Ottawa Senators assistant coach Nolan Baumgartner turned 50 Monday, but didn’t have to celebrate his milestone.
Responsible for deploying Senators defensemen, Baumgartner was forced to navigate the final 37 minutes in New York with only four “D.” Thomas Chabot did not return after receiving a cross-check to his right arm as the first period concluded. While Lassi Thomson appeared to sustain a lower leg injury in a collision behind the Senators net shortly into the middle frame. The end result was a 2-1 win over the Rangers. Ottawa limited the “Blueshirts” to only 10 shots on goal, a franchise record.
Head coach Travis Green revealed Thursday morning, Chabot underwent surgery to repair a broken bone in his arm. His recovery period is likely six-to-eight weeks. Thomson is considered day-to-day and is already close to returning.
With Ottawa in the thick of the playoff race, the team was forced to recall a pair of youngsters who each made their NHL regular season debuts Wednesday, especially due to the team already minus Jake Sanderson (upper body), Nick Jensen (lower body), Dennis Gilbert (lower body).
Sanderson currently ranks eighth league-wide in time-on-ice (24:49) per game.
2024 seventh overall selection Carter Yakemchuk made his 12:46 count. Seeing action on the Senators’ first power play unit, the 20-year-old assisted on Brady Tkachuk’s goal making a between-the-legs backhand pass to Tim Stützle along the Red Wings blue line. And later scored a goal becoming the second d-man to register two points in his NHL debut, Max Lajoie October 19, 2019 was the other.
Twenty-one year old blueliner Jorian Donovan played only 4:42 in sheltered minutes after returning from an injury which kept out of the Belleville Senators lineup for three weeks.
Again the result was a success with the Senators edging Detroit 3-2 which temporarily had the club in Wildcard spot.
Thursday versus the Pittsburgh Penguins, Ottawa came up short, losing in a shootout 4-3, but an important point gained nonetheless.
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The Senators have given up 74 shots on goal the past two outings, and that is to be expected per Green. However, on the whole Ottawa is the scond stingiest team in the NHL, allowing only 24.3 shots per game on average. A lot of that credit goes to the Senators head coach’s system plus Baumgartner.
“He’s working overtime right now. It’s not just on the bench during the game, there’s a lot of juggling going on. Obviously, if you’re coaching against us, you’re trying to get certain lines out against certain defensemen, and that’s the on-ice game, and the off-ice part is lots of video trying to fast track some of these young guys.Talked about maybe having to sleep over at his house,” said Green in jest.
Baumgartner’s teaching sessions with Donovan and Yakemchuk obviously worked. Donovan’s ice-time more than doubled from his previous game to 9:22. As for Yakemchuk, known for his booming shot, he once again was utilized in the power play and took a pair of shifts in overtime.
On Donovan’s game, Green told Hockey Hot Stove he played a “Solid game, he’s going to make a few mistakes here and there, but I thought he gave us some solid minutes, and that’s all I can ask for.”
Green who’s had Baumgartner by side as assistant for 10 seasons, four with AHL Utica, four in Vancouver and the past two in Ottawa, discussed quickly whether to deploy Yakemchuk for three-on-three hockey.
“We talked about that in between. You don’t have a lot of time, but we talked about whether to put “Yak” out or not. You know, these are big points. So we got a lot of faith in (Jordan) Spence and “Klev” (Tyler Kleven) and certain players that we wanted to maybe guard him against their speed. I thought”Baumer” got him out there just for a little bit of a certain moment that we talked about; he’s going to learn a lot. He’s a young guy, he’s played two hockey games, he’s a good player.”
Kleven and Spence have also thrived under Baumgartner’s tutelage since Sanderson went down to injury 10 games ago. The pair were elevated in minutes to the second duo, and Kleven has been receiving top minutes the past two outings with Chabot missing, playing a career high 28:11 in Detroit Tuesday.
Some good news on the horizon for Baumgartner and the rest of the Ottawa Senators, Jake Sanderson is on the team’s Florida trip. It’s unknown if Sanderson will return Saturday afternoon in Tampa, but the expectation he’ll return to face the Panthers in Sunrise Tuesday.
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