Ottawa Senators general manager Pierre Dorion still hasn’t spoken to Matt Murray
If you read this website, there’s a good chance you’ve heard my grumblings of the Ottawa Senators handling of Matt Murray in the last week.
And now, another awkward wrinkle has arisen.
Murray spoke with The Athletic’s Ian Mendes and there, he told him that he had yet to have a conversation with Senators GM Pierre Dorion.
I just had a long chat with Matt Murray in Belleville.
He’s remarkably upbeat, but one thing is clear to me from our conversation: He wasn’t thrilled with the way his demotion was handled by the organization.
He says he still hasn’t had a conversation with Pierre Dorion.
On Tuesday’s edition of The Daily Faceoff Show, Mike McKenna summed it all up perfectly.
“It kind of burns me up inside because this is starting to be a trend, it’s a pattern where a player gets moved — they get traded, they get sent down — and Pierre Dorion, the general manager of the Ottawa Senators doesn’t communicate,” McKenna said. “In my eyes, this is not how you deal with your players. You owe them the respect of at least giving them a phone call, a text, anything, an explanation — especially for somebody like Matt Murray who was signed to a four-year, $6.25 ticket.
“This is supposed to be your goaltender. You need to talk to him, you need to tell him ‘hey, this is our plan, we’re sending you to Belleville. We want you to do this, do that, be stronger.’ Hopefully you say you still believe in him, maybe not, I don’t know. But you have to have those conversations as a general manager. You can’t hide from your players. I think this doesn’t send a great message across the league.”
Zach Laing is the Nation Network’s news director and senior columnist. He can be followed on Twitter at @zjlaing, or reached by email at zach@oilersnation.com.