Frustration boils over in Ottawa as scrutiny on Senators coach D.J. Smith intensifies

Steve Staios stated a simple objective when he assumed the responsibility of the general manager’s portfolio in Ottawa last week.

“First priority is to instil stability and confidence in the group,” Staios said on Wednesday afternoon.

But 72 hours after he uttered those words, stability and confidence were not the two adjectives anybody would use to describe the feeling around the Ottawa Senators. Instead, Staios’ group is fragile and disoriented.

And the fans who support his franchise are seething with rage in the wake of yet another flat and disappointing start to the season. Staios is only 10 games into his tenure in Ottawa, so you’ll excuse him if he’s taking a cautious and methodical approach.

But applying that same logic, you’ll excuse Ottawa fans for labelling this start unacceptable. They’ve watched this movie four times already under D.J. Smith and they have no appetite for a fifth instalment.

That much was made clear on Saturday evening when a good portion of the 17,387 in attendance at Canadian Tire Centre voiced their displeasure.

After the Tampa Bay Lightning took a 3-1 lead in the second period, there were multiple ‘fire D.J.’ chants inside the arena bowl. Those voices grew louder when Tampa extended its lead to 4-1 in the late stages of the frame. The chants were heard again during the third period, but they paled in comparison to the loud booing directed at the players as they exited the ice surface following the 6-4 defeat to Tampa.

Brady Tkachuk used the word “frustrating” eight times in the span of roughly 100 seconds during a brief but animated postgame session with reporters on Saturday evening. Those ‘fire D.J.’ chants clearly reached the ears of the captain on the bench, who used an expletive term to describe the fans’ behaviour inside the home rink.

“It’s frustrating — the negativity from the outside. The constant booing and the bulls— from the crowd tonight, too. I understand they’re a passionate fan base. I understand, I love it,” Tkachuk said. “But when you’re facing adversity, you don’t turn your back on the guys out there. I mean, we’re playing hard. It’s not like we’re giving up out there.”

Understandably, Tkachuk’s postgame tirade took up the majority of the oxygen in the hours that followed Saturday’s game. The quote touched off a fierce debate about whether athletes should be allowed to fire back at fans — or if Tkachuk broke an unspoken rule by criticizing the paying customers inside his home rink.

Regardless of what side of the debate you fall on, it’s clear Tkachuk is only speaking in that manner because he’s exasperated. And Ottawa fans are only chanting and screaming those things because they are feeling the same way.

It’s only November and the temperature on Smith’s coaching seat has been officially dialled up to scorching hot.

You can certainly make a case that Ottawa is missing several key players, including three of its top six defencemen in Thomas Chabot, Artem Zub and Erik Brannstrom. But in the absence of key players, you need to rely on structure and identity. Think back to a decade ago, when the Senators made the playoffs in 2013 without the likes of Erik Karlsson, Jason Spezza, Milan Michalek and Craig Anderson in their lineup for long stretches. They embraced the ‘Pesky Sens’ mantra and created an identity.

Right now, you’d be challenged to place a positive label on this group. They’ve got no swagger, no confidence. It evaporated in the face of consecutive home losses against Detroit and Buffalo last month and they haven’t been able to recapture it.

After Saturday’s game, Smith admitted, “With any adversity here, right now, we’re squeezing it for sure.”

Later in the session, he added, “When this team plays loose, they can score, they can defend, they can do all these things. I think they’re just trying too hard.”

After Saturday’s game, Tim Stützle said he wasn’t sure why all of the criticism is being directed solely at the coaching staff. “I don’t even know how they take all the heat for that. We work hard every night.”

Following the 3-2 loss against the Los Angeles Kings on Thursday, Jakob Chychrun praised the Kings’ ability to play a tight, disciplined game — something Ottawa is lacking right now.

“They got a good team over there. They just play so structured,” said Chychrun. “And they don’t get away from their structure at all.”

When you read between the lines, this is an execution issue in Ottawa — not one rooted in effort. And maybe that’s why Tkachuk was so angered by the booing and jeering inside Canadian Tire Centre on Saturday. He interpreted it as a criticism of their effort level when the fans were simply voicing their displeasure at the sloppiness of the situation.

