Silver Nuggets: Sayonara, Paulrus

Did something happen yesterday?

I jest, but wow did that come out of left-field. Twitter, the go-to place to emotionally react to something, came alive yesterday, and to start this Nuggets off, I thought that I'd link my Twitter timeline here for you all to scroll through (if you wish). The reason for this is that you can see my emotions go from shock to anger to why to ahh Bryan Murray to boo Dave Cameron to gradual acceptance. I think that this timeline of emotions may be similar for some of you yesterday so I guess what I'm trying to say is... you're not alone.

Here's my non-expert opinion on coach firings: If a coach has lost the room you can either a) trade away the leadership group and back the coach, or b) fire the coach.

Ottawa, in a period of turmoil on and off the ice since 2011, cannot afford MORE instability, so the easiest thing to do (whether it be budget-wise or not) is to fire the coach. Now regarding Melnyk and money, I'm going to say this. Bryan Murray can convince me to do anything. I would run through multiple walls for the guy. I was shocked and angry going into his press conference and came out of it being like "okay, this is the team's rationale" in a scarily calm way. I don't know how much influence each stakeholder had in this decision, whether it be the players, Murray himself, or the owner, but it surely seems to me like Murray is the mediator between the two. What I heard was that the players didn't like Paul, and MacLean wasn't listening to requests from Murray and Melnyk. After watching every piece of video footage pertaining to the Ottawa Senators since Jason Spezza's departure, I did not sense a rift between the players and the coach. However, I am not in the room and can fully see how Paul MacLean's inflated expectations, combined with an apparent lack of communication and instability with lines and roles, can turn players against him. There's also the question regarding defensive improvement, which Murray clearly feels is a systems-issue and something I am going to be paying a lot more attention to under Dave Cameron. The last bit I'll put under here is to check out James Gordon's twitter feed for some fantastic thoughts regarding Bryan Murray's press conference and his thoughts on Paul MacLean, all of which I wholeheartedly agree with.

Here's my opinion on promoted coach, Dave Cameron:

I am skeptical of a guy who has been employed by Eugene Melnyk in some capacity since 2001. Melnyk bought the (formerly known) Toronto St. Michael's Majors, an OHL franchise, and hired Cameron to be their head coach from 2000-01 to 2003-04, where after some playoff success, Cameron was promoted to be the Binghamton Senators head coach. Although he had tremendous success in his first year in the AHL, it was mainly off the back of Ottawa's fantastic young talent, including Jason Spezza, who had to play there during the lockout (seriously, check out that roster and count the NHLers). In his next two years, Binghamton was near or at the bottom of the AHL standings, and fans wanted him fired. I'm hesitant to blame this all on Cameron, as John Muckler's terrible drafting didn't help one bit, but still not encouraging. After he was let go, he was immediately employed by the Majors again until becoming an assistant in Ottawa.

However, I am completely open to giving him a chance and I think that seeing what impact a supposed different system can have on a roster made up of the same personnel will be really interesting. I don't know why the team decided to take the interim label off of him right away (security?) instead of seeing what he can do, but they've taken the same approach with players (Michalek, Borowiecki both locked up before the team could get a better indication of what they can do). I wonder if this has any impact on Bryan Murray's succession plan and whether a new GM will have to keep Dave Cameron on as a head coach.

Anyways, there are a plethora of really good perspectives listed below with detailed analysis on MacLean's firing and Cameron's promotion, and as always, I encourage you to give them all a read.

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Links

• There's been two games since the last Nuggets! The Senators lost in a heartbreaking fashion to Pittsburgh. [Silver Seven, Rank the Performances, Ottawa Citizen, SenShot, SensChirp, Senstats]
• Then there was the dramatic come-from-behind win against Vancouver that is hopefully a turning point for the team. [Silver Seven, Rank the Performances, Ottawa Citizen, SenShot, SensChirp, Senstats]
• Mrs. O's weekly question was pretty eerie given what ended up happening and Jack was also pretty prophetic on the weekend. It's clear what "road" the Ottawa Senators are taking. [Silver Seven - Weekly Question, SenShot]
• Lots of Paul MacLean stuff up next. Our discussion thread is a good place to start. Amelia covered the Bryan Murray press conference, Nichols has a transcript of it, and the staff have their thoughts on the firing of Paul MacLean. [Silver Seven, 6th Sens, Silver Seven - Email Hotstove]
• Travis Yost and Dave Lozo have their thoughts on the Sens news from yesterday. [TSN, BR]
• The Citizen has columns on the firing of past Senators coaches [1], information on new head coach, Dave Cameron [2], and what the players are saying about the firing of MacLean [3].
• Chirp and Trevor have some thoughts on the MacLean firing and the promotion of assistant coach to Dave Cameron to be the head, not interim, coach. [SensChirp, SenShot]
• It's also interesting to take a look back at MacLean's quotes from the pre-season, which Gordon goes here [Ottawa Citizen]
• Sheer_Craziness looks at the concept of tanking and what it means with respect to the Sens. [Silver Seven]
• NKB was on Ups and Downs duty. Your Mikachu is evolving. [Silver Seven - Ups and Downs]
• Nichols has more on Ottawa's new second line - Mike Hoffman, Mika Zibanejad, and Bobby Ryan. [6th Sens]
• Ian with your Bingo update. Interestingly, Luke Richardson's BSens play a really similar system to the big club and have the same defensive issues as MacLean's Senators. Will be interesting to see if that changes as I remember Murray structured it this way so the young players that were promoted won't have to learn to adapt to a very different system. [Silver Seven]
• Here's Jeff's recap of the BSens 5-3 win over the Flames AHL affiliate, and their 4-2 loss to the Rangers AHL team [SenShot - Flames, SenShot - NYR]
• Your 'Alfie' edition of the Sens Callups podcast. Always a good way to look back on the week. [Sens Callups]

P.S: A Connor McDavid Sens thing.

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Thanks for reading!