanwhile, are looking to avoid losing 9 (!) games in a row by earning their first win of 2020.