Articles in Ottawa Senators

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Ottawa Senators assistant coach Bob Jones sits down with Christine Simpson to talk about his journey since being diagnosed with ALS and the support he has received from friends and family.

from Bruce Garrioch of the Ottawa Sun,

To beat the best, you need your top players firing on all cylinders and the Senators didn’t have that in this one. The Senators didn’t do nearly a good enough job getting to the front of the net and creating chances Avs’ backup goalie Pavel Francouz.

It’s the second time this week the Senators have been shutout after being blanked by the Nashville Predators for the first time this year in a 3-0 loss Monday....

The club wasn’t good in any aspect of the game and they hung goaltender Anton Forsberg out to dry because he couldn’t be fingered for the blame in this one. The Senators weren’t good enough to win and there haven’t been a lot of nights you can say that about them.

Thomas Chabot wasn’t pleased with his own play and owned it.

“It was probably one of the worst games I’ve played personally,” said Chabot, who was minus-3. “It happened, it’s a game but it’s unacceptable for me. You’ve got to move on, but it’s going to be a long night thinking about it. We’ve got to move on for the next game.”

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Game highlights are below

added 10:01am, Press release is below.

from Ian Mendes of The Athletic,

Almost one year later, on Monday night, the Senators experienced an awful case of been there, done that in San Jose.

Smith was forced to pull starting goaltender Cam Talbot after he allowed three goals on only seven shots. By that point, however, it felt like Ottawa’s fate was sealed. The Senators lost 5-1, but instead of pinning the blame on goaltending after the game in San Jose, Smith had some pointed remarks for his team’s play in its own zone.

“They score easy on a couple. We just weren’t tight enough on our guys. We didn’t check hard enough in our zone,” Smith said. “You got to be better.”

Smith’s postgame session with reporters in San Jose lasted just under two minutes....

In reality, there are no magic words Smith can utter that can satiate a seething Ottawa fan base. Many of them in the Eastern and Atlantic time zones likely turned off their televisions after an atrocious second period during which San Jose fired 21 shots and scored three goals.

When those fans wake up on Tuesday morning, they will find the Senators sitting in 31st place in the NHL standings — ahead only of the Anaheim Ducks. Ottawa sports a paltry .361 points percentage after 18 games, a pace that would put the Senators around the 60-point mark by the end of the season.

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Highlights are below.

from Bruce Garrioch of the Ottawa Sun,

Speaking after the GM’s wrapped up meetings at the Ritz Carlton hotel, Dorion said the club needs to start winning games after coming out of the gate with a 5-9-1 record, but doesn’t believe a coaching change is the answer.

“Coaching is not the issue. Simple as that. That’s it,” said Dorion. “For me, it’s the first time we’ve given D.J. a team that can compete for a possible playoff spot. So I think we’ve got to be patient there.”

Dorion is right because it’s too easy to blame the coach. The problem has been inconsistency from virtually every player, with the exception of rookie defenceman Jake Sanderson.

Coming off a 4-2 loss to the New York Islanders Monday at the Canadian Tire Centre, the level of frustration is building with the club sitting in second-last place in the Eastern Conference.

This isn’t the way anybody envisioned the Senators would start this season.

While it appears goaltender Craig Anderson will make his return to Ottawa sitting on the bench Wednesday with the Buffalo Sabres for the first time since the club didn’t bring him back at the end of the 2019-2020 campaign, the Senators need to find a way to get back on track.

After adding forwards Alex DeBrincat (Chicago) and Claude Giroux (Philadelphia) along with goaltender Cam Talbot (Minnesota) in the off-season, Dorion is disappointed with the club’s record to start the season and last week called this stretch of the schedule “pivotal”.

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from Bruce Garrioch of the Ottawa Sun,

Trying to put on a good show with prospective owner Ryan Reynolds in the house, the Senators dropped their sixth straight with a 6-4 loss to the Vancouver Canucks in front of 13,351 Tuesday night at the Canadian Tire Centre.

In a season the Senators are expected to compete for a playoff spot, the club had a good start in the first two periods of this game, but couldn’t finish on Vancouver goalie Spencer Martin as the search for answers to find success continues for Ottawa.

Claude Giroux, Tim Stutzle, Travis Hamonic and Drake Batherson did the scoring as the Senators continued to be plagued by costly defensive errors that ended up behind goaltender Cam Talbot.

Captain Brady Tkachuk vowed this team will find a way out of this.

He said in past years it “was a little more hopeless because we were just getting dominated and losing. And we were losing by more than a couple of goals a game.

“There’s a recipe here and we just need to find a way, and once that happens we’re confident in our group,” Tkachuk added. “We’re going to be positive in here. There’s no negativity and we’re going to find a way. It’s going to be fun when we get out of this and kind prove everybody wrong.”

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Take a look at the game highlights below.