Ottawa – Like most hockey fans in mid -April, the defender of the Senators of Ottawa Thomas Chabot stays inside and turns on his television.
In the past, he had spent the start of his seasons watching hours and hours of NHL playoffs until the Stanley Cup was attributed, remaining standing after midnight or even later. It was as close as he had ever gone to the playoffs despite more than 400 regular season games before this season.
“In the past two years, we have we in a place where we had the impression of being able to do the playoffs? Okay, perhaps a year,” said Chabot Athletics in February. “But since then it’s just a process.”
For the moment, it changes all. The next phase of the “process” has already started. Thanks to a loss of Detroit Red Wings to the hands of Montreal Canadians on Tuesday evening, the senators will return to the Stanley Cup qualifiers for the first time since 2016-17 after a significant reversal of past years.
“We have gone through some S – here,” the Tim Stützle center said on Tuesday after the Ottawa 5-2 defeat against the Blue Jackets of Columbus. “A few difficult years. I’m really proud of the guys, how we are all hooking here. I could not be more proud of all the guys. I don’t think there is a team that deserves it more than us. I think we worked very hard this year. We just have to continue to find our game. ”
Adding Chabot after the match, “you won’t see me much smile after a defeat but, guy, it feels good.”
When Chabot made his debut with the senators during this 2016-17 season – the only match he played that year – the senators had made the playoffs during four of the previous six seasons. Before that, Ottawa reached the playoffs each year between 1997 and 2008, a sequence interrupted only by the 2004-05 locking. Then, the 2016-2017 senators reached the final of the Eastern Conference, where they finished a goal in overtime in match 7 to go to the Stanley Cup final, losing against the possible Pittsburgh champion.
“You come as younger thinking:” Oh my God, yes, that’s it! “” Said Chabot. “” We are going to shop for almost the rest of your career. “And then you enter and this is the full opposite of this.
The senators finished second in the NHL ranking the following season. Their reconstruction was in full swing by the deadline for trade, when they went from players like Dion Phaneuf and Derick Brassard. Mike Hoffman, Matt Duchene and team captain Erik Karlsson quickly left in the months that followed. During the next seasons, more pillars like Craig Anderson, Nick Paul, Jean-Gabriel Pageau and Mark Stone were also exchanged.
Meanwhile, senators were struck by multiple controversies. The partners of Karlsson and Hoffman were at the center of a cyberbullying scandal, a video disclosed by players moving the team and an assistant coach in an Uber emerged on social networks, and the deputy director general Randy Lee resigned after the accusations of harassment.
Eugene Melnyk, owner of longtime senators, a division and controversial figure, had its own impact. Melnyk saved the senses of bankruptcy when he bought the club in 2003, but finally threatened the relocation in December 2017. In response, the fans bought display signs and created a campaign on social networks with the #Melnykout message. Attendance has decreased and tarpaulins have covered empty seats in the Canadian tire center.
There was a constant turnover in the front office, often due to Melnyk’s ill-treatment towards employees and staff of the front office. His relations with popular players like Daniel Alfredsson have embittered throughout his reign almost two decades, leading to their departures and to the pointed distance from the Senators of Senators until his death in 2022.
But the senators also added to their pool of prospects during the drought of the playoffs. Stützle, Drake Batherson, Brady Tkachuk, Shane Pinto, Jake Sanderson, Ridly Greig and Tyler Kleven were all written during the lean years of the senses.
In September 2021, then GM Pierre Dorion declared the “finished” reconstruction. It turned out to be premature. The senators of this year finished season 27, which points out a place in the playoffs.
The senators hoped to inaugurate a new era in 2023-24. Canadian billionaire Michael Andlauer became the new majority owner of the team just before the regular season, buying the team for $ 950 million and beating celebrities like Snoop Dogg and Ryan Reynolds. But the controversy quickly found them.
Dorion received its hiking papers on November 1, 2023 after the NHL has stripped a future first round of the Senators. (In 2021, Dorion had exchanged the striker Evgenii Dadonov at the Golden Knights in Vegas but did not disclose the clause without a team of 10 teams from the attacker.) Steve Staios, then president of the hockey operations, was appointed interim managing director before receiving permanent functions on December 31.
