There were a lot of expectations for the Ottawa Senators coming into this year. They had a young core of exciting forwards, and added star power like Alex DeBrincat and Claude Giroux to the mix. Top pick Jake Sanderson was supposed to give the defense corps a huge boost, while Cam Talbot was brought in to solidify the goaltending. Things got off to an okay start, with four wins in the first six games, but have since gone downhill.
The Senators now sit at 4-7 on the year after losing their last five and speculation has started to percolate about the safety of head coach D.J. Smith. Today, when speaking with reporters, general manager Pierre Dorion wanted to make it clear that Smith wasn’t going anywhere. “D.J. is our coach and he’s going to be our coach,” he told the gathered media including Bruce Garrioch of Postmedia.
This is Smith’s fourth season behind the bench in Ottawa and despite having an overall record of 85-111-24, things have generally been considered a success. The team was not expected to be competitive, was open about their rebuilding process, and yet still played hard every night under the rookie head coach. Young players like Brady Tkachuk, Josh Norris, Tim Stutzle, and Drake Batherson all took huge leaps in production, and the team was in the top half of the league on the penalty kill, something that is often attributed to the coaching staff.
Still, it’s time to start winning.
One thing that Smith has in his favor is Talbot, who looks sharp since coming back from an injury that kept him out the first month of the season. In two appearances he has stopped 39 of 41 shots and should soon become that stabilizing presence he was brought in as. Whether they can actually turn that strong goaltending into wins is another story, especially with the state of their defense.
While Sanderson has been strong in his rookie season, it’s hard to place much responsibility on a 20-year-old that has just barely started his professional journey. With Artem Zub out, the defense has looked like a jumbled mess, made up of players seeing more ice time than they probably should. Zub is expected back soon but it remains to be seen whether this group will do enough for the team to turn things around. Even with today’s front office support, Smith’s job may depend on it.
Lol is it the inability to ever have a good start to a season, the terrible lineup decisions, or the consistent failures at the same aspects of the game that has given him this security?
@JD—Sometimes, those problems you mentioned can be attributed to a coaching staff that keeps getting changed, but I just looked on their Hockey Ops page, and it isn’t the case. (It would be nice if the team would fix that page and put the Bio info for all the people on the page). The next thing that can come to mind is are they “Yes” men for D.J.? GMPD has stated that D.J. is a good communicator with the kids, but there should be tangible results at some time, right?
it’s not like DJ has had good teams where the expectation was they should be so good to start a season. this year slightly different but they did lose their starter.
now if they are say 16-25 at the halfway point, than maybe consider a change.
I feel like this is a rebuilding decision. Theyll most likely keep him as coach until they feel they have great enough prospects to add talented free agents and make a real push for the cup. Then they hire a legit coach whos there for winning games rather than developing prospects. This should be the last year. Im not up on their defense or goal tending situation, but they seem to have some quality forwards. Then theyll have the AHL team built for developing prospects while theyre making runs for the cup.
If hes a good GM, thats the case. Could just be that hes only acting like he knows how to be a GM and truly believes this team is ready to chase the cup and this coach can turn it around. Im not a Sens fan so I have no idea.
The kiss of death