Upon being hired to lead the Ottawa Senators last season, head coach Travis Green said he didn’t want to just make the playoffs, but win a Cup.
Green’s group completed half that goal, breaking an eight-year postseason drought. The Senators fell behind three games to none to the Toronto Maple Leafs in the opening round, climbing back into the series with a pair of wins, ultimately faltering in six.
This season, Green’s goal hasn’t changed. However, the route to get to this point was drastically different.
“I don’t look at it like last year. That was the narrative. We talked about it from Day One last year. We’re not here to just be a playoff team, but that does take some time as well. I do think this year had different challenges than last year. I think partially because A; expectations were higher, which they should have been, B; we were playing better than we did last year, and C; they wanted to win badly, and yet they weren’t in the spot that we wanted to be in. I don’t know where I said it the other day around here, it’s nice that we made it, but we want to win the Stanley Cup, and that’s the whole goal of our organization,” explained the Senators head coach Tuesday.
Green is correct, the Senators have played better than this season than in 2024-25, though the team wasn’t getting positive results in the first half. Despite allowing only 24 shots on goal per game, among the NHL’s top three, Ottawa was still permitting too many goals against. The penalty kill ranked second-worst league-wide the majority of the 2025-26 campaign. Injuries mounted. Brady Tkachuk tore a ligament in his thumb in the Senators home-opener, causing the captain to miss 20 games. Shane Pinto missed 10, defensemen Thomas Chabot 20, Jake Sanderson 13. D-men Tyler Kleven and Nick Jensen remain out, though Kleven may return in the coming days.
Goalie Linus Ullmark took a personal leave of absence December 28 to address his mental health.
Whether it was the rigours of last season, making the playoffs or just the natural evolution of the squad, the entire Senators’ roster, in addition Belleville reinforcements were able to navigate this adversity.
“They’ve grown, for sure, and they’ve grown in different ways this year. I felt like this year, they really understand the game moreso than last year, just through time, being coaching, players, relationships, playing more games together, having most of the same group back, but they’ve grown this year probably mentally more than the actual physical part of our game. I think we just matured as a group on the ice, and now we get to do it again,” Green noted.
January 24, Green made a switch in leadership of the club’s PK, handing the reins to assistant Mike Yeo from Nolan Baumgartner who had deal with an injury-riddled back end. Ottawa’s PK has been the NHL’s sixth-best since the change.
Since returning January 31 to the crease, Ullmark ranks among the tops in multiple goaltending categories, posting a 14-4-3 record, 2.41 Goals Against Average, .904 Save Percentage.
But possibly the biggest part of this season, is the Senators have been literally playing for their playoff lives since mid-January when they were second-last in the tough Eastern Conference. Buffalo, Montreal, Ottawa are the league’s top three teams since January 25. The Senators are 19-6-4 over this period, the reason why they’re playoff bound.
Brady Tkachuk said simply, he and his teammates never looked at the big picture during their uphill challenge.
“We didn’t think too far ahead. We just focused day in and day out, putting in the work, getting better, and just focusing on what we can do, what we can control.”
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Thomas Chabot hopes his team will have gained from their postseason experience from last season.
“I think for a lot of us, last year was just finally a relief, to finally make it and and don’t get me wrong, it’s a process you can go in. I haven’t seen teams going through a rebuild, and first time they win the playoffs won at all. Right, so it’s a process, and you got to learn from those experiences. I definitely think we’re a better group coming in this year than last year.”
Senators’ Tkachuk describes Saturday’s temporary vision loss
There was some good news at Senators practice Tuesday. The Senators captain was a full participant after leaving the game Saturday versus the New York Islanders. Tkachuk appeared to lose awareness while attempting to enter Ottawa’s bench after receiving what looked like a glancing blow from Ryan Pulock as the Islanders blueliner jumped over the boards. Tkachuk played a few short shifts totalling 55 seconds, and left the game for good early in the third period.
Tkachuk himself explained, temporarily losing vision after making a hit in the corner prior to skating towards the Senators bench.
“I mean, that was one of the weirdest, obviously scary moments. All the tests came back clear and fine. Everything’s all good, but yeah, just when “Chabby” (Chabot) was kind of wheeling, I threw a hit in the corner, and just slowly my vision just started going, and nothing hit me in the head all game, and when he was turning the turn the corner there, I just kind of lost vision,” Tkachuk told assembled media including Hockey Hot Stove.
“I saw the video, the stick never hit me coming off the bench as well. But right when I sat down, I kind of got everything back really quick, but just obviously, it was nerve-wracking and scary. Did a bunch of tests, I’m feeling good.”
It’s unknown when the Senators play next. The NHL playoff schedule will likely be released when the final game of the night concludes Wednesday. What is known, Ottawa will head to Carolina to face the Hurricanes in the postseason for the first time in franchise history.
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