Deputy Commissioner shares NHL's thoughts on Sens Owner Eugene Melnyk

If anyone thought the NHL was getting fed up with all the things happening with Ottawa Senators owner Eugene Melnyk, they thought wrong. According to TSN's Pierre LeBrun, he reached out NHL Deputy Commissioner and Chief Legal Officer Bill Daly to get the league's opinion on what appears to be a never-ending flood of bad press, lawsuits and controversies involving Melnyk. LeBrun says Daly responded that the NHL is "feeling fine" about the Sens owner. Daly added the league feels recent media coverage on Melnyk has been “unfair and unjustified.”

Melnyk is involved in a at least one lawsuit at the moment involving unpaid gambling debts at a casino in Connecticut. His pharmaceutical company, Biovail, was investigated in two countries for accounting fraud, settling out of court in both cases for hundreds of millions of dollars. He has banned a reporter from the Ottawa Senators plane after the reporter covered the existence of a video posted by an Arizona Uber driver that showed some visiting Ottawa Senators bad-mouthing an assistant coach. He was recently named the Worst Sports Franchise Owner in North America by The Ringer, while the New York Post called on the NHL to step in and stop Melnyk from causing further embarrassment to the league. On top of this, the Sens have chosen to ship players like Erik Karlsson, Mark Stone, Matt Duchene and others out of town rather than pay them market value. Despite all that, the NHL feels the media's coverage of Melnyk has been "unfair and unjustified," which is mind-boggling at best and utterly tone deaf at worst. The list of incidents and controversies involving Melnyk since he purchased the Ottawa Senators is much longer than this (lawsuits involving a new arena and major developments in downtown Ottawa, saying the team was "in the dumpster" at a media event, seemingly cutting in line for a liver transplant, etc., etc.), but we'll leave it at that. According to the NHL, all is well.

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