I headcanon the Centaurs were last good when Shane was about 7-12 years old. This is when the inevitable âlittle Shane in Cens pajamas/toque/jerseyâ photo which reappears when he signs there comes from. Then Shane starts getting serious about his own hockey and the Cens start sucking so he doesnât go to games any more. The Cens have a decade of darkness where the owner wonât rebuild because he doesnât want to face no playoff revenues for 5+ years, but he wonât spend enough to make them a contender. No big-ticket UFAs want to sign there, their own UFAs walk for more money elsewhere, they take their RFAs to arbitration over a 200K gap and then act surprised when they request to be traded. The introduction of the salary cap should help, but the owner treats the cap floor as a target while divisional rivals are attempting to squeeze as close to the cap ceiling as possible.Â
Theyâre drafting at 10-20 overall these years, and donât luck into any star players. Eventually they fall backwards into a rebuild in the early 2010s on account of having no good players left. Between 2012 and 2017 they draft Boodram, Dykstra, Holmberg, LaPointe and Young.Â
Around 2017 exciting things start to happen. The tight-fisted owner dies and his kids, who are progressive and want to spend money on the team, take over. The Cens trade for Chouinard and draft Luca.Â
The GM is feeling pretty happy that he can actually maybe sign a second-pair man and some veteran scoring help rather than filling out his depth chart on the waiver wire, when his phone rings. Rozanov? Ilya Rozanov? Cup winning, Conn Smythe, Hart, and Rocket Richard winner Ilya Rozanov? Haha, funny prank, whoever you are, but he knows Rozanovâs agent is Mike Sidorov like most of the Russians in the league.
âHe changed his representation. Steve, check caller ID. This is Farah Jalali. We were speaking last week about Martin LaPointe.â
Steve checks caller ID and starts hyperventilating. He conferences in his cap expert AGM, Joe, who pulls up his spreadsheets, sweating. Up until last season his job was to hit the cap floor, heâs not used to this. âFull NMC, signing bonuses, whatever he wants,â Steve says. He calls the owners to say heâs maybe in on the biggest UFA not only of the summer, but the decade. They compliment Steve on his great GM-ing (Steve doesnât know what he did) and green-light offering Ilya the highest salary in the league. Steve and Joe put together an initial offer. Farah gives Steve the second shock of the day by saying that Rozanov is actually in Ottawa for some reason and can meet in person tomorrow. (The NHL still had the âlegal tamperingâ period just before free agency in 2018).
Steve stares out of his office window at a suburban mall and a car dealership, thinks of the lack of championship banners in the rafters of his arena, and thinks Rozanov canât possibly want to sign here, heâs using them as leverage for whatever team he really wants to sign with. He has a lie-down in a conference room for ten minutes and drinks some Gatorade, then leaves his wife a voicemail to say heâll be working late and rounds up the rest of his AGMs to put together a sales pitch. The only dissenting voice is the AGM whoâs also the Director of Player Development who says the rebuild is only half cooked, their forward depth sucks, they have no centres. âWhat position does Rozanov play, point guard?â Steve snaps. âFocus, Brian, we canât just pass this up. Itâs probably not going to happen anyway.â
Steve knows Ilyaâs reputation on and off the ice, but he turns up wearing cargo shorts and a plaid shirt looking like heâs just been fishing at the cottage like a good old Canadian kid. (Heâs wearing a tank top underneath and at one point his collar slips to show a fresh hickey on his collarbone, so he clearly hasn't lost his rumoured knack for finding company).
Steve is used to pitching Ottawa to thirty-six year-olds who are looking for a retirement contract and good schools for the kids. He feels like he's mentioned their great young players and how amazing it would be to revitalize hockey in Ottawa three times already.
He brings up endorsements. Even a small Canadian market has opportunities there.
"Maybe I'll steal Hollaner's energy drink one," Rozanov says. "The one where he looked like wet cat in the adverts."
"Ha ha," Steve says. "Yes, you'd be able to continue your rivalry!"
Steve debriefs with his AGMs afterwards. "i don't think it was a complete disaster," he says.
"He was weirdly enthusiatic, but non-specific," one of the AGMs says.
Farah calls back. Rozanov wants to sign! With them! In Ottawa! Steve takes his wife out to dinner and champagne on the evening of July 2nd after it's all done.
Rozanov's first year in Ottawa goes ok. They don't make the playoffs, but they're in the running well into the spring. The next year Ilya gets an injury early on that he probably comes back from too soon, when he's healthy Bood gets injured, Chouinard is stressed because his wife's having a difficult pregnancy, and so on. Back down they go to the bottom of the standings. Steve wonders when he'll be fired.
Year 3. They're firmly in a playoff spot at the trade deadline. Steve mostly stands pat because he made his big addition earlier in the year by getting Barrett for a bag of pucks.
Steve's in his office, reading an article speculating why Hollander hasn't extended in Montreal yet, when an intern runs in, makes spluttering noises and shoves a phone in his face. It's a video of Rozanov and Hollander, and they're.....Steve now understands why Rozanov signed.
He waves off the intern and runs into Joe's office. Joe has six spreadsheets up on his monitors and is also scribbling furiously on a notepad. "Joe, what does our cap space projection look like for this summer?" Steve asks. Joe shows him the result of his calculations. It probably won't be enough, Steve thinks.
"We should consider...flexibility," he says, wiping sweat from his forehead. "In case of...eventualities." He doesn't dare say it out loud.
The intern comes to say that Roger Crowell's office is on the phone for Steve, so he needs to go and deal with the current crisis. He's definitely going to need to have a lie-down after this.
