Steve Staios and Travis Green End of Season Press Conference

Steve Staios and Travis Green End of Season Press Conference

Well, thanks everybody for coming. Um, I’ll just open it up with a few uh comments and thoughts, but uh I believe our team took a a good step forward this this season. Um, I’ve said it before, but it’s just the first step. Um, earn the right to play in the Stanley Cup playoffs, a necessary step, I think, in our growth. Um, we’ve we’ve when I talk about improvement, I think it’s both on and off the ice. And uh you know, we can we can touch on that as as we talk today. Um and just the special feeling of of uh the Stanley Cup playoffs here in Ottawa. And I’ve said it a number of times that I believe that this is the most underrated hockey market, the National Hockey League. Um I our fans prove that. That was special. uh the support. Um we certainly we felt it as coaches and managers and uh I definitely I think our players they spoke enough about it as well. So um very grateful for our fan support here in Ottawa. In saying that, we’re Travis and I are here to answer any questions that you may have. Who wants to go first? What What do both of you think like you made you called it a good first step. What do both of you think starting with you Steve you need to do to make the next step? So I think you know I I at the first thing we said was internal growth for this group you know um and to a man they all improved. I mean to their credit and to Travis has the ability to get the best out of these players. So um that’s that’s one way I think that we can continue to improve as a team. And then um you know I think the experience also of this season and the way that we played uh should lend to you know some confidence for our group moving into next year. Yeah. I mean I I think as far as improving we’ve taken a step uh internally. I thought our players improved not only from the over last summer but the course of the season. Uh I think it’s important that uh we continue to improve though that it’s not status quo. Uh that as coaches as a as an organization we push our players to you know have a mindset a growth mindset of getting better and how you left today isn’t going to be uh acceptable if you just come back the same. I think our a lot of our players are in that age group where they still have room to grow as players and that’s going to be very important for us to be a better team next year. I think you were hired like about a year ago now if I’d said to you on if id asked you on day one when you were sitting here with Steve what what sort of stamp do you want to put on this team? What what would that have been and what do you feel like you guys achieved? Yeah, I think a mindset of our group of how we wanted to play, team identity, uh would have been first and foremost um what kind of team we ultimately want to be as far as winning and just caring about winning. That’s part of it. And being hard to play against and I think we’ve taken a step in that direction. I think teams that ultimately win Stanley Cups are hard to play against in their own way. I think we talked about that probably the first day I got the job. And um you know, we’ve taken a step in that direction. Uh but it’s still a step. Julie, um I think it’s fair to say this team hit a low point in November when they lost five in a row before they went on a winning streak in December and ultimately helped propel them in their chase for the playoffs. It’s kind of like a two-prong question, but for Travis, how did this team get out of that slide? And and what did you notice from them on how they went about that? And Steve, I’d like to actually know your thoughts on that as well. I we’ve talked about it a lot in here. Um, you know, I think there’s always a point um where thing, you know, everything comes to a head and uh that was probably one of those points if not the point because I think there’s a lot of hope with our group coming into the season. uh they were playing some pretty good hockey and you know it was almost a little bit of panic setting in with our group and and a lot of here we go again. uh that happens when a little bit when you play in a Canadian market because you can’t get away from it and um you know a little bit of a coming too with our group um where we’ve done a lot of talking about things but now you’ve got to really look in the mirror and and learn fast and quickly and and I’d like to think that the way we approach things with our group is as a process helped us through that time being able to be very honest with our team um to the point where, you know, talking about if we live in the past, like there was a lot of here we go again and um give our players a lot of credit. They they didn’t let it slip away from them and uh they stuck with it. Um and dug themselves out. And Steve, what did you make of how from far how that team dug itself out of of that hole and propelled itself the rest of the year? I think it speaks to the character of the group, character of the individuals. Um I believe that the veterans that that added to this group um have that experience and it’s goes far beyond what Travis or I could say to them to help them through it. But there’s players there that have gone through