The Senators missed the playoffs for a seventh straight season and some of the reasons jump off the NHL stats page.
Aside from an early injury bug, an unorthodox schedule, negative noise around the team, and the unstable coaching situation, there are some very clear statistical markers that explain how this season came to be for the Ottawa Senators.
1) POWER PLAY
What was a strength of the Senators in 2022-23 turned out to be their Achilles heel in 2023-24.
2022-23 Power Play: 23.53% (8th)
2023-24 Power Play: 18.02% (23rd)
Obviously, the Senators didn’t make the playoffs last year either. This isn’t the only reason for the season. It's more important to understand the reason for the decline.
Though he played well, Vladimir Tarasenko did not replace Alex DeBrincat on the PP. The Senators also hoped that Josh Norris would regain his 35-goal form of two years ago and that didn’t happen. Finally, in a season where he played 75 games, no one would have believed that Tim Stutzle would score only one power play goal.
Four forwards were often used on the PP and that works right up until something goes wrong. Ask Daniel Alfredsson (with apologies to those of you still suffering from Pominville PTSD).
Finally, if teams know that your power play isn’t very effective, they may play more aggressively with the confidence that if they do get a penalty, they have a better chance of killing it.
2) PENALTY KILL
Goalies need to be your best penalty killers and with both goalies delivering the identical 0.890 save percentage, it’s a key indicator – not only of their performance – but of how the team plays in front of them. Zero delta between the two seems a strange coincidence over 82 games.
At 10th in the league, the Senators can’t look at their shot blocking for answers with 1355 recorded. Oddly enough, six of nine teams ahead of them missed the playoffs. Clearly, this stat is skewed by the number of shots that get directed at your net.
Team faceoff win percentage dipped from 51.4 in 2022-23 to 51.0 this season. This may seem insignificant until you consider the number of faceoffs in a game. If the decline in faceoff wins were drilled down to the penalty kill, and with every penalty kill starting in the defensive end, this could explain part of the decline as well.
Not having Shane Pinto for half the season didn’t help as his FOW% was 51.4 in the second half.
If the goal is to have the sum of your power play percentage and penalty killing percentage to be 100 or better, this year, the Senators weren’t even close.
That’s a combined 93.12 in 2023-24 vs 103.6 in 2022-23.
Special teams were clearly the number one contributor to the losing season.
3) EVEN STRENGTH
This was the Senators’ Achilles heel last season with only 178 even strength goals. This year, there was a 7.9% increase to 192.
This may not seem like much, and granted they were still 20th in the league this season. It certainly highlights the impact that the special teams had on the season.
The Senators Corsi For/Against % was fourth in the league at 51.72%. This is an even strength statistic.
Had the special teams operated at last year’s pace, an additional 14 goals at even strength could have made a huge difference in the season. It would have taken a much more significant increase in even strength goals to offset the lost special teams' production.
As it is, even strength play didn’t hurt the season, but it does highlight how quickly things could turn around if the team had all three phases of the game operating at the same time.
4) LOSER POINTS
Those two winless five game road trips really did sink the season for the Senators. Teams can survive losing streaks and still make the playoffs. However, pointless losing streaks is another story altogether.
The Senators relinquished leads in four of those 10 games including three in the third period and ended up with nothing to show for it.
This points to not being able to rise to the occasion when the game is on the line and lacking that grit that playoff teams tend to show. The Senators were frequently called out this season for their lack of grit and often seemed too easy to play against. This can manifest itself in many ways but the ability to get to the extra frame is certainly one of them.
The Islanders (16), Bruins (15), Capitals (11) and Leafs (10) are all headed to the playoffs in the East. The Islanders and Capitals, in particular, are there because of the loser points they accumulated. If the Bruins and Leafs had the Senators loser points, they would be wildcard teams.
Like cap circumvention, don’t hate the player. Hate the game.
The Senators tied for the least loser points in the East (4) with the New York Rangers. They did not play an OT game until the trip to Sweden and of the 16 they did play in, they were 12-4.
The Senators' speed lends itself well to three-on-three hockey. They need to find it within themselves to be able to get to the extra frame whenever possible if they can’t win in regulation.
You can say losing is losing. But losing in regulation is worse.
All four of these metrics are interconnected.
The top NHL power plays change how opponents play at five on five, thus leading to better production in both phases and less likelihood of regulation losses.
The same can be said about improved penalty killing.
It’s not as simple as saying “we need to improve these areas”. The roster needs change, and the right coach needs to leverage everyone. However, it’s easy to see just through these metrics why the Senators season unfolded like this, and this is where GM Steve Staios should focus his personnel decisions for the roster and coaching staff.