OTTAWA — Steve Staios is a person who rarely shows emotion, so when he does, it speaks volumes.
The Ottawa Senators general manager wasn’t pleased with his team’s play to begin the season. Nor should he be. Nevertheless, Ottawa has found ways to get points in nine of its last 10 games, which, of course, is the ultimate goal. Yet, before their win over Utah on Sunday night, the Senators had the lowest expected goals share in the NHL according to MoneyPuck.com for six straight games, even beating Philadelphia while mustering only 13 shots. Ottawa has been as lucky as good of late.
“Some early stumbles, I thought to be quite honest with you, I thought we pissed away some points early on,” Staios told a news conference Monday.
Yes, Brady Tkachuk’s injury throws a caveat into the mix, but good teams find ways to excel if one star goes down.
Staios deserves a ton of praise for turning the Senators into a competitive playoff-calibre hockey team in less than two years. However, the players Staios has brought in to support the core have struggled, including Linus Ullmark, Nick Jensen, Dylan Cozens and Fabian Zetterlund.
“I was a little surprised (with) our start, to be quite honest,” Staios said. “You hope the continuation of last year, a similar group coming back, same coaching staff, that we would have been on our game early.”
Staios has a fiery competitiveness in him that goes back to his 16 years as a player in the league. To the Senators’ credit, they are in a playoff spot despite a bumpy start, but they easily could be in a different place.
The Senators have struggled to get saves, have the league’s worst penalty kill and have struggled to play consistent hockey. The Senators are eighth in the NHL with 55 goals this season but analytics show that the club’s process has not been sound so far. The Senators are fourth in shooting percentage, 19th in expected goals at five on five, and 24th in high-danger scoring chances since Brady Tkachuk went down in the first week of the season. They have been outshooting their problems, but that can very easily go south.
Still, it hasn’t all been bad. Ottawa dominated Boston and Washington earlier this season, and played the way they wanted to in Sunday’s 4-2 win over Utah.
“We had success putting the puck in the back of the net (beating Boston and Washington last month), and that was all due to our checking,” said Staios. “And I think that was sort of the revelation for our group to understand that that’s when we’re at our best.”
Ottawa has stayed in the playoff mix without Tkachuk to its credit. Staios said Tkachuk is expected back from thumb surgery at the end of November or early December.
“I know he’d like to move that up,” Staios joked.
But the team’s real struggles are especially frustrating for Staios because his fingerprints are all over this roster.
Outside of Michael Amadio’s heater of five goals in his last six games, Staios’ additions have not been home runs. And Jordan Spence hasn’t got a regular spot on the roster despite excellent point-per-game play.
And then there are the issues in goal.
“I believe in Linus,” said Staios.
Staios has to, after signing the goaltender to a four-year, $33 million contract last summer. It was risky.
Ullmark is paid to be a Vezina-calibre goaltender and has been the opposite with an .866 save percentage this season.
“If you look at goaltending around the league, some of the top goaltenders go through stretches where they’re not getting the results that they want,” Staios said. “Not making excuses. But honestly, I think he’s been a little bit unlucky,”
It’s Ullmark or bust for Staios.
Meanwhile, Cozens has four five-on-five points in 16 games and has been a defensive liability with a minus-9 and the second-worst expected goals share at five-on-five on the team. The only reason why the Senators are winning the Cozens for Josh Norris trade right now is because of availability, not productivity.
Zetterlund hasn’t worked out so far either, playing on the fourth line at times, with only one goal and three points for a player pegged to fill a role in Ottawa’s top nine. He’s due to be paid $12 million over the next three seasons to produce. Staios said he likes Zetterlund’s “B” game with physicality and effort but added, “Eventually, he’s got the talent and the ability to put the puck in the net.”
Meanwhile, the Jensen experiment was supposed to be integral to the Senators’ success this season. His play hasn’t been good enough. Although it’s hard to blame a 35-year-old coming off major hip surgery, he has the worst expected goals share and plus-minus of any Senators defenceman. Consequently, the uncertainty around Jensen’s status led to the Senators acquiring Jordan Spence, who has produced in limited minutes.
“We didn’t know what (Jensen’s) timeline was on a return, so we were looking at, we’ve always liked Jordan as a player, kept our eye on him, and (acquired) him,” said Staios.
Unfortunately, Spence didn’t immediately earn head coach Travis Green’s trust. Nonetheless, he has seven points in his first seven games as an Ottawa Senator.
It’s not an ideal situation. The Senators are once again short of a top-four right-shot defenceman. Maybe Carter Yakemchuk is ready? He has the tools. In the 2024 draft, Staios passed on plenty of defencemen who went after Yakemchuk and are currently playing in the NHL.
There is no doubt the Senators want to improve their roster this season by the deadline. Two issues will make that difficult, however: The Senators don’t have their first-round pick and there aren’t many sellers yet in what has been ultra-competitive start to the season.
“It’ll be interesting to have discussions, because I think everybody is trying to do the same thing and improve their team,” said Staios. “Yet, we’re all so close that it makes it more challenging at this stage.”
We have enough of a body of work from Staios’s moves to make a real assessment. The Senators could be in a better place if some of the players he acquired were performing at the level expected of them. But entering play Monday, the Senators are third in the Atlantic with 18 points. Staios deserves a credit for turning the Senators around in his first two years in charge.
Looking at the glass half-full, the fate of this season, and the future of the Senators rides as much on Tim Stutzle, Jake Sanderson and Tkachuk as it does on Ullmark, Cozens, and Zetterlund. As Staios has repeatedly said, the ultimate goal isn’t just being good enough, as they have been to start the season, but ready to push towards the “next step” and a Stanley Cup in the coming years.
Staios hates negotiating through the media. However, the Senators and Shane Pinto are planning to meet this week on a new contract. Pinto’s red-hot start to the season with 14 points in 16 games couldn’t have come at a better time for the soon-to-be restricted free agent. Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman has reported that the Senators offered Pinto an eight-year contract, but Friedman has also said that Pinto might prefer a shorter, three-year deal. The Senators would be smart to lock up Pinto long term.
It’s clear the Senators want an enforcer on their team. That guy is Kurtis MacDermid.
“I like having him on our team. And I think, more importantly, I think you should ask the players what they think,” said Staios.
MacDermid has skated in seven games for the Senators season, recording no points and just one fight, on Oct. 9. He averages 4:26 of ice time per game.
Hockey people tell you fighting matters, but name us a player on the defending champion Florida Panthers whose role is to fight? Funnily enough, MacDermid won a Cup with Colorado in 2022 in that role but didn’t play in the playoffs.
According to Postmedia’s Bruce Garrioch, prospect Max Guenette has asked to be traded. That is why the 24-year-old defenceman remains an unsigned restricted free agent.