it and the conversations whether it’s in between periods or before games or on the bus. um having you know some calming influence in around this group to help them grow. Uh but ultimately it’s the character of the group and uh that’s uh they they’ve just sort of you know they’ve been coming and uh they’ve been showing signs of it and uh we’re able to take a good step this year. Steve, during the trade deadline you said the number one thing on your board to improve was five on five scoring. What’s number one on your board going into the offseason? Uh well, it’s a good question. I think that that continues to be an area, but I think that’s internal as well. And uh five on five. Yeah, I think that uh you know, I think that there’s things and and Travis can touch on it as well. I think that there’s there’s going to be some growth in in that area. I think, you know, uh, with the group we have returning, uh, there’s there’s there’s some areas that I’m going to look at, but as we’ve talked about before, I mean, the market will sort of dictate on if if you can add those those those types of players or improve in that area. And until you you find that opportunity, it has to come from within. So, I mean, you go look back at my first year as general manager and not being able to accomplish anything at a trade deadline um for a number of reasons and then waiting for the opportunity to to do it. So, the offseason again will be another opportunity for me to see if I can add to this group, but uh nothing specific at this point. And then just to follow up, Travis, um just knowing you guys were third in the league for five on five scoring, but that you were still able to make the playoffs and make a push, there’s positives there, but how do you improve that aspect? Yeah, that’s not the only aspect we’re going to look to improve as coaches. Uh we’ll do a deep dive into our all parts of our game and uh you know, five on five scoring will be one of them. Uh but we’ll look at every part of our game. It’s easier said than done just to score five on five, but I do think it’s an area that we can improve in. Uh, you know, we’ve, again, a lot of this is repetitive. I feel like we, you know, call it puck luck, call it whatever you want. Didn’t the puck just didn’t go in the net for some of our players uh, when they had looks to score as well. Back to the second row, Alex. Just for you, Steve, how much of a priority is it for you to to resign coach this summer? Yeah, I you know, I don’t like and I won’t talk about contract negotiations, but I mean, we love G. We want want to have him back. Um, and we we touched on it briefly at the exit meetings, and everything’s still fresh right now. You know, I think we’re to be honest, like even from talking to Travis, it still stings that we’re we’re we’re here. and uh uh you know, we had we had belief in our group and so everything’s really fresh right now, but I will get to speaking to uh all of our players that are up for contract. Steve, just to follow up on that, um in terms of your UFAS or are there any players that you definitively know won’t be back for next season? No, I mean it’s the process in which we’re going to do this is Travis and I will take a little bit of time here, decompress, and then we’ll speak we’ll speak more in depth on our team and on individuals and um look at areas where we can improve and uh but um you know we’ve we’ve had some good performances from from a lot of those players. And just to follow up uh right defense, Nick Jal the other day, wouldn’t disclose what his injury was or like timets. second opinions from doctors and whatnot. Um given his injury status, the depth on right D right now, uh is that an area where you have to go into the market and get yourself another right defense? Yeah, first of all, I think you know, we talked about end of season and coming out with the the the the injury list and speaking specifically to the injured injuries that our players dealt with through the playoffs. I don’t I don’t believe I don’t believe in doing that. I think it’s personal. Our our players if they want to speak to it, they can kind of feel like it might be justification on why we didn’t get through the series. We we don’t we don’t live in that world. Um but I can tell you that just about every one of our players was dealing with something. When you play as hard as they did, um and the commitment that they’ve shown, they they played through a lot, including Nick. and he’s an absolute warrior uh to be able to continue to perform at at a level with with what he was dealing with and uh it’s a it’s a you know it’s it’s the character of the individual Nick in particular but but but all of them so I’m not going to come out with any list and speak specifically to injuries but he will get re-evaluated and and if it is something significant for sure that’s definitely an area to to look at you know um we have we have some players coming up and uh but that’ll be an area to look at for sure. And just to follow up on that, um when he was speaking here, he wouldn’t reveal what it was, but he said he was going to get a second opinion from doctors on what the next steps would be. Is he going to need surgery? Uh don’t we don’t know. We don’t