GARRIOCH: The Ottawa Senators’ best players have to step up their game after D.J. Smith’s firing
And with the Grand Canyon State as the backdrop, the Senators were prepared to start what will be a long, difficult climb back to respectability under interim head coach Jacques Martin and assistant Daniel Alfredsson against the Arizona Coyotes at the Mullett Arena.
While the Senators publicly backed coach D.J. Smith before he was fired on Monday by Steve Staios, the club’s president of hockey operations and interim general manager, the results weren’t good enough, and that’s why a change was made behind the bench.
It was a whirlwind 24 hours for Alfredsson. He got the call from Staios on Monday morning, spoke with his wife, Bibbi, skated with suspended centre Shane Pinto and then packed his bags for a trip to Arizona.
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“I told Steve I would love the challenge and will try to help out,” Alfredsson told TSN 1200’s Gord Wilson in Tempe. “I’ve been around the team most of the year. I’m looking forward to it. We have an exciting group and the results haven’t been there.
Though Martin and Alfredsson have their work cut out for them to get this team back on track, it’s incumbent on the players to start doing their jobs or the results are going to be the same.
It’s time for the likes of captain Brady Tkachuk, along with Tim Stutzle, Drake Batherson, Claude Giroux, Josh Norris, Jakob Chychrun and Artem Zub, to step up to get the job done. They weren’t playing the game the right way under Smith and he can’t be used as an excuse anymore.
The Senators went into the game against the Coyotes sitting in last place in the Eastern Conference.
“It falls on us players and our responsibility for the way we’ve been playing,” Tkachuk said. “It’s unfortunate to see. We’ve got to put our best foot forward and put out our best game. That’s big for us, especially where we’re right now and how things have gone lately.
“We have to learn from our mistakes and take accountability as a group for the way we’ve been playing and fix it.”
The Senators need more two-way play from the likes of Tkachuk and Stutzle. The latter was a team-worst minus-3 in the club’s 6-3 loss to the Vegas Golden Knights on Sunday. Those are just two of the players who have to lead by example or this group will continue to underachieve.
Structure goes out the window if players don’t follow the game plan. The core players on the Senators need to start playing with more discipline in their game or nothing will change.
“When changes like this happen, it starts with the coach, and if things don’t work out then other things happen,” Tkachuk said. “We want to win as a group with the guys that we have.”
The biggest area of concern continues to be the goaltending, and it shouldn’t be dismissed as a non-factor.
It doesn’t really matter if Joonas Korpisalo or Anton Forsberg started against the Coyotes because neither have been reliable at all. The Senators rank No. 28 in the NHL with an .889 save percentage. I’m not a numbers guy, but even I can see that’s not very good.
Forsberg is ranked No. 54 overall in the NHL with a 3.23 goals-against average while Korpisalo is sitting at No. 67 with a 3.50 GAA. Signed to a five-year, $20-million deal this summer, Korpisalo has to start making the saves because it’s not just the result of the guys in front of him.
The great Scotty Bowman couldn’t win with those numbers.
Martin met with the players after practice Monday in Arizona to outline his expectations. They aren’t any different than those that Smith had, they’ll just come from a different voice.
“It was a difficult day and it’s never pleasant when people lose their jobs,” Martin said before the game. “These are good people, it’s unfortunate, but that’s the business that we’re in. We’ve got to move forward. I’m excited about our hockey club, our youth and our enthusiasm.”
“I’ve been around Jacques a long time. I know what he stands for and what message he brings,” Alfredsson said. “I feel very comfortable being on his staff. We had a lot of success making the playoffs, year after year after year.
“You don’t do that unless you pay attention to details and get everybody playing for each other. Our goal right now is to become a more stable team right away and not have so many ups and downs.
If that translates into wins or losses, we don’t know, but the message is going to stay the same. In the end, we’re going to get where want to get.”
