Travis Green has helped the club stay focused on the right things, despite some difficult losses, a January controversy, and season-long goaltending issues.
In 2024, when the Ottawa Senators began their search for a full-time replacement for DJ Smith, there were several possible candidates.
Names like Mike Sullivan, Gerard Gallant, Craig Berube, Dean Evason, Sheldon Keefe, Marlies head coach Jon Gruden, and even the once-exiled Joel Quenneville were all bandied about.
In the background, there was also some talk about Travis Green, but there seemed to be no obvious reason for the Senators to make him their new bench boss.
Green had worked in Vancouver with little success for four-plus years (133-147-34), making the playoffs only once. After a year and a half off, he was hired as an assistant in New Jersey and replaced Lindy Ruff on an interim basis midway through the 2023-24 season.
Green was still a candidate at the end of the season, but when the Devils widened their search, they permitted him to talk to other teams, one being Ottawa.
When Steve Staios announced Green as the new Senators head coach on a four-year deal, more than a few wondered, including me, if they had decided based on cost rather than quality.
Now, a little over 1.5 years into the agreement, the Senators have enjoyed their first playoff run since 2017, and they find themselves pursuing a second.
It might seem strange to speak with any reverence about a coach whose team is 19th overall in the league, six points out of a wild-card spot with three teams to leapfrog to get in.
But a closer look shows that Green and his staff have done an outstanding job.
The first testament to Green is how he handles the media. Perhaps his playing career taught him that less is more, but he hasn’t made any missteps at the podium since taking over.
Perhaps he is a different person behind closed doors, but to the outside world, he keeps his emotions in check, and despite some of the devastating losses the Senators have suffered this season, to the rest of the world, Green looks like it was all part of the plan.
Another notch in Green’s ledger is that you never hear anything bad about him in the media in terms of disconnect or friction with star players or any players for that matter. No one says anything about him, good or bad.
The Senators have even faced outside attempts to toxify their work environment with malicious social media rumours, but you still see nothing dysfunctional about the Ottawa Senators as a team.
Obviously, the whole leadership structure deserves credit as well; having Daniel Alfredsson as your wingman doesn’t hurt. But it all filters down from the top, and if we've learned anything about Alfredsson in his retirement, it’s that he won’t stick around and be a part of something he doesn’t believe in.
Green’s ability to navigate the icebergs has been apparent this year, in particular. Whether it be Brady Tkachuk’s absence, Jake Sanderson’s post-game comments, the inconsistency in goal or Linus Ullmark’s absence, Green didn't allow any of it to become an excuse or distraction.
At times this season, fans and media read the team their last rites when things were going badly, but you would never know based on Green's public persona, which is never too high or too low.
The Senators are within striking distance of a playoff spot despite having unstable goaltending for the entire season from both their starter and his backups. The metrics all show Ottawa to be a team far superior to its record, with the noted exception of Goals Saved Above Expected.
Yet somehow, the Senators go into the Olympic break 6-3-1 in their last 10, winners of five of their last six games, and giving up 20 shots or less five times in that stretch.
Based on the goaltending numbers, the Senators' season should be a write-off already. Yet Green has instilled such a structure in the team’s 200-foot game that Jacques Martin, who coached pre-lockout with a red line, would be proud.
Looking now at that list of coaching candidates that Ottawa might have been considering, two of them are out of work, one is still looking for his first NHL gig, and none of them have a better record than Green.
For now, coaching is the least of the Ottawa Senators' worries.
Pat Maguire
The Hockey News