The 36-year-old has gone deep in the playoffs and played for Stanley Cup-winning coaches and was asked Thursday what the club needs in a new coach.
If the Ottawa Senators have one player on their roster who could lend a valuable opinion on what they need in their next head coach, it's future Hall of Famer, Claude Giroux.
The 36-year-old has been around the NHL block a time or two and he knows what good coaching looks like. Giroux has played for Cup-winning coaches like Craig Berube and Peter Laviolette. He also knows what winning looks like, playing in 95 NHL playoff games and a Cup Final.
At Thursday's final media availability of the season, Giroux was asked about the kind of coach the Senators need and warned that no coach has a magic formula to turn things around. Whatever tactics the next head coach has up his sleeve, it's on the players to execute.
"There's a lot of good coaches out there and I'm sure Steve (Staios) and his staff are going to look at all the possibilities," Giroux said. "There's a lot of guys out there that I don't know and some guys that coached me before.
"But there's no coach with this special recipe. It's about being able to have a coach to put the system in for us, and the players to be able to play the way he wants us to play. And we need to be consistent doing that. So, at the end of the day, it's, it's on the players."
That was a common refrain among the players when the Senators relieved head coach D.J. Smith of his duties back in December – a lot of, "at the end of the day, it's on us."
No matter who the next head coach is, he'll want the young players to be more responsible defensively all over the ice, but especially in their own end.
"Yeah. I think we know that," Giroux said. "We know that if you don't play both (ends of the ice) you might score two, but if you're letting in three, it's not a good thing. I think at the end of the season we were a lot more responsible in our own zone and with the puck, but we obviously have a lot of work to do."
Giroux has one year left on his contract and is eligible for an extension on July 1st. After the first two seasons in Ottawa, he's put up a combined 143 points and was very much in the discussion for team MVP in both years.