The Ottawa Senators tried to make it work with coach D.J. Smith, but the playoffs now look out of reach. This is only the beginning of the latest new direction, writes Adam Proteau.

The Ottawa Senators fired coach D.J. Smith Monday, and very few in the hockey world seemed surprised at the news.

The Sens are in the midst of a four-game losing streak, and their 3-7-0 record in their last 10 games has lowered them into the basement of the Atlantic Division and the NHL. 

But for as painful as it sounds, Ottawa is now only at the beginning of a new direction with an undetermined timeline, even after beginning a rebuild in 2018.

The Senators are almost certainly not going to make the playoffs this season. Even the fresh input of interim coach Jacques Martin cannot magically turn them into the Stanley Cup playoff contenders many expected Ottawa would be this season. But as we’re seeing from first-year president of hockey operations Steve Staios, there’s no good reason to rush to judgment and install management members simply because of the heat of the moment. It’s not about getting someone in there who can quickly turn their season around because the season is essentially lost at this point.

Indeed, the rest of the year should and will be all about taking stock of which players Staios wants to build the foundation around and which players will be sent packing. In that respect, it doesn’t make a difference who’s coaching in the short term. It’s about the big picture, and Staios is clearly still in his feeling-out stage with the roster and the organization.

If he wanted to, Staios easily could have taken a flier on a proven winner behind the bench, such as former Rangers and Golden Knights bench boss Gerard Gallant, to replace Smith – by the time the off-season arrives, Gallant may yet be the proper choice to run the Senators’ bench. 

Another option is to eventually turn the reins over to franchise icon Daniel Alfredsson, who joined Martin’s coaching staff when Smith and assistant Davis Payne were fired. Alfredsson is the type of Grade-A star who often struggles when shifting to a coaching role – Wayne Gretzky didn’t have success in Arizona, but he’s far from the only elite player not to adapt to a coaching role – yet he and Martin now have the opportunity to take the pulse of the team the rest of this season. And if things go well, we could see Alfredsson named the permanent replacement for Smith by summertime.

Staios is moving deliberately slowly with his team. Once he gets a good idea of who to keep and who to move on from, he'll decide on who the permanent GM and coach will be. 

He told reporters Monday afternoon the Sens will go through a process to identify the next coach "at the appropriate time." Gallant has earned another shot, but it's not like the Senators have to hurry him into the job. He can and should still be on their radar, but waiting another six months to firm up plans wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.

New Sens owner Michael Andlauer has entrusted Staios to steer the franchise in a new direction, and the truth is that nothing short of a dominant year was going to save former GM Pierre Dorion and Smith from the firing line. The writing was on the wall for Dorion very early this season, and though Smith got a bit more time to try and get things right, in the end, he couldn’t get them anywhere close to playoff contention, so his number was up this week.

It can’t be easy for long-suffering Sens fans to hear, but patience is going to be a key for them for the rest of the 2023-24 campaign. Many of their key components are still in the early stages of their NHL days, and it would be folly for Ottawa management to give up on all or even many of them simply because the mix wasn’t effective this year. It’s going to take more time to figure out how to move forward from here, and Staios has the cachet to keep things moving along slowly but surely.

A rash reaction from management might make things even worse, or at the very least, just as bad as they are at the moment. The next half-year is going to be agonizingly painful for the Senators, but the organization has to own it. There’s nowhere to go but up for them now, so taking things day-by-day is the best macro solution for what ails them.