know. Yeah. Else um I’m just curious you at the deadline you acquired gave up second round pick. I’m just curious for you like what’s is that a guy that you see as a part of the long-term solution or part of the long-term process of this team? I’m just curious forward as he is in our Yes. No, we do. I mean, we think that uh we think he’s a good fit for our group and um like many of our players, we feel like there’s there’s room for improvement. Um, you know, I think uh I think any player like coming over from a different system and coming in and Travis getting a chance to coach, I think you could see the growth from him as the season continued to go along. Um, so we’re excited about what what what like his potential and and the upside there. Steve, just a couple things. Um, your first round pick this year is number 21. Have you made any decisions regarding keeping it? Your owner kind of says slow play it. I mean, have are you going to slow play it and just hold on or Yeah, I I I I know what we’re going to do with it. I don’t know if I want to reveal it to you guys right now. Uh but uh no, it’s uh highly likely that we’ll keep our pick. Is it Is it a good draft? Yeah. Well, I mean, we have good scouts. I think they’ve proven along along the way that they they can find talent. So, um, every every draft year you go into it and they, you know, people say the dropped off at 12 and then there’s a group of this or that, but uh um we’ll I trust in our group. Just one other thing, do you have do you have any players who have committed to the World Championships? Do you have those names? Uh, we do. Um has it was it Shane Pinto and Nick Matten Paulo at this point? Yeah. Uh this is for either one of you. Um Adam Gad is one of those players who was going to be under restricted. Can you talk about his season and basically at the end of this on the Saturday he said that he would love to come back. Maybe can you speak about his as far as his season goes? Yeah, he’s had a great season. happy for him. Um, it’s not just, you know, he got off to the hot start, scored a lot of goals early, but also showed that he can play in a role that, uh, you know, he hasn’t maybe played in the past and be dependable in that role. Um, so he had a good season. I’m happy for God’s. I’ve known him a while. Anytime a player has a successful season, you have to be happy for him. And as far as the future, that’s, you know, from my end, that’s something that Stephen and I’ll talk about. And see where it goes. Two quick ones from you, both for Steve. Um, what were your impressions of Tyler Cleven’s year this year? And how did his full season affect your view of him in in the in the organization for the future going forward? Yeah, I thought Tyler, you know, he came on as the season progressed, the second half of the season in particular. Um, and I can let Travis speak to it, but Travis held him accountable early. Um, I didn’t think he got off to a great start um, through training camp right from the beginning. So, I think that’s an area of improvement for for Tyler. Um, but yeah, he’s coming on. He’s a good he’s a good young defenseman and, uh, um, you know, was was making more of an impact as the season went on. Carter Yakamchuk joined the team as a black ace uh, during the playoffs. I’m just curious what next steps could lie for him. I think he turns 20 before the end of the year. He’s age eligible, but what’s next for him? Yeah, that’ll be up to him. I think uh you know, we we spoke to him, you know, at our exit meeting with Carter and and he knows how important this summer is for him and uh we um you know, you get opportunity with the Ottawa Senators on merit and uh and if if he’s ready to play and pushes us, we’ll we’ll be open to that. But certainly he’s got like all of our players need to take this off seasonason like it’s improving us improving the roster talking about how we can improve like it it starts now for our players and so uh time will tell but he’s uh you know he he’ll let us know and he can play a just to confirm next season right? Yes. Back road. Uh Steve just given the timing of the sale this was your first full season in the role. Do you anticipate uh any changes to your hockey operations going into next year? Um possibly. Yeah. I mean, we’re always looking to improve, you know, we’re we’re looking we we’ll always look at areas to improve and um as far as taking that next step for the group on the ice, I think it’s for us as a staff as well. I think we’ve taken a step. I think we can get better. I think there’s lots of areas of improvement and u if we don’t continue to push for that um you know we’re not we’re not doing our job. So there’s certainly areas um throughout the organization that will continue to be addressed. Just a question for you. Um second line defense in the postseason seem like times that struggling just in terms second line what second line just in terms of goals allow different moments defensively. um second line being like cousins and it turns out how do you how do you get more out of those guys because they’re still relatively how do you coach more defense those two players? Yeah, I mean you can nitpick about the second line playoffs if you you know it’s easy to do. Uh I’m not going to