The owner of the Ottawa Senators said suggestions his team planned to take a dive in the final days of last season are outrageous lies.
In a strongly worded release Friday, Rod Bryden said "there is absolutely no basis for these allegations . . . They are not true."Losing the final game of the season assured the Senators first overall pick in the NHL entry draft. The Senators lost 4-2 to Boston on April 14.
A report in the Ottawa Citizen on Thursday said team chairman Bruce Firestone had said the club had planned to give four players preferential treatment in return for losing the game.
Firestone, who resigned from the team on Tuesday, has denied making the comments.
"There can be absolutely no dispute that our team tried every night," Bryden said in his first public response to the controversy.
"Ask any fan that attended any game, including the last one against Boston, and they will tell you that there was no lack of effort by our players and our coaches - every shift, every game."
In a letter to the editor published in the Citizen on Friday, Firestone said club management did discuss the idea of pulling the goalie and going for a victory if Ottawa and Boston were tied in the late minutes of the final game. Bryden admits he was the one who first raised the tactic.
Montreal had done just that a few nights earlier, Firestone said.
"Our hockey management quickly pointed out that the Senators were not Montreal and that, unlike Montreal, we had something to gain by losing," he wrote. "So the perception would be that we're not playing to win but rather trying to lose. So we immediately discarded that thought."
The Senators had finished the season tied for last place with the same number of points as San Jose, but Ottawa was relegated to last place because the team had won fewer games. A tie with Boston would have put the Senators ahead of San Jose.