OTTAWA, ON - DECEMBER 13: Cody Ceci #5 of the Ottawa Senators celebrates his second period goal against the New York Rangers with teammates Mark Stone #61, Matt Duchene #95 and Bobby Ryan #9 at Canadian Tire Centre on December 13, 2017 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. (Photo by Jana Chytilova/Freestyle Photography/Getty Images)
Pierre Dorion has been the General Manager of the Ottawa Senators since April 10th, 2016, when Bryan Murray decide to step down from the role in order to spend his final days with his family. I’ll talk more about Murray’s tenure at another point in time, I just felt it important to mention the legacy that Murray had. Dorion’s seen some ups and downs throughout his tenure as the GM of the Sens. This article will launch a 6 part series breaking down all of his transactions as GM of the Ottawa Senators. Today, let’s start with Pierre Dorion’s worst trades as General Manager of the Ottawa Senators
The Mika Zibanejad Trade
On July 18th, 2016, Pierre Dorion would complete his first transaction as General Manager of the Ottawa Senators, and it would prove to be quite a doozy. He would agree to send young centerman Mika Zibanejad and a 2018 Second Round pick (which turned out to be Jonathan Berggren) to the New York Rangers in exchange for Derick Brassard and a 7th round pick in the 2018 draft (which turned out to be Luke Loheit). At the time this trade had been made, Zibanejad had not yet established himself as a star centerman in the NHL. He was 24 at the time and was struggling to find consistency.
Dorion would decide to mortgage the youth in order to acquire a more proven centerman in Brassard in an attempt to solidify the center ice position for the Senators. In the short term, this worked. Brassard would appear in 81 games for the Senators and score 15 goals and 25 assists for 81 points while Zibanejad would score 14 goals and 23 assists for 37 points… in 56 games. Zibanejad would miss quite a lot of time due to injury, while Brassard would help lead the Senators to the Eastern Conference final that year (ironically enough both teams met in the second round, and Ottawa would be victorious). I say the Senators would meet their intentions in year one of the trade due to their deep playoff run that year.
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However, from that year forth, Zibanejad would establish himself as a star in the NHL and regularly score 30 or more goals, while Brassard would serve as a serviceable middle-six center for numerous teams as he bounced around the league. Let me clarify this by saying I absolutely adore Brassard and he will go down as one of my favorite players to suit up for the Senators, it’s just unfortunate that the price to acquire him was so steep.
After Ottawa’s free-fall, Brassard would be traded to the Pittsburgh Penguins in exchange for Filip Gustavsson, a 2018 first-round pick, Ian Cole, and a 2019 Third round pick. Gustavsson would struggle in Ottawa and later be traded for Cam Talbot, the first-round pick turned out to be Jacob Bernard-Docker, Ian Cole was immediately flipped, and that third in 2019 would turn out to be traded a couple more times, and lead to the Carolina Hurricanes selecting Anttoni Honka.
Essentially, the Ottawa Senators turned Mika Zibanejad into Cam Talbot and Jacob Bernard-Docker. While JBD shows potential, he has not established himself as a full-time NHLer at this point.
Alexander Burrows…
Getting close to the trade deadline, Pierre Dorion wanted to acquire some forward depth. So he traded prospect Jonathan Dahlen to the Vancouver Canucks in exchange for Alexandre Burrows in February of 2017. When asked about why he made this trade, Dorion would say that he needed to find a replacement for Clarke MacArthur (whose career would end due to concussion issues) and decided on Burrows as his top candidate.
As Burrows had an NMC, he would have to agree to waive it in order to be traded, and he would do that. The Canucks appeared to be entering a rebuild and the Sens were looking at a deep playoff run, why not? He would have an impressive debut with the Senators, scoring two goals. In 21 games with the team to finish off the year, he would score 6 goals and 5 assists for 11 points. While these numbers are pretty decent, the reason I mention Burrows as a bad acquisition is because of one situation in particular.
Alex Burrows knees Taylor Hall repeatedly in the back of the head during a scrum mid-game.
— Hockey Daily 365 l NHL Highlights & News (@HockeyDaily365) February 7, 2018
On February 6th, 2018, Burrows would lose his temper in a regular play against the New Jersey Devils and would do one of the most brainless things I’d ever seen happen in all of hockey when he got in a scrum with Devils forward Taylor Hall and elbow him repeatedly in the head. This play would result in Burrows being suspended for 10 games, and lead the Ottawa Senators to buy him out at the end of the season. When asked about the incident, Burrows would say “Obviously I messed up on that one. I let the emotions get the best of me”. Burrow is now serving as an Assistant Coach for the Montreal Canadiens.