After the senators did not succeed in the playoffs in 2023-24, Staios began to put his stamp on the list the following summer.
He hired coach Travis Green in May 2024 after Vancouver and New Jersey stops as an interim bench boss. After exposing his interest in the Boston Bruins goalkeeper, Linus Ullmark before this year’s commercial deadline, Staios exchanged for him at the end of June. He then signed Shane Pinto to a two -year contract, exchanged defender Jakob Chychrun for Nick Jensen and added veterans like David Perron, Michael Amadio, Nick Cousins and Adam Gaudette through the free agency.
Green spent his summer to know his new players by telephone or in person, including a trip to Germany where he encouraged Stützle to become more than a 200 -foot player, and meetings with Pinto, Tkachuk and Sanderson during the World Championship in Prague. The goal was to make your players more difficult to play while preaching responsibility.
“There are different ways of being responsible. It is not always the time of ice. These are more severe meetings, more direct meetings, behind closed doors,” said Green Athletics in December. “This is how I trained with this group.”
Ottawa experienced increasing pain with their new system at the start of the season, and a five -game sequence without victory in November threatened to derail it. According to the model of the chances of the Dom Luszczyn Dom Luszczyn playoffs, the probability of Ottawa to drop the playoffs fell as weak as 17.7% on December 2 later, they made criticism of Tkachuk’s leadership. Green even delivered a public confidence vote for the team captain.
Since Green’s rallying cry for Tkachuk on November 25, senators have a 34-19-5 file.
“I think, looking back now, this section was important to pass it and winning matches,” said Green. “In addition, the section that we had where we were on the road for a while and coming decently. And just individual conversations that you have with your players. Being able to have an honest conversation and players to hear things that they just want to hear.”
This five -game slide was not the only bump on the road that the senators crossed. Commercial rumors revolved around Tkachuk, only for senators to refute them loudly – and even accused the New York Rangers of “sweet falsification”. Anton Forsberg, partner of Ullmark and goalkeeper, both fought injuries in December and January, but the Leevi Merilainen recruit intervened and kept the Senators afloat with an 8-3-1 file, an average of goals to 1.99 and a percentage of safeguard of 0.925. He now looks like the goalkeeper of the future team.
The senators added Dylan Cozens and Fabian Zetterlund on the deadline, separating from parts like the Josh Norris center and the defender Jacob Bernard-Docker in exchange. And although Tkachuk has fought injuries since the 4 nations confrontation last week Ottawa won his first games without him this season, beating the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Florida Panthers. These victories presented a combination of factors that resulted in the success of Ottawa this year: structured defense, solid goalkeeper and timely attack.
By entering Tuesday’s matches, the senators ranked 10th in the NHL in authorized goals.
The last time Ottawa ended a season with a top 10 in this statistic was in 2017 – the last time they made the playoffs.
“Some matches may not have been our best, but we found ways,” said striker Claude Giroux. “So when you don’t play your best and find ways to win, it’s always a good sign. At the moment, you can just say that everyone wants to play in the right way. It’s fun to play this way.”
Now the senators are waiting for their first -round opponent. One of the best three teams from the Atlantic Division – Toronto, Tampa Bay or Florida – could be in store. The kernel of Ottawa by Tkachuk, Stützle, Chabot, Sanderson and Plus will be put under the spotlight as they taste the success of the playoffs for the first time. But they will not be alone, isolated by veterans who know what significant games look like.
“I have already won,” said striker David Perron. “But I see other guys like Claude, Travis Hamonic and so many other guys. Even other guys are growing slowly, Nick Jensen, Linus Ullmark who is in their thirties. Anton Forsberg and other guys who have not won. You want to do it for them. You want them to experience a race, you want to give this experience to younger players.”
The senses work hard to be ready for the challenge, no matter who they face.
“Each guys from this team is a good player,” said Stützle. “Each guy of this team has its role and can exceed in its role. I think each team is good in the league. I think that any team can beat anyone every night. So we have to have this state of mind.”
(Photo: Justin Tang / The Canadian Press via AP)
