Jets should ink impressive Samberg to long-term deal

Forget about what Kyle Connor’s next extension could look like, if the Jets should re-sign Neal Pionk, or if there’s any way they can make Nikolaj Ehlers stay. It’s time to think about about Dylan Samberg’s next contract.

Fans of the Ottawa Senators often wonder why they can’t have nice things.

Growing up with this franchise in one of the smallest Canadian markets — geographically squeezed between two iconic Original Six clubs — has meant fans in the Nation’s Capital do a lot of looking over their shoulder.

It’s always something. No one believed the NHL would even go to Ottawa. Hamilton was the betting favourite for a team in 1992. But it turned out that the Ottawa triumvirate of Bruce Firestone, Cyril Leeder and Randy Sexton had more gumption than their rival from southern Ontario, didn’t balk at the hefty expansion fee, and they, well, believed in miracles, as Al Michaels would say.

Still, the nagging doubts persisted. Early Senators owners threatened a kind of blanket “buy tickets or else” stance during some of the lean years when crowds were thin.

Eugene Melnyk, who owned the team from 2003-22, made various vague references to moving — most famously prior to the Outdoor Game extravaganza in 2017. Melnyk’s musings went over like a balloon filled with lead, widely panned, including by the visiting commissioner Gary Bettman.

Melnyk died in the spring of 2022, paving the way for Michael Andlauer to buy the team in 2023, but in between those events, Ottawa’s board of governors seriously looked into Melnyk’s simmering idea of playing some regular season games in Quebec City.

When La Presse reported that the Senators, NHL and Quebecor had held talks about moving five regular season games to Quebec City during the 2023-24 season, people in Ottawa FREAKED. So much so that the Senators completely backed down on the notion, saying that talks with Quebec centred around a joint bid to host the World Juniors. Nothing more.

If that was camouflage for the real discussions over moving games to QC, so be it.

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At least the hockey world got the message. Fans in Ottawa, who always have to be on guard for their team, were not about to loan it to Quebec.

Except that now along comes a Senators owner who grew up in Quebec and was once part owner of Les Glorieux, the Montreal Canadiens. On Monday in Quebec City, Andlauer held a news conference alongside francophone Senators defenceman Thomas Chabot to confirm that the Senators would play a couple of exhibition games in Quebec next fall.

OK. So far, so good. Fans here could get the concept of widening the base a little with this outreach, and Andlauer has made it part of his mission to pursue a wider share of the francophone market.

Now, anytime there is a whiff of NHL hockey in the Old City, fans there will fantasize about a return of their beloved Nordiques, who moved to Colorado in 1995.

And anytime there are questions about Ottawa’s ability to survive, thrive and get a new arena built (still very much a work in progress), someone is bound to get nervous about potential instability.

So, exhibition games are one thing. But when Andlauer suggested it could lead to Senators regular season games being played in Quebec down the road, blood pressures rose in the 613 area code.

And then the piece de resistance: on their official website, the Sens posted a photo of mascot Spartacat wearing a jersey that was half Sens colours, half Nordiques. That was when the stuff hit the fan Monday afternoon.

All the insecurities that come with being a fan of this team in this market came flooding to the surface. Fans ripped the hockey club on social media for the timing and “poor taste” of the post.

Wisely, Senators president Cyril Leeder went on Ottawa sports radio during the drive home show to put out the fire. Leeder said that the Nordiques’ colour splash was nothing more than a “nod” to fans in Quebec.

“He’s a man of his word,” Leeder said of Andlauer’s intentions with the Senators. “He’s been pretty transparent on that front — he’s bought a house here, he loves it here. This is home. It’s where his team plays. He’s committed to the city.”

Leeder added that the Senators do well with their francophone TV numbers in Quebec and that exhibition games in QC will help boost audiences.

As for the Sparty photo, Leeder admitted it was a bit of a swing and a miss. Yet, it pained him that he even had to be talking about this tempest in a Lion’s Den on the heels of a weekend in which the Senators beat the nemesis Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday and handled the Utah HC on Sunday. Don’t look now, but the Sens just vaulted into third overall in the Atlantic Division.

Here is this team that hasn’t had a sniff of a playoff spot in nearly eight years, on the cusp of a post-season berth, and we’re talking about a mascot’s jersey colours?

Such is life here in still small-town Ottawa, where generations of fans in the city and Valley grew up as supporters of either that blue team or the bleu-blanc-rouge of Montreal.

Thirty-three years is not a huge amount of time to create a market between two behemoths who have dominated hockey talk in Canada for more than 100 years.

The Senators, led by Leeder and now Andlauer, have done a fine job of rebuilding trust — both in the business and in hockey operations.

The Sparty joke that bombed might just be a case of “too soon.”

Later this year, the Senators should have a land deal in place with the NCC to build a new downtown(ish) hockey arena to house a team that is a perennial contender again, as it was in the early 2000s.

At which time, the community of Ottawa just might have the confidence to loan the team to Quebec for a game or three, knowing the Senators aren’t going anywhere.

The dreams of builders Firestone, Leeder and Sexton to win a Stanley Cup in Ottawa have not dimmed. They burn as brightly as ever.

We would do well to remember that, even when a fleur-de-lis sneaks its way onto a Sens jersey.