“Sporadic” was a word used post-practice Monday by Ottawa Senators head coach Travis Green of his team’s play early this season.
Green isn’t wrong. Six games into the 2025-26 schedule, the Senators have played inconsistently at best. There has been moments of brilliance; their comeback in Tampa Bay is one; and there’s been lows, especially in the way they lost Saturday afternoon at home versus the Islanders.
The biggest issue to date is for a team as detailed as the Senators were last season, those exact details have been missing for the most part in their game.
Tim Stützle noted Saturday, players weren’t getting pucks deep, weren’t strong enough on the forecheck, leading to easy breakouts by the opposition.
Shane Pinto mentioned a lack of maturity in a failure to lock down a game, which should’ve been won or at worst a point gained.
Monday, Green and his players went back to work, focussing on X’s and O’s during practice. There were dump and chase and forecheck drills. Drills designed to eliminate breakouts, and defensive zone coverage drills. A back to basics if you will, all drawn up in order to get the Senators to return to the identity forged last season which led them to a playoff berth.
“We talked about it this morning. You know, you have to rebuild your team identity every single year. We finished off the year great. We really like where our game is at. But you know, it’s a fresh year, fresh start for every single team. So now you’ve got to come to camp, come into the season, ready to rebuild that identity for the team every time,” said Senators defenseman Jake Sanderson to assembled media, including Hockey HotStove after Monday’s skate.
Drake Batherson is confident he and his teammates will work out the kinks in their game, “I think it’s early on. And you know, the quicker you can get to your game, I think the more successful you’ll be as a team at the start of the season. It’s still early on the season, the quicker we can get to that. And that’s what we’re trying to do, clean up certain aspects, and then when we find our game, I think we’re going to be in a good spot.”
The Senators head coach added, they can’t continue play “loose” in parts of their game. “That’s a hard way to win in the NHL. I don’t think our team outscore better teams. We don’t have 40-50 goal scorers on our team. If we start getting into a coinflip who’s going to score the most goals, we’re probably going to be on the wrong end.”
The 2-4-0 Senators aren’t the only NHL club not playing up to expectations, the Edmonton Oilers, their opponent Tuesday is on a three-game losing streak, possessing a 2-3-1 record.
For his part, Green is seeking to find the right mix in the lineup, especially with Senators captain Brady Tkachuk sidelined six to eight weeks after undergoing right thumb surgery.
One interesting combination is the shifting of Stützle to the left wing of centre Dylan Cozens and Batherson on the right. The trio played together briefly last week in Buffalo and the second half of Saturday’s game. So far, the trio has combined for four goals in limited action.
Stützle and Batherson played on the same line for much of the 2020-21 shortened season due to Covid. Batherson assisted on seven of Stützle’s 12 goals scored in what was the native of Germany’s rookie campaign.
A bonus for the Senators is most of their forwards are used to playing multiple positions. This combo is no different with Stützle noting, whomever player is first down-low in the defensive zone will take on the role of centre.
“We haven’t really played a lot together since those first years, but every time I feel like we played together, we had some really good chemistry. I think we tried it out last year a couple times where we weren’t playing good. I think it’s gonna be a good line, and because we’re able to play every position, and I can play low, because Dylan can play low, even Drake can carry through the middle. And so we just got to be good defensively, and then we get our chances,” said the 23-year-old.
For Cozens, who’s been paired with Batherson since being acquired from Buffalo at last season’s trade deadline, he’s appreciating the dynamic of his new linemate in Stützle.
Describing Stützle, Cozens explained, “He’s not scared to hold on to it. He baits guys in, like on that pass, he made to me last game, like he could have given to me right away, but he baited the guy in. So it allowed me to have more time to shoot. And he was just so good at little plays like that, finding the open guy and just using his speed to create time and space.”
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