Senators’ Steve Staios responds to criticism on Tarasenko return: ‘We exhausted all the options’

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HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. — A few moments after Steve Staios concluded his session with reporters on the covered terrace of the team’s beachfront hotel, the skies opened up with a steady rain.

A downpour in perpetually sunny Southern California is a peculiar sight, but on this day it seemed to perfectly encapsulate the mood from Senators fans back in Ottawa. Roughly 3,000 miles away, criticism was raining down on Staios after he executed his first trade in the general manager’s seat for the Senators.

Vladimir Tarasenko was shipped off to the Florida Panthers in exchange for a third-round pick and a conditional fourth-round selection. To say it was an underwhelming return for Ottawa fans is an understatement.

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Some fans fantasized about a first-round draft pick in return. Others envisioned a second-round pick and a prospect. Instead, Staios only nabbed a pair of mid-round draft picks for his winger, which earned low grades in the initial assessment of the trade.  The fact the Senators also retained 50 percent of Tarasenko’s salary didn’t help matters either.

But as Staios fielded questions about the transaction, he flatly stated that he extracted the best possible value for the 32-year-old pending unrestricted free agent. And waiting an additional 48 hours to squeeze more value out of Tarasenko was simply not on the table.

“The answer to that is unequivocally no. I think we exhausted all the options,” Staios said. “We felt comfortable with where we were at. That was the maximum value in that deal.”

Staios speaks with a measured and calm voice, and it sometimes requires reading between the lines to ascertain his true tone. In listening to him on Wednesday, Staios seemed to indicate that the market for Tarasenko was not exactly a robust one with several bidders driving up the price. Instead, the sense is that Staios only had one legitimate option, which was to send Tarasenko to his preferred destination in Florida. Tarasenko wisely negotiated for a no-movement clause in the one-year, $5 million contract he signed with Pierre Dorion in July.

It allowed him to essentially handpick his destination at the trade deadline. And as a result, it left Staios handcuffed; he couldn’t play multiple offers off each other.

“It’s something the player negotiated into his contract. It certainly adds a different dynamic to the whole process. So I’m happy with the return,” Staios explained. “I’m happy Vladdy gets to go home. His family had been there the entire year. He gets to play on a very good team.”

Staios really only had one legitimate suitor for Tarasenko and if he didn’t execute the trade on Wednesday, there was a risk the Panthers could have gone shopping elsewhere. If Ottawa fans felt underwhelmed about this return, one can only imagine the outrage if Tarasenko was retained beyond the deadline — without Staios recouping any assets for him.

“With the position we’re in and Vladdy becoming a UFA, it was prudent for us to be able to look around and make a move to gain some assets moving forward,” Staios said.

When pressed if a contract extension with Tarasenko was discussed, Staios declined to get into specifics. But he left very little room for interpretation with his answer. A contract extension for Tarasenko to stay in Ottawa was not going to happen.

“I won’t get into all the discussions with the player and the agent. We really liked Vladdy. We liked what he brought to the group. But as time went on, this was the outcome,” Staios said.

Tarasenko was certainly Staios’ biggest chip when it came to pending unrestricted free agents. But at one point during his nearly 10-minute discussion with reporters in Huntington Beach, Staios indicated that rival general managers have been phoning him to express interest in players with a bit of term on their deals.

“We’re getting a lot of interest in all of our players,” Staios said.

The name that is drumming up the most attention — at least externally — is Jakob Chychrun. Chychrun rocketed all the way up to No. 5 on TSN’s latest trade board this week, a rise fuelled by reports that other teams are expressing interest in his services. The rumour mill is churning at full tilt around the defenceman, but considering Chychrun suited up for Wednesday’s game in Anaheim, it seems unlikely anything is imminent. If the Senators were close to completing a deal involving Chychrun, logic dictates he would be yanked from the lineup to protect his health.

“There is nothing that we’re actively doing on Jakob Chychrun,” Staios said Wednesday. “If I was on the other end of the line, I would certainly get inquiring about a player of that calibre.”

And given the difficulty in extracting fair value for Tarasenko, the last thing Staios can afford to do is pull off a rushed move involving Chychrun — or another core piece — that yields an underwhelming return. If Staios and his hockey operations team are truly considering moving on from Chychrun, they should ensure they are hitting as close to a home run as possible.

One pedestrian trade involving Tarasenko can be excused given the extenuating circumstances that backed Staios into a corner. A second diluted return involving Chychrun cannot be tolerated. There should not be any false urgency to trade a player who is under contract through next season at a very reasonable $4.6 million cap hit.

As we are learning, Staios runs a very tight ship. Leaks and rumours do not emanate from inside his office walls. He is friendly — but guarded — when answering questions about his approach to the trade deadline.

“We have some ideas of where we want to get to coming out of this deadline, if the opportunity presents itself,” said Staios. “But the market will dictate on a lot of these things.”

In decoding Staios’ language, he leaves several clues suggesting that he is open to making a change to break this team out of a playoff drought that is destined toward reaching a seventh consecutive season.

“The trade deadline is one opportunity for us to look at our group. Maybe change the dynamic a little bit,” he said at one point.

At another juncture, he openly mused about the possible reasons why this franchise has stagnated and is only on pace for a 75-point campaign.

“Inconsistencies are what we’re trying to put a finger on. Is it just that we’re young? Is it inexperience? The type of players? The dynamics with our group? We’re looking at all that,” said Staios.

Stockpiling assets is certainly one of Staios goals before Friday’s 3 p.m. Eastern trade deadline, but it does not appear that he’s going to be a third-party broker to help facilitate a trade between two other teams — even though he’s stumbled into some extra salary cap room. Staios indicated it would be “highly unlikely for us” to absorb salary on a player who is later flipped out to another team for a draft pick. Staios pointed to the fact the club is already retaining salary on Tarasenko and Matt Murray, giving them only one other potential retention spot.

Staios has a bit more money to play with because the club has placed Josh Norris on long-term injured reserve. The general manager declined to confirm if Norris would miss the remainder of the regular season, only saying it would be a “long term” injury. And it sounds like another surgery could be in store for Norris.

“We’ll take the appropriate amount of time and allow him to get all the opinions. The second opinion tends to confirm what our doctors are looking at as well,” Staios said. “We encourage that and we support all our players in that regard.”

With Norris potentially out for the rest of the season and Tarasenko now out of the picture, Staios does sound like an executive who wants to pull off at least one more trade by Friday, even if it’s not one of a seismic magnitude. Staios said the Tarasenko deal “allows us to look at some other things now.”

He even suggested he would be open to trading for a pending UFA and “giving them a spin as well with our group.”

Staios may not have won over Ottawa fans with his first trade on Wednesday, but he stressed that improving this hockey team is a marathon, not a sprint. And Staios will have ample opportunity over the next five months to put his definitive stamp on this roster.

“I think that would be fair. It’s very challenging to address all needs that you’re looking to,” said Staios. “The trade deadline is one opportunity for it. I think we have a process in place on areas of need and what we’d like to address. And we’re certainly working hard to try and address them right now.”

(Top photo of Vladimir Tarasenko: Timothy T. Ludwig / USA Today)