The Ottawa Senators have placed assistant coach Mike Yeo in charge of their penalty-killing units, head coach Travis Green said. Assistant coach Nolan Baumgartner, who also runs the Senators’ defence, will continue to provide input.

“That’s not a knock against (Baumgartner),” Green said. “He’s an excellent coach. He’s done a great job with our defencemen. The penalty kill hasn’t gone the way we’ve wanted. And that’s not just on him. Ultimately, the players have to get the job done. But a new voice might give a spark, give a different look, give a different voice. It’s not going to be wholesale changes either.

“… We haven’t gotten the job done. But I think (the penalty kill) quite easily could be in a different position than it is. But there’s been some goals that we haven’t liked that goes back on the players, when there’s a blown coverage and a guy doesn’t make the right play. And we’ve got some young penalty killers that are a work in progress. But we’ve got to right the ship.”

The change comes one game after the Senators blew a 3-0 lead to the Nashville Predators on Thursday night, losing 5-3. Two of those goals came from the Predators’ power play, and a third came just as the Predators’ power-play opportunity expired. When asked about the penalty kill postgame, Green initially rebuffed the question before saying “there’s been a lot of factors” as to why it hasn’t seen success.

“It’s really good at home,” Green said. “It hasn’t been good on the road. If we can pin it down, it’d be fixable right away. But it’s not as simple as that.”

The Senators’ penalty-killing unit ranks second-to-last in the league with a 71.7 percent success rate, one notch above the last-place Vancouver Canucks (71.7 percent). On the road, the Senators’ PK operates at 65.1 percent, the worst of any team. At home, however, the Senators are 18th-best (79.7 percent). Ottawa primarily uses a diamond formation, which places a forward at the blue line, two players on the flanks and one player at the net. But that formation has shifted depending on whether opposing power plays use a 1-3-1 spread formation or a 3-2 spread, which sees two attacking defencemen at the blue line instead of one.

“I have seen improvement in our penalty kill,” Green said. “We haven’t gotten the results but have liked a lot of what we’ve seen. And I know there’s also been a lot of talk. And players get asked about it. And we felt like, maybe, a different voice would be a different sounding board. And Mike’s done it a long time as well.

“But our coaching staff collaborates on everything. This is not just a one-man show in any of our areas.”

Yeo joined Green’s coaching staff in June 2024 alongside Baumgartner. The 52-year-old has worked for a handful of NHL teams as a head coach, with stops in Minnesota, St. Louis and Philadelphia. Yeo was last in Vancouver, where he ran the Canucks’ penalty-killing units. In his second and final year behind the Canucks bench during the 2023-24 season, Yeo’s PK unit was 17th-best in the league. The Canucks had the league’s worst penalty-kill unit the year before. Yeo has also run the penalty-kill units for the Philadelphia Flyers as an assistant coach.