Matt Duchene… The First Trade.
After their long run to the Eastern Conference Finals, Pierre Dorion was convinced that the Ottawa Senators were missing just one piece in order to make it over the hump and win it all. He believed that piece to be a true number one center. In order to rectify this, he would complete a blockbuster trade with the Colorado Avalanche and the Nashville Predators that would see Matt Duchene finally be moved away from the Avalanche to chase postseason hockey in Ottawa.
Except that’s not how it happened. The Senators would begin their free-fall from grace and finish that season at the bottom of the NHL’s standings and pick 4th overall due to losing the NHL’s Draft Lottery.
Duchene was acquired in a massive trade that is easiest to breakdown this way:
To Ottawa:
Matt Duchene (from Colorado)
To Colorado:
Andrew Hammond (from Ottawa)
Shane Bowers (from Ottawa)
2019 First-Round Pick (from Ottawa)
2019 Third Round Pick (from Ottawa)
Vladislav Kemenev (from Nashville)
Sam Girard (From Nashville)
To Nashville
Kyle Turris (from Ottawa)
With the Ottawa Senators, Duchene would impress. In 118 games, he would score 50 goals and 57 assists for 107 points. He came as advertised, but unfortunately, the team would crumble shortly after his arrival, launching the current rebuild. When you pay that much for a player, you’d hope they’d stick around for the long run and be a franchise-defining player.
Mark Stone Traded to Vegas
At the beginning of the rebuild, Mark Stone was lauded as the future captain and face of the franchise. He was supposed to be the one piece that stayed with the team. Unfortunately for the Ottawa Senators, Stone would decide he did not want to participate in a rebuild, which is completely his right, and the Sens had to make the hard choice to trade him away at the 2019 NHL Trade Deadline as opposed to risk losing him for nothing as an unrestricted free agent. Many teams would come knocking for Stone’s services as he was having a career-high season, scoring 28 goals and 62 points in 59 games before the trade, but ultimately the winning bid came from the Vegas Golden Knights.
The Senators would send Stone and Tobias Lindberg to Vegas in exchange for Erik Brannstrom, a second-round pick (Egor Sokolov), and Oscar Lindberg.
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At the time, Brannstrom was a 19-year-old prospect who had been picked 15th overall in the 2017 draft by the Golden Knights and was seen as one of the top prospects in the entire NHL. Unfortunately, Brannstrom has not lived up to those insane expectations as of yet. He’s been good, but he’s been shafted down the depth chart behind guys like Thomas Chabot, Jake Chychrun, Jake Sanderson, and even Artem Zub.
As for Stone? He’s since been named the first captain in Vegas Golden Knights history and has established himself as the face of their franchise. It has absolutely sucked for him in terms of injuries though, as he’s been continuously battling back issues. I hope he’s able to get a full recovery sooner rather than later.
Cam Talbot for Filip Gustavsson
I’ve written about this trade recently, so I won’t go into the absolute nitty-gritty details as to avoid redundancy. One thing I will mention is that I find it ironic that two trades in the same trade tree are linked in this article. The reason the Senators had Filip Gustavsson in the first place was because of the aforementioned Mika Zibanejad trade. Zibanejad was traded for Derick Brassard. Later on, Brassard was traded to the Pittsburgh Penguins in exchange for Filip Gustavsson and a few other pieces.
During his time in Ottawa, Gustavsson was regarded as the goalie of the future, but unfortunately was not able to ever win a permanent NHL spot with the Senators. He needed to either be handed the reigns or a change of scenery, and Dorion opted to give him a change of scenery. As I discuss in the article I have linked earlier, Gustavsson has been lights out for Minnesota while Talbot has been inconsistent, and riddled with injuries. I could go as far to say that Gustavsson could be nominated as a finalist for the Vezina Trophy, and has a slight chance to actually win it if he continues how he’s playing down the stretch.
Let’s be clear, Dorion has made a lot of transactions during his time with the Ottawa Senators. He’s been GM since April 10th, 2016, and is the 9th longest-tenured GM in the NHL right now. This article serves as the first part of a series in order to evaluate Pierre Dorion’s time as General Manager, and how long should he get to keep this position.
