- On top of the Senators potentially getting Thomas Chabot back on their upcoming road trip which begins January 2nd, TSN’s Claire Hanna relays (Twitter link) that forwards Mathieu Joseph and Rourke Chartier should also be back during that stretch. Chabot is closer to returning than Joseph while Chartier’s timeline is a little less certain as he’s dealing with a concussion.
Senators Rumors
What Your Team Is Thankful For: Ottawa Senators
As the holiday season approaches, PHR will be taking a look at what teams are thankful for in 2023-24. There also might be a few things your team would like down the road. We’ll examine what’s gone well in the early going and what could improve as the season rolls on for the Ottawa Senators.
Who are the Senators thankful for?
Much like his brother, Tkachuk has quickly become the emotional, physical, and on-ice leader for the Senators. Leading the team in goals, shots, hits, and even penalty minutes, his willingness to put his body on the line shows that everything goes through Tkachuk in Ottawa.
Unfortunately for him, and what has become a boiling problem with the fan base, Tkachuk is now in his sixth season with the organization and has yet to make a playoff appearance. Yet, even through the emotional turmoil that several unsuccessful seasons can put on the organization, Tkachuk has a lot of hope the Senators can turn things around soon.
In early November, in an article from Bruce Garrioch in the Ottawa Sun, Tkachuk was quoted as saying, “I understand that they’re passionate fan base and I understand that they love it, but when you face adversity you don’t turn your back on the guys out there. We’re playing hard, I know it’s frustrating right now. It’s not like we’re giving up out there, we’re fighting right to the very end“.
Even if the situation in Ottawa continues to become more dire, and the team is unable to produce a consistently successful team in the short term, Tkachuk’s loyalty is long-lasting. His desire to protect his teammates both on and off the ice is a tremendous boon for a struggling franchise.
What are the Senators thankful for?
Their top-six.
Even though the Senators are in last place in the Atlantic Division, there have certainly been some bright spots that the team can be thankful for. The top of their forward core, primarily led by Tkachuk, Joshua Norris, Drake Batherson, Tim Stutzle, Vladimir Tarasenko, and Claude Giroux are still producing at a solid rate.
As the team exits the holiday season, they currently sit at 10th in scoring across the entirety of the NHL, averaging 3.41 goals a game. Producing at a higher clip (albeit with fewer games played) than the likes of the New York Rangers and Vegas Golden Knights shows that Ottawa does have the talent up front to be competitive in the league.
Unfortunately for them, the players behind them have not been holding up their end of the bargain, as the defense and goaltending have both plagued the Senators for much of the season. Even with the team scoring at such a high rate, and GA/G average of 3.55 places them in the bottom five of the NHL, showing where most of the struggles are coming from.
What would the Senators be even more thankful for?
Stability.
In time, stability will come for the Senators and the organization will begin to normalize and stabilize with their current conditions. However, in under the year, the franchise has seen the team being sold, their longtime General Manager showed the door, and what appeared to be a player-friendly coach ousted as well.
The expectation heading into the season is that Ottawa was one of the few teams poised to come out of a lengthy rebuild, with a lot of the finishing touches put in place with the addition of Jakob Chychrun last year, with Tarasenko and Joonas Korpisalo brought in this past summer. Now with a new ownership and management group taking over, the team looks to have halted their rebuilding process entirely.
There is every possibility that the new management group, primarily led by former player, Steve Staios, did not agree with the direction that former General Manager Pierre Dorion was taking the franchise. Now, with what is shaping up to be another dissapointing season in Canada’s capital, it is now time for Staois to redirect the team in the right direction.
What should be on the Senators’ holiday wish list?
A revamped bottom-six and defensive help.
As previously mentioned, the top half of the Senators offense has been quite productive this season, sporting some of the better forwards across the league. Nevertheless, the bottom half of their entire forward unit has been entirely unproductive this season, as well as the bottom of their defensive core.
The team has ultimately been without all-star defenseman Thomas Chabot for much of the year due to injury, but could still benefit from adding a defenseman such as Mario Ferraro from the San Jose Sharks. In the case of the forward core, the Senators still do have prospects they could look to for a jolt of youth into the lineup, but could take a page from the book of their former Ontario rival.
In his first season as President of Hockey Operataions for the Pittsburgh Penguins, Kyle Dubas took an incredibly aggressive approach to fillint out the team’s bottom-six this past summer, signing several veterans to minimum salary two-way contracts. Although it hasn’t entirely worked out for Pittsburgh at this point, with an enhanced scouting department, this could be the kind of aggressive approach the Senators could deploy to fill out the bottom of their roster more appropriately.
Evening Notes: Senators, Wild, Penguins
The Ottawa Senators announced today that they have recalled forwards Angus Crookshank and Jiri Smejkal from their AHL affiliate in Belleville. Both players had been previously assigned to the AHL after the Senators 5-4 overtime win on Saturday night against the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Both Crookshank and Smejkal had been with the Senators on an emergency recall prior to the break and were unable to stay with the club because the emergency conditions wouldn’t be satisfied. But with the team in Toronto tomorrow night to take on the Maple Leafs both players were able to be recalled joining the club as they get set to begin a busy stretch of games over the next few weeks. The Senators play three times before the new year and 15 times in January as they try to play catchup to the rest of the Eastern Conference.
In other evening notes:
- The Minnesota Wild announced a pair of recalls as they brought up Daemon Hunt and Jake Lucchini from the Iowa Wild of the AHL. Both players were reassigned to Iowa on Sunday making this move a paper transaction similar to that of the Senators. Lucchini has spent most of the year in Iowa and played his first game with Minnesota on December 23rd. His recall could mean that forward Ryan Hartman will remain out of action when the Wild resume play against the Detroit Red Wings tomorrow night. Hunt will likely serve as the Wild’s extra defenseman for tomorrow night’s game.
- Dan Kingerski of Pittsburgh Hockey Now writes that he believes it is possible the Pittsburgh Penguins could hang on to pending unrestricted free agent Jake Guentzel until the end of the season and treat that as their big trade deadline acquisition. The Penguins currently sit five points back of the final wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference but hold three games in hand on the Tampa Bay Lightning who currently occupy that position. Kingerski believes that the Penguins will forgo a potential trade package for Guentzel if they remain within six points of the playoffs by the end of January.
Chabot Could Return On Road Trip
Senators defenseman Thomas Chabot is currently on LTIR with a leg injury but is eligible to return for their game tomorrow against Toronto. While that won’t happen, it appears he won’t be out much longer as Postmedia’s Bruce Garrioch relays that the 26-year-old has resumed skating and could be on target to return at some point on their upcoming Western Canadian road trip which gets underway a week from today. Injuries have limited Chabot to just nine games this season which has been a huge blow to a back end that has certainly struggled so far which played a role in last week’s decision to make a coaching change and bring back Jacques Martin on an interim basis.
Senators Reassign Angus Crookshank, Jiri Smejkal
The Senators returned forwards Angus Crookshank and Jiri Smejkal to AHL Belleville after last night’s 5-4 overtime win over the Penguins, a team release states.
Both players were on the roster on an emergency basis. Since the Senators do not play until the league resumes play on Wednesday, their emergency conditions are no longer satisfied, and they can be returned to the minors during the league’s holiday roster freeze. One or both of Crookshank and Smejkal will likely be brought back up to the NHL roster before Wednesday if neither Mathieu Joseph nor Zack MacEwen can return from their respective lower-body and hamstring injuries. Both are listed as day-to-day and haven’t been ruled out for any future games.
Crookshank played in four games for the Senators during his recall, the first of his NHL career. It’s been a trying development path for the 24-year-old, who missed the entire 2021-22 season with a knee injury after concluding his collegiate career at the University of New Hampshire. The 2018 fifth-round pick has put up solid scoring numbers in the minors, including 21 points in just 24 games with Belleville this year. He averaged just 8:56 per game while on recall but notched his first NHL goal last Tuesday against the Coyotes. His possession numbers were good, posting a relative Corsi share of 4.2% at even strength, suggesting he may be ready for some increased minutes the next time he’s brought up to the NHL.
