Steve Staios didn’t make a trip to the Bell Centre on Monday night because he wanted to have a delicious chien chaud or two.
The Ottawa Senators president of hockey operations and general manager is likely looking to see if he can find the right ingredients to cook up a trade for his struggling club.
The Vancouver Canucks have declared they’re “open for business,” and Staios could have waited until Tuesday night to see them at the Canadian Tire Centre. Instead, he opted to make a quick trip to Montreal to watch the club drop a 6-3 decision to the Habs.
The best-case scenario for the Senators is that the answers come from within, but the indications are that Staios is actively working the phones.
Ottawa was seven points out of the final wild-card spot in the East heading into Tuesday’s action. That’s a lot of ground to make up with 38 games left.
League executives have told the Ottawa Citizen several times over the course of the past two weeks — including as recently as Tuesday — that the Senators are scouring the market for a right-shot defenceman.
That’s because veteran blueliner Nick Jensen, who had off-season surgery to repair his hip, has struggled to get back to the level he played at last season with Thomas Chabot as his partner.
Jensen, 35, has been scratched in two of the club’s past seven games. He has a minus-13 rating this season after finishing last year at plus-18. It’s often viewed as a meaningless stat, but those numbers do say something.
Acquired from the Los Angeles Kings in the summer, Jordan Spence hasn’t been the answer on the right side, either. He initially had trouble finding his footing, but the best spot for him is in the club’s third pairing with Tyler Kleven, plus an expanded role on some nights.
Nikolas Matinpalo — named to Team Finland for next month’s 2026 Winter Olympic Games in Milan, Italy — has been steady in the seventh role, but it would be a lot to ask him to play in the top four.
We’re told Senators also have been active in looking for a forward who can play in the top six. That is an area that Staios has been focused on since last May, so this is nothing new.
The club went into Tuesday’s visit by the Canucks with a 3-6-1 record in its past 10 games and was ranked 25th overall in the National Hockey League.
Who are trade targets on Vancouver?
Vancouver does have some pieces the Senators would likely be interested in, including defenceman Filip Hronek, along with forwards Conor Garland, Kiefer Sherwood and Jake DeBrusk.
The issue is: How many of those guys realistically are available? It depends on the level of rebuild that the president of hockey operations, Jim Rutherford, and general manager Patrik Allvin think the fan base can stomach.
Take Hronek, for example. The 28-year-old was the key addition for the Canucks at the 2023 deadline from the Detroit Red Wings. Hronek has a cap hit of $7.25 million US through the 2031-32 campaign.
He certainly would fit the bill to play with either Jake Sanderson or Thomas Chabot on the right side, but Hronek has a full no-move and is expected to be part of the solution. Some have mentioned Tyler Myers as a possibility, but we’ve been told the Canucks won’t trade him.
If this isn’t a total teardown, then the expectation is the Canucks want Hronek to be part of the solution. The Senators would have to make Vancouver an offer the club can’t refuse to get Hronek out of there.
Potential top-six forward targets
Up front, we know that Ottawa coach Travis Green is a huge fan of Garland, who has seven goals and 22 points in 34 games with the Vancouver. He has a $6-million cap hit through 2031-32.
His name has surfaced on the NHL’s trade market.
Sherwood is an unrestricted free agent, but the asking price is high and more than 20 teams have shown interest.
The fact that Staios is still shopping for help shows his belief that this team should be better than its record.
Related
The Senators are sitting where they are because of shoddy goaltending and that was the case before Linus Ullmark took his leave of absence on Dec. 28.
The club has also kicked tires with the Calgary Flames on right-shot defenceman Rasmus Andersson, but he’d have to be willing to sign an extension in Ottawa to make a move.
The players in the Senators room aren’t sitting around waiting for Staios to make a move. They are hopeful they can get this club back on track.
“It’s within our group,” Sanderson said. “We’ve got to dig deep right now. It’s not that we’re running out of time, but there’s half a season left, and to be honest, we’ve got a lot of ground to make up.
“We all have the belief in our group that we can do that.”