Victoria Selling Off?

Victoria selling off ?

The local fishwrap lead story in the sports section is all about the Ronin and how high level talent seems to be heading out the door. Gone are the top six center D Krejci, starting netminder B Holtby and now A Wennberg another top level pivot is joining the rush out of the lockeroom. Season ticket holders are up in arms, especially when with the increased seat license fee scheduled for this upcoming season.

The leader of the Ronin fan club has recently gone to Twitter saying he was going to step down after next season. Many are thinking of joining him and supporting other teams. Prices are up, yet the team is trading off key assets. Its not a very promising situation.

“Few teams have a better overall win loss record than the Victoria Ronin over the years,” the owner was quoted as saying. “Our past efforts of high profile spending have cost the team especially when it comes to the bottom line. A closer look at the financial situation of the team does seem to indicate a trend of losing money, yet the team has never even been to the finals, let alone won one. So I decided to take a less active roll on the hockey operations side and stop forcing things,” he said.

“Starting a season ago the front office made the decision to part ways with more expensive players on the wrong side of their careers in favor of younger players who are not only more affordable but on the upswing,” said an unnamed official. “The feeling was that the culture had to change, which starts at the top.” Gone are players like Rick Nash, Tyler Myers, Paul Stastny & Captain Canada Sidney Crosby just to name a few.

Looking closely at the situation Victoria has refrained from bidding on any high priced free agents for the past few UFA seasons. Instead shoring up holes with reasonably priced free agents while waiting for kids to brew. The team now boasts some reasonably talented kids with more in the pipeline. This years M designations include William Carrier, Tyler Graovac who both changed NHL teams. Gustav Forsling, Brett Kulak, plus former Dayton farmhands Scott Mayfield and Juuse Saros. “Most of these kids are not world beaters,” a league official said “but they could find themselves with a full time job and who knows where they take their careers from there.”

Core players like Esa Lindell, Jacob Trouba, and Evgeni Kuznetsov have very high ceilings. They are now joined by former Puffin Ryan Nugent Hopkins and Vlad Namestnikov. The most recent deal landed former Ronin Victor Rask from the Norsemen. The team has also picked up some additional quality draft picks and are hopeful that Keiffer Bellows will get his act together in Portland, hopefully playing top line minutes there.

The old guard anchored by J Benn, C Kreider and T Hamonic will now be asked to take more of a leadership role and indeed Jamie Benn has been named team captain, with Hamonic wearing the A. Kreider reportedly passed on the other A in favor of former Falcon Wayne Simmonds. Simmonds was out of town and was rumored to involved in trade talks with a few teams. “Still a Ronin and looking forward to next season,” he wrote via twitter.

The trouble is that the fans have been promised this before only to see the team turn around and trade off young promising talent in favor of a short term fix. “Those days are gone,” said a league analyst. “The team now features a much lower payroll and younger players. The issue is if the team will be competitive this season which unfortunately comes with the increased ticket prices.”

“If the team can make the playoffs, turn a profit and continue to benefit from some good luck, then things could be very different in a season or two,” a spokesman said. “The jury is out on that while the team fine tunes its efforts in the preseason. It should boil down to Steve Mason getting the job done or if the situation requires the calling up of former Musicman Juuse Saros.”

“We like our chances going forward,” the GM said. “It hurts having to lose such quality players but the plan is to come back even stronger. Kind of like the tide. The team is deeper and from top to bottom has good quality talent that will improve over the coming seasons.” When asked for a comment about the situation in nets the GM said “we have every confidence in Steve Mason and look forward to seeing him helping us make the playoffs like we usually do.” Ticket prices are scheduled to go up in September.