Ottawa Senators Have To Get Coaching Hire Right
Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet was on NHL Morning Skate with Gord Stellick and Scott Laughlin on Sirius XM NHL Network Radio on Wednesday and was asked about the plan the Ottawa Senators have in place for their coaching hire.
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** NHLRumors.com transcription
Gord Stellick: “You know, Friedge, one theme you mentioned as the Ottawa Senators players and asset management ownership look to stop all that white noise around the team, and I know they’ve been trying to do that. But the noise is on ice right now. A team that doesn’t seem committed to playing at all how you should play in the NHL.
So I was talking to Scott and said are they close to maybe at the All-Star break just saying, I know you don’t wave the white flag but say imploring the fans to say look, we’re a year behind what we thought. We’re going to stay the course this year. We’ll get yet another high draft pick. And let’s get at it next year.
Or do you think hypothetically, a guy like Craig Berube, who we had on yesterday, that maybe they say okay, you know what we gotta we gotta make a run for it, win these games in hand, and rather than Jacques Martin being the interim coach, look at the great Craig Berube for example?”
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Elliotte Friedman: “To me, I think one of the biggest questions is, do they wait or do they jump into it now? Like Dave Poulin got hired by the Senators. He’s a big Berube guy. I listened to some interviews that he’d done up in Ottawa, and he had spoken about how much he loves Berube.
One of the things the Senators have said, and they said it publicly, and I said it privately, is we have to get this coaching hire right. It is so important. And so that’s why I wonder, like, would they do it now? Or would they say we have to have the most extensive search we can have, and we’re not going to be able to do that right now because teams won’t give us permission to talk to people?
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Like, not everybody is going to be available, and the sense I’ve gotten is they really prefer to wait. Now, maybe they might decide that they have to get something done. Like you talked about their Gordy, but I think this hire is so important for them that they can’t miss.
And for me, if that meant I had to wait to talk to more people, that’s what I personally would do. But I’m not in charge, and lucky for the Senators, I’m not in charge. I’ll tell you this, though: watching them on Saturday night, against Edmonton. Edmonton, you could tell, just believed if we stick to what we do, we’re gonna win this game, and they did.
And watching the game last night in Calgary, you can tell that you know Calgary was in a frame of mind, and they’re coming off one of probably their worst loss of the season. Calgary was in their frame of mind that they were like, if we keep pushing if we keep doing what we should, we’re gonna win this game.
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And, like, that’s a tough position to be in because of Ottawa’s situation right now, where people think they can beat you. I think the biggest question they’re gonna have there, and they are out there looking for players, is they identified a core, a young core, and that core is on the blue line it’s Sanderson, it’s Chabot, and it’s Chychrun.
An upfront, it’s Tkachuk, it’s Stutzle, it’s Norris. Of course, it’s Pinto who’s coming back in about 10 days. It’s Batherson. I’m sure I’m probably missing somebody, but that’s their group. And, you know, the one thing is here is that Ottawa has shown that when they get thrown curveballs, they’ll veer from their plan.
Now, I think they really believe that they want to stick with their core, but I’m just wondering if all of this going on here is gonna make them change their decision.”