The Ottawa Senators won’t have a lot of time for California dreaming as they make their way through the Golden State to start their longest trip of the season.
The Senators dispensed with a skate on Tuesday and went directly to MacDonald-Cartier International Airport to board their Air Canada Jetz charter in the morning for a long trip to Los Angeles.
The club will hit the quarter mark of the season when the Senators face the Anaheim Ducks on Thursday night at the Honda Center. The Senators have posted a 9-6-4 record in the first 19 games of the season and are on pace for 95 points, which should get them to the playoffs.
“We’re starting to figure out what works for us,” veteran winger Nick Cousins said after the club’s skate on Monday at the Canadian Tire Centre. “We’re getting great goaltending, and our defensive structure has been a lot better.
“We’re not turning the puck over as much in the neutral zone. We’re just kind of putting it in, going to work, and all four lines are playing the same way. So I think, we’re in a great spot just continuing that success that we’ve had here at home and just bring it on the road.”
The club is coming off a 1-0 loss to the Los Angeles Kings on Saturday and has posted a 7-2-4 record in its past 13 games.
After a slow start to the year with a 3-4-1 record in the first eight games, the Senators have gotten their act together and are playing the kind of hockey that made them successful under head coach Travis Green last season.
At the start of the season, the Senators had a tough time figuring out and getting back to what it took for them to play strongly at both ends of the ice — or what Green calls “a 200-foot” game. That’s what allowed them to get back to the post-season for the first time in eight years this past spring.
“That’s the hardest thing to do. Having the success that we had last year and then coming in this year,” Cousins said. “I think we all thought maybe we were gonna pick up where we left off. But I think it took us a while to kind of grasp what made us successful last year.
“We’ve figured it out. We’ve done lots of video, lots of teaching and stuff, and it’s nice to get to practice in here today, and we haven’t had a lot of practice time. That’s the hardest thing to do, you see some teams that have had success in the past.
“Look at Florida, they’re still trying to figure it out, and Tampa as well. At 20 games, now, there are no excuses because we know what we need to do.”
It would have been easy for the Senators to slide back after they lost captain Brady Tkachuk long-term with a thumb ailment that required surgery in the home opener on Oct. 13 against the Nashville Predators. Instead, the club has embraced the challenge to stay in the race.
The Senators head into Anaheim with record of 8-4-4 in the 16 games they’ve been without Tkachuk and his return is now on the horizon during this trip. But the Senators haven’t let his absence become an excuse. Green is a big believer in the “next man up” mentality.
The Eastern Conference is a fierce battle for positioning, with every team in the picture at this point of the year.
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“It’s hard, but at the same time, we didn’t really talk about it. I think Travis mentioned that to you guys before, but we really didn’t,” veteran winger David Perron said. “It’s always like that on every team you try and move on and if we didn’t have success, we would probably hear about it more from (the media), and we would talk about it more.
“We want to have him back because we’re a better team with him. That’s just the reality right now.”
It has been the same approach without defenceman Thomas Chabot.
In the past, a seven-game trip would have been pivotal for the club’s season. It doesn’t feel that way this time because the Senators have lifted their game and goaltender Linus Ullmark has shown signs that he’s coming out of the early season struggles he had.
The Senators won’t return home now until they face the New York Rangers on Dec. 4.
They will make stops in Anaheim, San Jose, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Dallas, St. Louis and Montreal in the next 14 days. That’s a total of more than 10,800 kilometres, most of it air travel, before they board the train after facing the Habs on Dec. 2 at the Bell Centre.
“This is a long one, and we’re going to get a chance to see where we stand on the road,” alternate captain Claude Giroux said.