'Fragile' Senators all too familiar to frustrated fans, costing coach his job

Oh, to be a fly on the wall for the ongoing conversations between Steve Staios and Michael Andlauer over the last few days.

Remember the joy in Mudville when they arrived, Andlauer as the ownership saviour and Staios soon after as the new director of hockey operations?

That was three months ago. Feels like three years. Or 300. 

Perhaps they thought they were walking into a turnkey operation. Turn the key and Brady Tkachuk, Tim Stützle and Claude Giroux would lead this team to its first playoff berth since 2017. Oh sure, there would be veteran pieces to add in the years ahead, deadline type stuff, to make this team a legitimate contender and not just a playoff qualifier. 

But this? No one expected this kind of performance. 

It could be that the new management was shocked into paralysis. Frozen in inertia.

On Monday, that inertia was finally broken, with head coach D.J. Smith losing his job, replaced on an interim basis by Jacques Martin. The veteran coach was only hired less than two weeks ago as a senior advisor to the man he's replacing.

The final straw appeared to be when the promising club Andlauer and Staios inherited lost four straight games, putting them four games under .500, buried in the Atlantic Division basement, despite a cushy early schedule that was supposed to allow them to put points in the bank. 

Remember the horrors of last season (like the ones before that) when terrible starts killed the season? Well, don’t look now, but this invested-to-the-cap team is right where it was a year ago. 

On Dec. 9, 2022 after 26 games the Senators had a record of 10-14-2 for 22 points. 

Today, after 26 games the Sens are 11-15-0 for 22 points. 

Last year, Ottawa was 11 points out of a wild-card spot at this juncture. 

Today, 12 points out. 

It’s not early anymore. One more game and Ottawa will be at the one-third mark of its schedule. 

The Sens are on pace for 69 points. SIXTY-NINE POINTS!

(Will there be another faux rally to bring them within six points of a playoff spot, as we saw last year, or is there still time to do something for real?)

Oh, and all those games in hand the Senators had on teams they are trying to catch? Even they have shrunk. The Sens have played just two games fewer than the Maple Leafs and are 16 points behind Toronto. They have played three fewer than Boston and are 21 points behind the Bruins. 

You need binoculars to see that far. 

Before letting go of Smith and assistant coach Davis Payne on Monday, Andlauer and Staios' last big move (and first one really) was to fire general manager Pierre Dorion after that boondoggle of a trade involving Evgenii Dadonov, costing the team a first-round draft choice. 

Around that time, they were slumping yet again and when the topic of changing the head coach arose — Smith had been holding the reins here since the spring of 2019 — management told us they had talked to the players and the response they got was a need for more “stability,” not more chaos with a change behind the bench.

Well, so much for that idea ... 

Among the most frustrating elements for frustrated fans this season?

This team, when it plays as it can, is actually pretty good. 

The Senators deserved to beat Dallas, a contending team, on Friday, but couldn’t get a save to save their lives. They lost 5-4. 

The night before, in the first game of this five-game road trip, Ottawa dropped a stinker in St. Louis, a 4-2 loss to a Blues team that had just fired its coach. 

Sunday in Vegas was pretty much a microcosm of the season. 

Some great elements. An early 2-1 lead. Two power goals — finally some life on that special-teams unit. 

And then a collapse. The Sens gave up breakaways while shorthanded and while on a power play. 

Joonas Korpisalo, usually the better of Ottawa’s two beleaguered goaltenders, lets in a softie from afar, and the 2-1 lead is gone. 

It can be crushing when a bad goal goes in. The Sens let that goal crush them. 

The second period was the usual middle-frame disaster. Three unanswered goals allowed. SO typical of this season.  

Nicolas Roy is gifted a breakaway on a power play and scores. 

Chandler Stephenson gets in alone shorthanded and scores. 

And then an absolute, theatrical farce: an Ottawa line change while the Knights were pressing in the Senators zone, resulting in a fifth Vegas goal, a 5-2 lead, with the puck crossing the line with 12 seconds left in the period. 

Soul-crushing stuff. 

And then, you know, the usual futile third-period rally. The Sens get a late goal from Tkachuk, after Tkachuk had hit a post and Giroux hit a crossbar. 

Where was this pressure earlier?

Gord Wilson, the team’s colour analyst, asked all the questions in the visitors’ dressing room and outside it with the head coach. 

Giroux, the veteran and former Philadelphia Flyers captain, had a good handle on things. 

“We’re playing great hockey, consistent in what we’re doing and then we change how we’re playing,” Giroux said. 

“I don’t like to use this word, but we’re a little fragile,” Giroux said. “When something happens we just have to relax and keep playing. We know we can play with these teams. We know we can compete. We need to find a way to do it for 60 minutes. In Dallas we did that.”

Smith at the time lamented his team’s second period. Using the word “ugly,” not for the first time to describe it. 

“To me it’s all mental. It’s mental toughness,” Smith said. “It’s staying in the moment. It’s taking care of the puck, wanting to win the game 2-1. If you have that mentality you have a chance every night." 

Staios and Andlauer had no shortage of problems to consider during this most recent slide, amongst them:

a) Is our goaltending really this bad, or do they get exposed too much — or a combination of both?

b) Is this roster, as assembled, overrated?

c) Is there more tinkering here than we imagined?

In the end, the one they addressed was: d) Time for a coaching change? 

Whether they've made that move soon enough, or that "stability" they were told was the best course of action just means yet another spring without playoff hockey remains to be seen.