Five Thoughts For Friday: Steve Staios' Management Masterclass

There's been some well-deserved discussion on Travis Green being a Jack Adams candidate for his part in bringing the Ottawa Senators to the playoffs for the first time in 8 years, but the man who hired him has flown under the radar as an executive worthy of an award himself – on top of hiring Green, here are five reasons Steve Staios should be GM of the Year this season.

He Understands the Value of Leverage

Your average Ottawa Senators hockey game will almost always be decided by which team gets the better goaltending. That's why Staios was so desperate to acquire a Vezina-caliber netminder in Linus Ullmark for the bank-breaking price of...a late 1st-round pick, Mark Kastelic, and 75% of Joonas Korpisalo's contract? That seems awfully low, doesn't it?

I suppose there weren't a ton of teams looking for a starter at the time, and after New Jersey got Jakob Markstrom from Calgary, Ottawa might've been the only club left with a 1st to offer. Of course it also helped that trading Ullmark was necessary to pay Jeremy Swayman's massive deal which has yielded...an .895 save percentage? That seems awfully low, doesn't it?

Anyway, that's how you win a trade. Find a team that is desperate for one of your assets, and hold them at gunpoint until they give you what you want.

He's Willing to "Lose" a Trade to Improve the Team

Whereas Staios had the leverage in the Ullmark trade, moving defenseman Jakob Chychrun was something he needed to do to enable his following moves. Full credit to the Washington Capitals for acquiring Chychrun while giving up a 3rd round pick and Nick Jensen, who, despite being what Ottawa needed this year, would've been the Caps' 3rd- or 4th-best RHD after John Carlson, Matt Roy, and maybe Trevor van Riemsdyk.

However, in the grand scheme of things, while Jensen doesn't bring nearly as much value as Chychrun by himself, his consistent play on the team's second pair has enabled Thomas Chabot to have his best season by far in terms of two-way even-strength play. You look at the price given up to acquire Chychrun as opposed to what we got for him a year later, and it's a tough pill to swallow, but Staios was able to save a bit of cap room while ensuring the campaign wouldn't become a season of The Bachelor with Chabot and Jake Sanderson fighting for Artem Zub's affection.

He Knows How to Support a Talented Core

With the added cap space via moving on from Chychrun, Mathieu Joseph and Erik Brännström, Staios had ample opportunity to target some useful role players to round out the team's forward depth. Time for a rapid-fire round:

• David Perron has been locked in since March, with 12 points in his last 20 games. If that pace carries into the playoffs, that's more than worth his $4M price tag.
• Mike Amadio struggled to produce out of the gate but since December, he's been the ideal third-liner for a Cup contender, with 20 points in 45 games and a team-leading +15 rating in that span. I suspect Ottawa would not be nearly as successful at holding a lead without his contributions.
• Nick Cousins hasn't played since Jan. 25th with a long-term knee injury, but he was quietly playing some of his best hockey in December as well, with 4 goals and 3 assists in 13 games that month. Recall how the Sens went 9-3-1 that month, and how 7 of those wins were decided by 2 goals or fewer.
• The narrative around Adam Gaudette is that he has to score to be effective, but even on the many nights he's quiet, he's still having a positive impact on the team – he leads the entire club in 5-on-5 on-ice goals share at over 60%, and the 17 goals he's scored from the 4th line don't hurt either.

He Doesn't Care About Your Favourite Player

In spite of his early successes, Staios didn't have a surefire playoff team in place leading up to the deadline, and thanks to his predecessor, was slated to lose a 1st round selection in one of the next two drafts. This combined with the lack of available cap space meant Staios needed to get creative in his goal of addressing the team's lack of 5-on-5 scoring.

Josh Norris had the team's best shot and I wouldn't call him a one-dimensional player, but he did lack the most important qualities of a top-six centre, which are the ability to drive play from the middle of the ice, and high-end playmaking. Dylan Cozens isn't a world beater, but he's better at both.

The swap of Norris for Cozens, once again, takes advantage of a desperate team, hence the added cap space and draft capital, but more importantly, he's willing to move a popular player to achieve his vision of a better team. The power of friendship only amounted to a bottom-10 offensive team prior to March, so changes needed to be made.

He Looks For Every Possible Option

One of my biggest frustrations with Pierre was the seemingly obvious moves that were available to him, even with the Sens being a smaller market that didn't want to spend to the cap, that he refused to make. The 2021 Seattle Expansion Draft posed an opportunity for rebuilding teams lacking established veterans, to work with contenders that were unable to protect all of their key players. Better to trade for peanuts than lose 'em for nothing, after all.

Viktor Arvidsson in Nashville was the player in my sights, on a team-friendly $4.25M cap hit and salary for three more years, and without any trade protection. Instead of using two 2nd-round picks to outbid the LA Kings, the Sens used those picks on Filip Nordberg and Ben Roger, protected Austin Watson and Logan Brown, and paid Arvidsson's salary to Chris Tierney. That's a cursed paragraph right there.

Staios, on the other hand, travelled across the land, searching far and wide, for a deal that myself and many others had no idea was even an option. Fabian Zetterlund was someone I never considered because he seemed like the perfect complement to Macklin Celebrini, William Eklund and Will Smith, but the Sharks were willing to sell for the right price, and Staios took advantage of the pick and cap space gained from the Cozens deal, along with Stephen Halliday's positive development, to move their own 2nd-rounder and Zack Ostapchuk.

He also scored against the Blue Jackets on Tuesday, so I can actually supplement this final thought with a clip as well: