The Ottawa Senators just lost their 6th straight game. I think it’s fair to say that most of the fan base is ready for something to be done about it, and only one thing will send a large enough ripple through the locker room: firing Head Coach D.J Smith.
The Sens sit at 4-8-0 after 12 games and are yet again off to another abysmal start to their season. This is easily the most frustrated this fanbase has been since the rebuild began, and rightfully so.
This isn’t going to be a piece that investigates the numbers and debates whether or not Smith is the reason the team can’t close out a hockey game. Nor is it going to be an exposé on Smith’s inexplicable love for Nikita Zaitsev. Instead, I’m going at this purely from a fan perspective because frankly, this is a sentiment that most fans will probably align themselves with.
Perspective
In Smith’s entire tenure, it has been rare to see the Senators string together a consistent batch of performances. D.J was brought in during the summer of 2019, tabbed as the coach that would help teach the young players and prospects how to be professional hockey players. I believe he’s fulfilled that task up to this point. What he wasn’t brought in to do was win hockey games. While that was the message from General Manager Pierre Dorion when he hired Smith, the Senators were clearly in tank mode.
Smith has done a tremendous job of building a formidable team culture in the dressing room that he doesn’t get enough praise for. Captain Brady Tkachuk often praises D.J for his communication with the players. Obviously, no player is going to come out and trash their coach publicly, but the Senators all genuinely seem to respect and like the way their coach leads them.
But the writing is on the wall.
This team has now gone 3 straight seasons where the internal and external expectations were higher than the previous year. The first two years most would suggest that the roster’s lack of depth was the problem and not necessarily coaching. But this season, Dorion did a great job of supplementing most of the roster with depth and more talent so that injury problems wouldn’t cripple them again, saving himself from the hot seat for at least another year.
Not This Bad
The Sens sit at 12 games played, and through those games, I’d say they’ve comfortably been the better team at least 8 times. So why are we sitting here at 4-8? I just think D.J has squeezed everything he can out of this group. To me, the fact that all 8 losses this season have come in regulation (by one goal if you don’t count empty netters) is telling of where this group is at with Smith.
I’m not going to list the record and where it is relative to other teams in the Atlantic because while it sounds like a broken record, the Sens are way better than their 4-8 record indicates. But unlike last season’s dreadful start, there doesn’t seem to be many things going wrong.
What concerns me the most about their play this season is how through 12 games, they’ve mostly carried the play at 5v5. I personally think even strength play is a result of your personnel and special teams are where the coaches get to shine. Ironically, the Senators have been a top-10 team when it comes to carrying possession at even strength, and their special teams have let them down.
If a new coach were to come in, I think they would easily be able to implement proper special teams systems without sacrificing what makes the Sens so good at 5v5. That’s a much easier aspect of the game to tweak than the fundamental strengths of each individual player.
Accountability
When D.J was hired, Dorion praised his ability to hold players accountable. While fans aren’t privy to Smith’s exact coaching tactics, one can assume that he communicates with his players properly after they make mistakes. But a trend that I’ve noticed of late is the top players making costly mistakes more often than you’d like to see.
When that happens, fans get frustrated, that player loses their confidence, etc. I think for the Sens to take this next step with this group, they need to have a coach that will implement strong defensive tendencies in their games. On most nights, Ottawa looks lost in their own end, without any semblance of a defensive structure to fall back on.
D.J has done a nice job of coaching this team to play offence as a 5 man unit. When they were clicking on Tuesday night, the way they buzzed around the offensive zone was threatening and impressive. I think part of the problem is that Smith is relying on this being a run-and-gun team that can outscore its opponent.
There’s certainly merit to that, but the fact of the matter is that this team doesn’t have the game-breaking talent to successfully play that style of game. 8 times they’ve had a 6-on-5 to close out a game and 8 times they’ve failed to even force overtime. Smith’s team attacks well as a 5 man unit but they don’t defend well as one because the forwards are often cheating and looking for offence.
Look at this goal from the other night from Giroux. Chabot is cheating defensively because Tkachuk is already looking for a chance to stretch the zone. It works in this case but can and has been exploited very easily:
BREAKDOWN:
Giroux’s 300th career goal was a beautifully executed odd man rush from the Sens.
Tkachuk’s effective zone stretch and Stützle’s quick hands & feet allowed Giroux to cruise in alone to score against his former team for the first time.#GoSensGo pic.twitter.com/kicfpDQcDx
— Jack Richardson (@jackrichrdson) November 7, 2022
These players need someone who’s going to push them to be harder to play against in the dying minutes. On paper, this has been a good start analytically, but conceding goals in the final minute of a period just has to stop.
I really believe in D.J Smith. I think the way he communicates with his players is a perfect example of the shift in NHL coaching philosophies. The way he perceives events from a game is always so accurate. He’s a gifted hockey mind and you can tell when he gets certain questions from the media based on the way he explains how the game unfolds.
One day, he will have success in the NHL. I think he has all the tools to be a successful coach at this level. But he has tapped the well dry in Ottawa, an inevitability for every coach in any sport. As someone who wanted him to be the coach to lead the Senators into its future success, this stings.
He’s done a great job teaching this core group how to be good professionals. But as November rolls on, a promising season is starting to slip away. Dorion said D.J is not under a microscope as of Monday morning but also emphasized how important the next 10 games were.
Let’s hope that if they don’t turn it around, Dorion’s decision isn’t too late.
-Jack Richardson
Twitter: @jackrichrdson