3-1 loss to the Utah Mammoth<\/a> on Wednesday night at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City.<\/p>\nSitting four points out of the final wild-card spot as the club prepared to face the Colorado Avalanche on Thursday night at the Ball Arena, the Senators went into the game with a 2-4-1 record in their past seven games, which is not a pace that will get Ottawa to the playoffs in the spring.<\/p>\n
The Senators will spend Friday flying back from Denver to Ottawa and will return to the ice for a morning skate to prepare to face Matthew Tkachuk and the Florida Panthers on Saturday night in a big Atlantic Division game.<\/p>\n
What does coach Green think?<\/p>\n
We fully understand coach Travis Green stating after the loss that \u201cthere was a lot to like\u201d after the club\u2019s second straight loss. He hasn\u2019t been left with any other options if he\u2019s to keep the players focused on the task at hand.<\/p>\n
Plus, we know that if the Senators were really bad, then Green wouldn\u2019t mince words.<\/p>\n
For large parts of the losses to the Mammoth and the Detroit Red Wings on Monday at home, the Senators were the better team and likely deserved a better fate, but the task feels mountainous at the moment.<\/p>\n
The issue is that close doesn\u2019t count where it matters the most, which is in the National Hockey League standings. The Senators need to start stringing some wins together, especially with six teams sitting between them and the final playoff spot.<\/p>\n
The fans want Steve Staios, the club\u2019s president of hockey operations and general manager, to make a trade because they feel something has to give after 42 games of inconsistency \u2014 whether it\u2019s for another goaltender, a top-six forward or a top-four defenceman, it doesn\u2019t matter.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s easier said than done.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s the trade market like?<\/p>\n
A check of the trade market by Postmedia\u00a0on Thursday brought the response you\u2019d expect from a league insider: It\u2019s hard to make a deal right now.<\/p>\n
Why? There aren\u2019t many sellers with the standings so tight and the number of teams chasing the projected unrestricted free agents available is high, which means there is a lot of competition for them.<\/p>\n
Staios has been trying to improve this club\u2019s roster for months. He has gathered with some of his closest advisers in hockey operations at the amateur scouting meetings in Florida this week and he can\u2019t be happy with what he\u2019s witnessed in the past two losses.<\/p>\n
Postmedia has reported that the Senators have focused on either acquiring a top-four defender or a top-end forward and has talked to the Calgary Flames about rearguard Rasmus Anderson and winger Blake Coleman.<\/p>\n
Both would be a fit with the Senators, but Ottawa isn\u2019t the only team that has been calling Calgary GM Craig Conroy to inquire what it would take to get them. The interest has been strong if the organization decides it wants to trade Coleman or Andersson or both of them.<\/p>\n
Related<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve also been told the Senators are one of several teams that have kicked tires on Kiefer Sherwood of the Vancouver Canucks and, if Jake DeBrusk really is available to be dealt, he\u2019s a player that would likely be of interest to Ottawa, but there would have to be someone going out the door.<\/p>\n
The Senators are among several teams that have held talks with the St. Louis Blues because general manager Doug Armstrong is ready and willing to make moves if he can find the right dance partner.<\/p>\n
But the best bet for the Senators is for this current group to find a way out of this and start winning more consistently. The concern is that they haven\u2019t done it all season \u2014 and we get that \u2014 but it doesn\u2019t mean that the Senators aren\u2019t capable of going on a run.<\/p>\n
A lot could be solved if the Senators just had better goaltending on a nightly basis. Leevi Merilainen was pulled on Monday and was better against the Mammoth, but he needs to improve immediately.<\/p>\n
bgarrioch@postmedia.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The timetable for Linus Ullmark\u2019s return to the Ottawa Senators is uncertain. The Senators made one roster alteration…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":398490,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5104],"tags":[8157,26,144,93,62,5,7747,1338,976,6386,4810,8380,539,94,21,285,4,72,25,5157,73,84,3154,27],"class_list":{"0":"post-398489","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ottawa-senators","8":"tag-blake-coleman","9":"tag-calgary-flames","10":"tag-colorado-avalanche","11":"tag-detroit-red-wings","12":"tag-florida","13":"tag-hockey","14":"tag-jake-debrusk","15":"tag-jake-sanderson","16":"tag-juraj-slafkovsky","17":"tag-kiefer-sherwood","18":"tag-lars-eller","19":"tag-leevi-merilainen","20":"tag-linus-ullmark","21":"tag-matthew-tkachuk","22":"tag-montreal-canadiens","23":"tag-national-hockey-league","24":"tag-nhl","25":"tag-ottawa","26":"tag-ottawa-senators","27":"tag-ottawasenators","28":"tag-senators","29":"tag-st-louis-blues","30":"tag-utah-mammoth","31":"tag-vancouver-canucks"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115862120986713456","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=398489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398489\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/398490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=398489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=398489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=398489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}