There is a recurring video played for Senators fans prior to home games at the Canadian Tire Centre.
In their messages, captain Brady Tkachuk and head coach D.J. Smith are more or less reduced to “Go-Sens-Go!” comments, but general manager Pierre Dorion, in his segment, thanks fans for their patience after difficult seasons the past few years.
The inference is that the rebuild is over, and that the time for patience has given way to a time to watch this team compete — spoken with October confidence, when anything felt possible.
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Given that perspective, games like Saturday’s 7-0 loss to the Colorado Avalanche must be especially galling for Dorion and his team. If it had been a one-off, fine. But this was the second consecutive Saturday in which the Sens got routed. A week earlier it was an 8-4 loss to Seattle at the CTC.
Getting shut out by a margin of 7-0 hasn’t happened to an Ottawa team since their early years in the 1990s.
Tkachuk called the game “embarrassing” and added that his team was “awful all night, from start to finish.
“I don’t think we ever had momentum on our side,” Tkachuk said. “They were just coming at us all night. That can never happen.”
Defenceman Thomas Chabot, who has had some hiccups this season, accepted his share of the blame, calling it “probably one of the worst games I’ve played personally.”
On a night of dashes throughout the lineup, Chabot led the way at -3.
“It happened, it’s a game, but it’s unacceptable for me,” said Chabot, a stand-up guy as always.
For whatever reason, the Senators lacked energy in the Mile High City. In Smith’s words, the Sens had “zero legs from the get-go.”
Here’s the thing. As demoralizing as that loss may have been, the Senators can still return home with a winning record on this three-game road trip, if they can beat a St. Louis team tonight that is missing captain Ryan O’Reilly and elite scorer Vladimir Tarasenko.
The Blues have lost two straight and have a -20 goal differential. The Sens are actually road favourites in this game.
Keep in mind, at times, the Senators have looked like the club Dorion imagined them to be. But it hasn’t happened often enough.
If Saturday marked rock bottom, it was just another twist in what has been an up and down season for the Senators and their fans. Social media was dripping with anger on Saturday, and who could blame fans after a showing like that? Led by the energy and pace of Nathan MacKinnon, the Avs looked like a team from an upper division, rather than a team outside of a playoff spot, with its own challenges.
Strangely, despite it all, there are flip sides even to the Senators’ recent stretch of games.
Let’s work the numbers a bit.
In their past four games, Ottawa has been outscored 21-9. Horrible. And yet, in their past six, the difference is a more respectable 22-16.
The Sens have lost three of their past four, in ugly fashion: 8-4 to the Preds, a 3-0 shutout loss to Nashville, and 7-0 to the Avs.
And yet, their January record is 3-3, and in their last 10 the Senators are 5-4-1. Not awful.
Their problems are two-fold.
One, all this spinning of tires, winning one and losing two, or two wins here and two losses there … is getting the team nowhere as far as moving up the standings. The .500 barrier feels more like a physical wall than a psychological hurdle. The Sens have now reached .500 on FIVE separate occasions this season (14-14-2, 16-16-3, 17-17-3, 18-18-3 and 19-19-3). They lost all five opportunities to push past .500. Tonight against the Blues, the Senators get another chance to return to .500.
Two, they are flat-out too easy to play against.
Teams watch video. They see others slice through Ottawa’s defence like a hot knife through butter. Those clips embolden them to do likewise, and so it is with utmost confidence and abandon that teams go after the Senators in their own zone.
In our most recent file, we discussed the Senators’ difficulties at even strength and their 30th ranking at even-strength goals scored. Saturday was another prime illustration. Colorado didn’t beat up the Sens with a power-play surge. The Avs outscored the Senators 6-0 at five-on-five.
Norris could return on Wednesday
In desperate need of a lift, the Senators could get one this week with the return of centre Josh Norris, who has been out since October with a shoulder injury.
“Norris is close, so maybe we’ll get a boost,” Smith said. While ruling out Norris for the game against the Blues, Smith added that his top centre is “getting really close” and could be in the lineup as early as Wednesday at home against the Pittsburgh Penguins.
JBD recalled to replace Zub
The other injury news was not great, as defenceman Artem Zub is expected to miss Monday’s game with a lower body injury. Zub blocked a shot in the second period Saturday and later left the game.
He had been playing with a full face shield to protect a broken jaw suffered in early December. To replace Zub, the Senators have called up Jacob Bernard-Docker from AHL Belleville. Bernard-Docker has played nine NHL games this season, has one assist and is plus one.
“Every time he comes up, he gets a little better,” Smith said of Bernard-Docker.
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