sit here and do that right now. Uh I thought our team performed very well in the playoffs. It’s one of those series that you look back and you know I think at the end of most series the winning team usually the losing team usually knows that the other team was better a lot of times. Uh and over seven games the best team prevails usually. I think this is one of those series for me personally in any playoff series that I’ve coached that, you know, it stings probably more than others just because truly felt like it could have gone either way. And uh as far as Dylan and Drake, two really good players. Uh I think Drake took a big step this year in his game. Uh Dylan being a new player that we, you know, haven’t had long. uh very exciting uh as far as his potential where I see him uh progressing to and I think that he’s got another level in his game. And again, much like the rest of our players, it starts relatively soon to be better next year. It doesn’t start in training camp. uh our job as coaches are are to make our team better and you know being committed in the offseason is a huge part of improving at this age for a lot of our players and I think he’s a player that can has a lot of room for growth still if he but ultimately that comes down to the player much like when we talked about Cleven uh are they willing to get better? Are they willing to be a committed player in the off season? Um do you want to be average? Do you want to be good? Do you want to be great? Uh, and in saying that, when I mean great, your max potential, and that’s a real inner commitment by a person, uh, to be dialed in in the off season, leave no stone unturned, and come back the best version you can be. And that’s really what we’re going to challenge our players to be. Status quo for a lot of them isn’t going to be good enough. uh because they can all improve. Most of them, you know, most of them can improve still. Just for Steve, um Anton Forsber is a free agent this summer and was really good in Belleville and stayed with the Senators this year. How comfortable are you with Maryland and potentially being the backup next season and do you plan to add or or even resign Forsber in the offseason? Anton Forsberg’s a a great pro and a great teammate and uh we’ll look at we’ll we’ll look at our goalending depth. Um you’re right, Levy’s come up and played played well, but uh certainly it’s when you have a player like Anton the commitment and in in being in that role as the backup and uh one of the hardest working guys on our team and committed. So, we’ll we’ll take a long look at it and see what the possibilities are. How close do you feel Maryland is to becoming fulltime? I think he took a big step this year really. I mean, I think I mean he gave us some good games and and uh I think what impressed us most was the moment wasn’t too big for him for a young goalender. I think the his calm demeanor I think helped our group uh you know and it’s impressive for a young young player to be able to do that. Um, just to follow up also on the goalending, uh, when you signed Lena Solomark, obviously Fez caliber 10 goalender. Um, was he what you expected this season? Yes. Yeah. I mean, I goenders, they’re they’re not they’re not perfect. You know, there’s you go through stretches. Um, but Lena at his at his best is a top goalender in the league and he gave us a chance and even in the playoffs. So, you could look at this playoff series and you can talk about the goals, but but how how they how they went in. I just I felt like we were a little unfortunate. Um, but he gives us the presence and that that that that we so we we we we want and uh I think it gives our team confidence and we expect him to continue to to grow as a as a goalender as well. I think that he’s he’s driven to improve as well. And then another note um on your lines um throughout the season there were various right wingers used with Stutsla and Kachchuck. Um do you think that right winger for that top line exists in this organization? Are you going out and looking for a good fit for that line right now? I think we have a lot internally here u for that. Um you know but we’ll look we’ll look at it for sure. you know, do do we want is is that an area? Everybody’s looking for a, you know, top six score, you know, and we’ll continue to look to see what we have, but I think internally and uh the work that Travis has done and continue to the group continues to improve and the individuals are continuing to improve as well with the honest accountability that uh that him and his staff bring to the table every day. Um maybe it’s a bit of a follow on Claire’s question. So to that, how high on your list of priorities would you say seeking a scoring option outside of the organization is? Uh it’s it’s we’ll look at all areas. We really will. Um again, I think that there’s enough room for growth internally that it would have to make total sense. Someone else rewarded as the same thing here. Making a hattick. Anything else? We got a hat. Yeah, I hear you. Anything else? Is that it? Um I’ll have another one. Um Travis Hamick was up here. Um he’s, you know, also got a contract up. Um he’s kind of an optional. Where do you see his future being? These are all the discussions