The Alternate Timeline Where Mark Stone Stays in Ottawa

If you ask any Ottawa Senators fan over the past ten years who their favourite player is, a large swath of people would have said Mark Stone at one point in time.

Stone was (and still is in some corners) an incredibly beloved player in Ottawa, despite only playing four and a half full seasons and 366 games as a Senator. Everything he does is joyful, and you can tell that playing in the NHL is so much fun for him and that he enjoys every single night. Not only that, he just happens to be one of the best wingers in the game, putting up 514 points in 584 career NHL games. Furthermore, he's always been one of the most proficient defensive wingers due to his ability to steal the puck anywhere on the ice. Add in his leadership abilities, and you have a player that is truly special.

I don't have to remind Senators fans of that though: we've known it all since day one. Once Erik Karlsson was shipped out of town in September 2018, Stone was tabbed as the next potential captain, and for good reason. He was coming off of a 62-point season in just 58 games and had turned 26—the seemingly perfect young player to build around as other pieces were being dealt. That's obviously not how things went down though, and four years after being traded to the Vegas Golden Knights, Stone is two wins away from captaining his team to a Stanley Cup Championship.

But how different would things be right now if Stone had stayed?

You might think I'm writing about this to crucify Pierre Dorion by saying that he was out of his mind to trade him, but that's not actually the case. In fact, I can sympathize with him on this. This is just a thought I had simply because there is so much recent talk about Stone and it's hard not to think about him as a Senator.

Last week, we had some interesting insight from Dorion (apologies, but Twitter embeds aren't working our platform -- blame Elon) on the Cam and Strick podcast where he said that he was willing to give Stone what he wanted on a deal but that owner Eugene Melnyk asked about the downside and didn't want to pay for the latter years of an expensive deal for a player in his 30s. Furthermore, Stone had this to say to Pierre LeBrun on Sunday:

"Yeah for sure," Stone said Sunday after practice. “At that time, I think the rebuild (in Ottawa) was going to be a little longer than I wanted. They were honest with me (about the rebuild), which I respected. I knew it was going to take a three-, four-year time window, and you never know, right? You don’t have the full no-trade protection and you never know if you’ll get moved when they need to free up some money.

“I wanted to go play on a team that was looking to compete for a chance to win. We’ve given ourselves opportunities here to be in that position.”

LeBrun pointed out that the part about "no full no-trade protection" was key, as Ottawa wasn't willing to offer that up—which might have been a Melnyk thing, or it could have been Dorion; ultimately we'll likely never know. Certainly, there's still a chance that Stone would have rejected a similar offer that he got from Vegas due to Ottawa going through their rebuild, but from all accounts, he seemed to love the city and was at least at one point willing to stay if the money was right. Dorion was put in a difficult situation by (probably) not being able to offer a full eight years or a NMC because of Melnyk.

Let's change some history though and pretend that Stone signs an 8-year deal with a $9.5M cap hit in the fall of 2018. What could have been the same? What could have changed?

First of all, Stone is almost certainly the captain of the Senators instead of Brady Tkachuk. What a great problem to have, with both players being more than capable of assuming a major leadership role. Brady learned so much from Stone in his rookie season, and the two of them would have continued to be an unstoppable duo on the first line together. I do wonder if Brady would be playing the same though or if he would have felt less of a need to be an outward leader of the team. I certainly believe Stone would have helped other young players like Tim Stützle, Josh Norris, Shane Pinto, etc. thrive.

Secondly, the Sens might not have been quite as bad as they were between 2019 and 2022.  There's a chance that Ottawa misses out on Jake Sanderson in 2020 (Tim Stützle was San Jose's pick), and perhaps they end up with a less impactful prospect.

Moving into the 2022 off-season, I can't imagine Ottawa signing Claude Giroux if they already had Stone and Batherson on the right side. Giroux was a phenomenal signing, so that would have been too bad to lose out on him. They most likely still would have traded for Alex DeBrincat due to their need in the top-six though. What's interesting is that the $9.5M cap hit for Stone would be quite difficult to keep around. If we swap Giroux's $6.5M for Stone's $9.5M, that puts Ottawa right at the cap without any wiggle room to improve the roster.

Then again, we don't know what effect Stone could have had on other players in terms of contracts—especially Tkachuk. We know how vocal Keith Tkachuk was about keeping Stone in Ottawa, and maybe Brady would have been more lenient on his contract demands and signed for less than what he actually got. It's a massive "what if?" but still a relevant question.

Not only would Ottawa not have Giroux, they of course wouldn't have Erik Brännström as well. Brännström has long been a source of debate amongst Senators fans, but he was undeniably great in his role last season, giving them a cost-effective and valuable defenseman. He'll never be as impactful as Stone, but not having him would have made the defense worse. We really have no idea who else Ottawa would have added instead of some of these players, which is what makes these exercises impossible to guess.

What makes the Senators look a little bit better is the fact that Stone has not been able to stay healthy over the past two seasons, appearing in just 80/164 games due to his back troubles. He's 31 years old, he still has three years left on his contract after this one, and it's unclear if he'll even be able to play a majority of those games. With Ottawa in a win-now mode, they need somebody who can actually play. It goes without saying, though, that when he's been healthy, he's been unstoppable; Stone has 17 points in 19 playoff games, and when you factor in his defensive play, it's clear how valuable he's been to the Golden Knights. His contract is incredibly risky due to the high ceiling he has but also the low floor with back injuries not being encouraging. I can guarantee that if he missed that much time over the past two seasons in Ottawa, there would be a lot of grumbling.

There's no doubt that Ottawa was worse from 2019-present without Stone, and they probably would have been closer to a playoff spot (or even in one!) if he had been here this whole time. However, they're in less of a pickle moving forward and aren't positioned that poorly due to them getting Giroux instead. I'm not saying the trade was good, but it hasn't been as bad as it once seemed due to his injuries and cap hit.

From Vegas' point of view, Alex Pietrangelo probably becomes their captain, although they would have had a massive hole on their right wing. They would've still been a good team, but I can't imagine them coming this close to winning a Stanley Cup without Stone. That summer, some free agent splashes included Artemi Panarin, Joe Pavelski, and Mats Zuccarello, so perhaps the Knights would have signed one of those players instead, keeping them on a similar level. Stanley Cup champions though? Who knows.

What's undeniable about this is that Stone is an incredibly valuable player and is deserving of so much love. He was an excellent Senator, but rare is the player who spends their whole career in one place. I'll never hold anything against him for preferring a better contract elsewhere, and I hope you feel the same as well. Hockey is a business, although if you watched Mark Stone, you'd think it was just a kid's game that is meant for pure joy.