This ends Smejkal’s second recall since signing with the Senators as a free agent out of the Swedish Hockey League over the summer. The 6-foot-4, 223-pound Czech winger has seen minimal usage like Crookshank, averaging 8:57 in six games played with Ottawa since his initial recall on December 8. His first NHL point, an assist on a Jacob Bernard-Docker goal, came in Thursday’s 6-4 loss to the Avalanche. He returns to Belleville for now, where he has three goals and six assists in 19 games.
Jorian Donovan Added To Canada's World Junior Roster
Senators prospect Jorian Donovan was cut by Team Canada at their World Juniors selection camp earlier this month but Hockey Canada announced (Twitter link) that the defenseman has been added to their roster along with Kraken defense prospect Ty Nelson, another player originally cut from their selection camp.
Dillon Heatherington To Play At Spengler Cup
- The Senators have loaned out blueliner Dillon Heatherington from AHL Belleville. The 28-year-old has played in 24 games so far in the minors, picking up two goals and two assists. Heatherington, a pending unrestricted free agent, got into three games with Ottawa last season.
Ottawa Senators Send Down Jacob Larsson
- After spending a little over a week on the active roster, the Ottawa Senators have sent down defenseman Jacob Larsson to their AHL affiliate, the Belleville Senators, per a team announcement. Unfortunately for Larsson, he was a healthy scratch for every game over that stretch, returning to a Belleville team where he has registered two goals and four points in 18 games.
[SOURCE LINK]
Seravalli: John Gruden Is Potential Senators Head Coach Candidate
The Senators are at an uncertain precipice in their years-long rebuild. As their new core of Brady Tkachuk, Tim Stützle, Thomas Chabot, Jakob Chychrun, and Jake Sanderson enters their primes, the team is no closer to securing their first playoff berth since losing in the 2017 Eastern Conference Final. That led new owner Michael Andlauer to clean house over the past few months, firing longtime general manager Pierre Dorion in November and head coach D.J. Smith earlier this week. 71-year-old Jacques Martin, the Senators’ all-time leader in games coached, took over as interim, but it’s unlikely the Senators are comfortable with him as the long-term solution behind the bench. He’s been out of coaching roles for almost three seasons and only recently re-joined the Senators in a senior advisor role earlier this month.
Smith was the fourth coach fired this season, but the Senators and the Blues are the only teams not to name a permanent successor immediately. Drew Bannister holds the interim title in St. Louis after the team fired 2019 Stanley Cup champion coach Craig Berube earlier this month. That leaves the Senators on the prowl for a permanent bench boss. Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli named an intriguing candidate at number one on his list of targets: John Gruden, head coach of the AHL’s Toronto Marlies.
Some may cringe at the thought of the Senators going with a second straight first-time head coach behind the bench, but it’s a logical fit given Michael Andlauer’s modus operandi since assuming ownership. Andlauer and interim general manager Steve Staios oversaw Gruden’s tenure as head coach of the OHL’s Hamilton Bulldogs from 2016 to 2018, culminating in a league championship. Unlike Martin, Gruden has worked in NHL roles since departing the Bulldogs, serving as an assistant coach for the Islanders from 2018 to 2022 before joining the Bruins as an assistant on Jim Montgomery’s staff for last year’s record-breaking season. This year, he has the Maple Leafs’ primary minor-league affiliate rolling with a 13-7-4 record, third in the AHL’s North Division.
Behind Gruden on Seravalli’s list are two coaches looking for a new home after being fired earlier this season: former Oilers bench boss Jay Woodcroft and former Wild coach Dean Evason. Longtime NHL coach Claude Julien, who Seravalli reports is “eager to get back on the bench,” earned a fourth-place mention, while former Senators center and current Bruins assistant coach Chris Kelly rounds out his top five.
Vladimir Tarasenko Returns From Personal Leave
- After missing the last two games due to personal reasons, the Ottawa Senators should be welcoming back forward Vladimir Tarasenko tomorrow night as they take on the Arizona Coyotes (X Link). With some massive changes taking place in Ottawa over the last 24 hours, Tarasenko will look to improve on his already impressive start with the Senators, now in front of interim head coach, Jacques Martin.
[SOURCE LINK]