that Travis and I will be having. Travis Green and I will be having uh about our players. Uh we want to go through the process honestly and um I think uh you know we we’ll have some we’ll have some decisions to make, but we’ll get started on that once we get a couple more days to decompress. scouting meetings. They are in two weeks. Yeah. Um last season, you know, you added a couple guys like audio cousins in free agency if you have a bit of cap space. I think it’s 18 million. How important is, you know, free agency as a vehicle for you to to acquire talent? Again, I hate going back to it, but depending on really what the market is, it’s going to have to make sense. Um, you know, it it’ll be good to have some cap space. Um, that flexibility is important, how we use it, you know, we’ll we’ll figure that out. I mean, going into the deadline this year with not a lot of cap space made it ch more challenging. And so, um, but we’ll take a look at the free agents, see how they fit into our group. Um, and if it makes sense, we’ll we’ll look to do it. Travis, you talk about your PK and the structure all season long. Um, is there any consideration like at what point of the offseason you review like your special teams and then say, you know what, maybe we’ll change the structure next season. Yeah, we’ll we’re going to do a deep dive and like I said earlier into all parts of our game, our penalty kill being one of them. Uh, our power play as well. I’m looking to improve all parts of our game. Our five on five scoring, but it’s not it’s not like we’re just going to sit here and not look at the defensive side of our game either. Uh, you know, I think penalty killing is I think we finished what 18th, 19th. It’s an area that we want to improve in. Our power play was 11th or something like that. You know, again, we want to improve it. Uh, and we’ll do it like we challenge our coaches to look at everything. We challenge ourselves to be better internally as a staff. And, uh, it’s not like we just put turn the computer off and come back in training camp and start again. We’ll take a couple weeks off, do a deep dive into all parts of our game uh where we can be better and how we can be better. Follow up on the PK uh Tyler CL talk about roles expanding possibly for certain players. Is he a guy who could have large or large role potential uh and that again that the onus goes on to the player? Uh, you know, Tyler Clever showed, you know, kind of two sides. Uh, I didn’t think that he put the work in to come in to camp to have the best camp that he could last year. Uh, you hope that he’s learned from it. Uh, he progressed as the season went on and now it’s up to him to take what he’s learned and apply it. Uh, so he comes into camp as a better player than he was last year. Last one, Steve. People have been talking about offer sheets as being a mechanism to get young players off other teams. Obviously, you have RFAS like Cleven. Is that something you’re concerned about or is that something that you could possibly explore? I’m not I’m not concerned. Yeah. Big picture, when Michael Anlau took over this team, he said the number one priority at the beginning was going to be to create stability. In an interview a couple weeks ago, he says stability has kind of been achieved right now. Um, based on that achievement, how do you guys set new goals going forward? Like you said, the next step, like at the beginning of the season, make the playoffs. I know it’s fresh, but have you already started thinking about what the next step for this organization is going to be? Well, constant improvement both on and off the ice, you know, um honest accountability to where we’re at. The taking taking the step to where we get got to was was was challenging. Our players stepped up to it. Coaches coaching staff did. Um now, now is the real hard part, you know. Now, now to get into contending with these teams, you know, the the attention to detail and the work that has to be done. Um, but we’ve set the culture. I think the one thing we can be proud of is we we talk a we talked a lot about culture and it’s just you can’t fabricate culture. You have to live it. And uh both on and off the ice and uh I think we can be proud of that. I think our fan our fans recognize that that it’s different. Um, our players certainly do and uh, full credit to them. We don’t have anything else. Actually, this is a question regarding the the Beville club. Is there are there players that you can identify that are knocking on the door that are close to uh, making this roster next season? Um, yes certainly. I think the summer is going to dictate a lot in how they show up at training camp, but there are a few players there that have uh that are that are starting to to push um for an opportunity. And uh again, we said it a number of times today, the offseason’s important for these players. And uh everything that we do here is on merit. It’s open. It’s honest. And so, um if if they come in and and push for a position, we’ll, you know, we want we want good players on our team. And uh uh there’s a few guys down there that are pushing.

Hear from President of Hockey Operations and GM, Steve Staios and Head Coach Travis Green at their end of season press conference.