If the Senators had quit, they simply wouldn’t have shown the type of pushback in the third period that we’ve seen in recent losses against the Buffalo Sabres, Kings and Lightning. They would have rolled over and let a lopsided score get worse. So that is where Tkachuk’s frustration is coming from.

“In here, there is no quit and there never has been,” Tkachuk added on Saturday evening. “I don’t think we’ve ever shown a time where we quit on the people that paid money to support us. I think that’s non-negotiable in our group. We finish hard no matter what and we leave it all out there.”

The fans’ frustration, however, is rooted in the fact it’s November and the season is once again in danger of careening off a cliff in Ottawa. This is exactly what happened last season when the Senators got off to an identical 4-6-0 start in their first 10 games.

Sunday was the one-year anniversary of Claude Giroux saying, “I’m pretty pissed off right now.”

And last November, we also heard loud ‘fire D.J.’ chants inside Canadian Tire Centre after a deflating 5-1 loss on home ice to the New Jersey Devils. That prompted Tkachuk to jump to his coach’s defence and say, “I see it all the time and I’m sick of the negativity towards that.”

In November of 2021, the club’s season was torpedoed by a one-win November that was punctuated by $25 million goalie Matt Murray being placed on waivers.

The atrocious starts to the season have unfortunately been the hallmark for the Senators under Smith. Go back and click any of these articles linked above and they read like a current assessment of the Senators.

The easiest job in the world is to be an Ottawa Senators columnist in the month of November. You just need to cut and paste.

2021.

2022.

2023.

It doesn’t matter. It all reads like the same copy.

And so Ottawa fans aren’t particularly interested in hearing excuses. Or hearing that players are giving their all. They want to know why this team cannot get over an obstacle so inconsequential as the second month of the season. This isn’t April or May we’re talking about, when external pressure and tension sometimes become too much for players to handle. This is November for crying out loud, arguably the most nondescript month on the NHL calendar.

Senators fans aren’t even demanding a playoff spot right now. They’re merely asking to at least get to Christmas with a glimmer of hope on that front.

And when the Senators checked the standings on Sunday morning, they found themselves tied with the Pittsburgh Penguins for the worst record in the Eastern Conference. They sat 27th in the standings after 10 games and are barrelling toward another awful start under Smith.

Record after 20 games under Smith

SeasonRecordPoints .PctLeague Rank

2022-23

7-12-1

.375

31st

2021-22

4-15-1

.225

32nd

2020-21

5-14-1

.275

31st

2019-20

8-11-1

.425

28th

Staios and new owner Michael Andlauer were not planning on making wholesale changes this early in their tenure. They wanted to take a patient, wait-and-see approach with management and the coaching staff. They wanted to surround the existing staff with support and resource tools to give them a chance to succeed. They gave Pierre Dorion an analytics guru in Sean Tierney. They brought Daniel Alfredsson in to help Smith on the coaching staff. Matt Nichol was hired to assist the medical staff.

But even with that insulation, their hand was forced with Dorion, as they had no choice but to push him out the door after his actions led to Ottawa losing a first-round pick.

GO DEEPER

‘Why I inherited this is beyond me’: Fiery Michael Andlauer sounds off on the NHL and Pierre Dorion

And now we have to ask if their hand will be forced by what transpired on Saturday night. If they were waffling on Smith’s future, did the toxic environment inside the arena sway their decision? Certainly they would have heard those chants and felt the unhappiness swirling inside the arena. It was palpable and impossible to ignore.

Staios and Andlauer appear to be calm and calculated. They don’t seem like the type of management team to alter their course based on which way the wind is blowing.

On Wednesday, Staios told reporters, “I believe in this coaching staff.”

Truthfully, any answer short of that type of endorsement would have led to constant speculation from fans and media.

But there will be a ton of heat on Smith this month. And with a nationally televised game in Toronto on Wednesday, followed by a trip to Sweden next week, that focus and attention will only intensify.

This is all a new experience for Staios and Andlauer, as they are desperately trying to inject stability and confidence inside the walls of their organization.

Accomplishing that feels like a big enough challenge on its own.

Dealing with the outside noise seems like a battle they aren’t going to win any time soon.

(Photo: Richard A. Whittaker / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)