D.J. Smith Fired as Senators Coach; Jacques Martin Named Interim HC

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Ottawa Senators president of hockey operations and interim general manager Steve Staios announced Monday that head coach D.J. Smith has been fired amidst an 11-15-0 start to the season, leaving the team in last place in the Atlantic Division.

Assistant coach Davis Payne was also fired and Jacques Martin was appointed interim head coach.

Smith, 46, was on an expiring contract, and the club’s new leadership—Michael Andlauer became the majority owner in September and fired general manager Pierre Dorion in early November—was going to have to make a decision on his future before the start of next season regardless.

That decision came a bit earlier than expected, though it was the decision most folks anticipated the team ultimately making at some point:

“I think Staios would have, in a perfect world, preferred to have waited until after the season to make this change,” TSN’s Pierre LeBrun reported Monday. “But this is almost like a mercy fire. I think things have gone off the rails so badly, and I think this is a situation where they’re almost doing the guy a favor at this point.”

Indeed, the Senators are mired in a four-game losing streak. Smith, meanwhile, hadn’t built the type of résumé in his career that would have bought him more leeway, going 131-154-32 in parts of five seasons with no playoff berths.

Granted, his tenure started in a rebuild focused on developing younger players. But that period is over, and expectations of a potential playoff run this season haven’t come to pass, at least not early on. In that regard, a change doesn’t come as a surprise.

As for the 71-year-old Martin, he spent nine years as the head coach of the Senators between the 1995-96 and 2003-04 seasons, leading the team to a 341-215-20 record and playoff berths in eight of those campaigns.

The Senators hired Martin earlier in December to serve as a senior advisor to the coaching staff, a bit of foreshadowing to Monday’s major moves. Now, he’s tasked with salvaging a sinking ship.