{"id":554490,"date":"2026-04-17T11:36:20","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T11:36:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/554490\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T11:36:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T11:36:20","slug":"how-travis-green-got-the-sens-to-keep-the-faith-and-their-cool-ahead-of-the-playoffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/554490\/","title":{"rendered":"How Travis Green got the Sens to keep the faith and their \u2018cool\u2019 ahead of the playoffs"},"content":{"rendered":"

When longtime Ottawa Senators head coach Jacques Martin was named to the team\u2019s Ring of Honour at the Canadian Tire Centre in January, he chose to highlight the work of the current coaching staff, led by head coach Travis Green. At the time, it was practically a public vote of confidence \u2014 weeks after Senators general manager Steve Staios gave his own<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It was months before Green\u2019s Senators blitzed through the second half of their season, with the coach entering the discussion for coach of the year<\/a>.\u00a0The Senators were in the midst of their downward slide<\/a>, out of playoff contention while handling Linus Ullmark\u2019s absence.<\/p>\n

Green wasn\u2019t the reason for the Senators\u2019 issues at the time. He was, however, still leading a team heading towards a disappointing season despite dominating teams at five-on-five by limiting opposing chances and generating high-quality ones of its own. The Senators just couldn\u2019t overcome their porous goaltending and a league-worst penalty kill. Even their power play was spotty at times.<\/p>\n

And when they struggled to score<\/a>, their opponents cashed in and won. Some fans clamoured for changes to Green\u2019s coaching staff, and a few wouldn\u2019t have been upset to see him gone only partway through his second season. So, when Martin said<\/a> he had never seen a coaching staff as \u201ccommitted\u201d and \u201cdedicated\u201d or that paid as much attention to detail, fans weren\u2019t universally on his side.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll this through the leadership of Travis Green,\u201d said Martin, who also serves as a Senators senior adviser. \u201cThis team is in good hands with the coaching staff in place. I\u2019ve had a chance to coach several of these players. And I can tell you this without hesitation: This organization cares. The ownership cares. Management cares. Coaches care. Players care. And they want to win, and they will win. This team is knocking on the door of a championship. I firmly believe it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Martin added, in French, before switching back to English: \u201cAnd honestly, I believe that they are closer than people think.\u201d<\/p>\n

That night, the Senators lost 4-1 at the hands of the Carolina Hurricanes, furthering the team\u2019s despair. But the next night, they walloped the Vegas Golden Knights, and Green delivered his famous \u201cwhite noise\u201d speech. It was the beginning of a successful 21-6-4 run that put the Sens in a playoff spot and earned them a first-round date against those Hurricanes starting Saturday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI honestly give a lot of credit to him,\u201d defenceman Jake Sanderson said. \u201cI think there was a lot of days, as players, where we\u2019re just frustrated. And guys were going through injuries. We\u2019re missing a lot of big pieces. I think there were some days where our mentality wasn\u2019t great. But we\u2019d go into the meeting room every morning, and (Green) would put on a brave face for us, I\u2019d say.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if he felt that all the way. But he had all the belief in us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Senators are wading through less turbulent waters, for now. But it wasn\u2019t long ago that Green was seemingly keeping his cool through rougher times.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re saying I was cool?\u201d Green chuckled earlier this week when asked how he stayed levelheaded as the Senators endured their up-and-down regular season. \u201cSometimes, it\u2019s like a duck; its legs are going 100 miles underwater. You don\u2019t show anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Green spent his first offseason as the Senators\u2019 coach meeting with players and challenging them to be better. In training camp, Green and his coaching staff worked on implementing their tactics of hardworking, two-way play with forechecking and offensive-zone cycling combined with limiting opposing chances by taking away the middle of the ice. By November, though, Green had a new challenge: fighting against previous expectations and unhealed scars.<\/p>\n

That month, the Senators were playing through a poor stretch that threatened to derail their season early. It was something the Senators had grown accustomed to during their near-decade-long playoff drought. Captain Brady Tkachuk\u2019s leadership skills were also put into question around that time, prompting Green to stand up for him<\/a> publicly and speak to his team privately, encouraging players to forget about previous seasons.<\/p>\n

That was seen as the turning point \u2014 not just for the Senators\u2019 season, but in understanding Green\u2019s concepts and philosophy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a lot of looking in the rearview mirror \u2014 \u2018Here we go again,\u2019\u201d Green said. \u201cPersonally, I didn\u2019t really care about what happened in the past. I wasn\u2019t part of it. And quite frankly, I couldn\u2019t have cared less. But I felt like our team was living a little bit in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fast forward a year later. As Sanderson remembers, the team was \u201cin the s\u2014.\u201d The Senators played through a 10-game stretch from late November to early December in which they won only three times, and their goal scoring at five-on-five temporarily dried up. Tkachuk had just returned from a thumb injury, but Thomas Chabot was out with an upper-body injury. Green\u2019s faith in his players didn\u2019t waver, though, and they eventually won four consecutive games.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s like, \u2018Boys, we\u2019re going to make it,\u2019\u201d Sanderson said. \u201c\u2018We\u2019re going to get (into the playoffs). We\u2019re a good team.\u2019 He believed that all year. And I think that kind of rubbed off on all the players, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Green, those positive reinforcements were necessary, as his team sometimes struggled to win consistently despite playing well. But he had to continue striking a balance between being positive and showing tough love, pushing players to complete drills and plays more effectively in practice or enforcing concepts in video meetings.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe comes up with a new message every day,\u201d Senators forward Nick Cousins said. \u201cIt\u2019s usually what we need. Some days, we\u2019re going to need to have video sessions or for him to come in and scream and yell at us. And there\u2019s times where he needs to be calm and supportive, and he knows what buttons to push for our team.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think they just stayed strong together as a group and played well,\u201d Green said. \u201cAt the end of the day, you have to play good. Average doesn\u2019t cut it in the NHL. You\u2019ve got to perform.\u201d<\/p>\n

And of course, Green\u2019s late-January speech about blocking out the \u201cwhite noise\u201d resonated with his group.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think when we were struggling, he had to emphasize it a little more,\u201d Senators center Shane Pinto said. \u201cWhatever noise it is, good or bad, I don\u2019t think it serves us any justice to listen to it. If we\u2019re playing good, people gas you up. And then, you\u2019re not as good as you think you are. And then, you\u2019re not as bad as you think you are. I think he does a good job of keeping us even-keeled.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Senators\u2019 success and togetherness have resulted in one of the league\u2019s stingiest teams when it comes to shots against, tied for the second-fewest shots allowed (24.4) with the Golden Knights. Ottawa trails only Carolina (23.9), a team that has been just as successful when looking at underlying numbers such as expected goals percentage.<\/p>\n

A combination of solid underlying numbers and performances from their best players made it easy for Green to keep affirming his belief in his group, especially ahead of a crucial first-round matchup with aspirations of going beyond.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re here to win. It\u2019s all about winning and getting into the playoffs and competing for a Stanley Cup,\u201d Green said. \u201cWe had to come a long way from January. It says a lot about our group, how they played, the belief and being a good teammate for each other. Those are the three things that we talked about a lot, and just sticking with it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When longtime Ottawa Senators head coach Jacques Martin was named to the team\u2019s Ring of Honour at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":554491,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5104],"tags":[5,4,72,25,5157,73],"class_list":{"0":"post-554490","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ottawa-senators","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-nhl","10":"tag-ottawa","11":"tag-ottawa-senators","12":"tag-ottawasenators","13":"tag-senators"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116419847484183811","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554490","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=554490"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554490\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/554491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=554490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=554490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=554490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}