The Ottawa Senators were supposed to take the next step this season after making the playoffs this past spring.
They’d better get their act together quickly, or they’ll be taking a step back.
Coach Travis Green was reminded on the weekend about telling a struggling player last season that “you’re never as good as you think you are and you’re never as bad as you think you are.”
Right now, the same phrase could be applied to the struggling Senators when they look at the National Hockey League standings. The club woke up on Wednesday sitting at No. 15 in the Eastern Conference, but the Senators are only five points back of the final wild-card spot.
If the Senators can string together some wins, they’ll be right back in the driver’s seat, especially with the parity in the Atlantic Division.
Coming off a 4-3 loss to the New Jersey Devils on Tuesday night that saw the Senators go pointless in a three-game homestand, Green’s message in the club’s meeting on Wednesday morning was that some areas and individuals have to improve.
“We’ve got to stick with it,” Green said on Wednesday before the Senators headed to Columbus to face the Jackets on Thursday. “I checked in with our team on where they’re at mentally.
“When you lose, you worry about your team from a mental standpoint, and how they’re feeling. We talked about where our game’s at. We talked about how we have to play to have success. We have to look forward.”
This will be Game No. 30 on the schedule and they only have nine regulation wins in their first 29 games.
The issue with the slide is that the Senators will hit the mid-point of the schedule on Jan. 5 against the Detroit Red Wings at home. This is a difficult trip, with a visit to the Minnesota Wild on Saturday afternoon, then wrapping it up on Monday against the Winnipeg Jets.
Green doesn’t sugarcoat things with the players or media on the way the Senators are playing and, yes, they’ve lost three straight, but they’ve had some good efforts.
“The way we like to do things is just be honest with our group,” Green said. “If you’re not playing well, be honest about it. If you are, then talk about what you’re doing well. It doesn’t really change. Win or lose, we’re still trying to be honest with our group about how our game.”
Honestly, the Senators need to start turning potential into production.
After a 3-for-3 effort on the power play in the loss to the Devils, the Senators badly need to start scoring at 5-on-5 to stay alive. The club hasn’t scored an even-strength goal since the third period of the 4-3 victory over the Montreal Canadiens a week ago at the Bell Centre.
The scoring opportunities are there, but the results aren’t. They’ve gone more than six periods without a goal. That’s hard to believe because the Senators rank 15th in the NHL in 5-on-5 scoring this season, with 58 goals in 29 games, which has them tied with the Jets.
“I feel like last night we did a good job going to the net and grinding it a little bit more,” veteran winger Claude Giroux said. “You’re going to have stretches during the season where the puck just won’t go in, and you can get frustrated.
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“We’ll have a stretch where the puck is (going to go in) and we’re going to get the bounces. That’s just hockey. It’s a weird sport. You’ve just got to keep pushing. Nobody is going to feel bad for us, and we can’t feel sorry for ourselves, either. We’ve just got to go out there and keep grinding.”
It’s fine to play well and lose, but it’s paramount that the club turn this around immediately. The Senators can’t afford to let this go on much longer, especially with the NHL’s mandated three-day holiday break set for Christmas Eve.
All that will matter in mid-April is how many points the Senators have and if they’ve booked a ticket to the NHL’s big dance.
“We hate losing, nobody wants to lose, everything is better when you win,” said centre Tim Stutzle, who scored his first goal in eight games on Monday. “We know what we have to do in this room to get back on track.”
The talk needs to turn into action and it needs to happen in Columbus on Thursday, then again in Minnesota on Saturday, and when the Senators close out the trip in Winnipeg on Monday. If the Senators know the recipe to their success, then they’d better start playing that way.
This season is at a crossroads for the Senators and they have to stop this downturn because that will only make it worse.