Stumbling Senators an easy mark on road against Kraken

It’s a new year, as you know. 

The Ottawa Senators have new coaches. Every game is an opportunity for a fresh start, a turnaround. 

Yet here we are. The Sens continue to lose games at a rate of about two of every three. 

Who says they’re not consistent?

Thursday’s 4-1 loss to the Seattle Kraken ran Ottawa’s record to 3-5-0 under interim head coach Jacques Martin and his trusty assistant Daniel Alfredsson. Remember that inspiring overtime victory in Sweden, with Alfie doing a cameo behind the bench when Tim Stützle whacked the puck out of mid-air to beat Detroit, en route to a two-game Swedish sweep?

Those were the days. 

The Senators are 6-13-0 since returning from Sweden, 14-20-0 overall and 4-10-0 on the road this season. 

You kids out there, ask your parents about the original Ottawa roadkill team of 1992-93. 

Those expansion Senators went to Long Island on April 10, 1993, and beat New York 5-3, putting four goals past goaltender Glenn Healy (he loves to be reminded of this) and a fifth into an empty net. It was Ottawa’s only road victory of the season, as the Sens went 1-41-0 on the road in an 84-game season. 

That road win was the Senators’ Stanley Cup.

In fact, when the puck hit the empty net, securing the victory, Senators captain Laurie Boschman shouted at his teammates, “We’re going to Disneyland!” which was a phrase certain champions mouthed at that time, cashing in on a free trip from Disney in exchange for the pitch. 

Those early Senators were largely a ragtag collection of roster castoffs and veteran players on their last legs. They had reason to lose most every night, and to celebrate rare victories like their franchise opener at the Civic Centre over Montreal and that single road victory on the Island. 

But these 2023-24 Senators? Not so much. 

This pampered team has a band of talented young players locked in long term, and a payroll right to the maximum allowed under NHL salary cap rules. 

They have no excuse for losing in such cavalier fashion. 

After a 6-3 loss in Vancouver Tuesday, Martin called out his team, suggesting they “look in the mirror” after a 36-year-old like Claude Giroux was their best player. 

On Thursday, the Sens responded, somewhat, with a much better first period, outshooting and outplaying the Kraken for most of it. But where was the finish? The composure?

Despite a couple of early power-play chances, including a brief five-on-three, the Sens could not cash in. They finished 0-for-4 for the night on the man advantage. 

As is their way, turnovers were fatal. On the first three Kraken goals, an Ottawa player turned the puck over — Thomas Chabot, then Stützle, then Dominik Kubalik. 

Chabot actually turned the puck over twice in the same sequence that led to the first goal of the game by Janni Gourde, a killer goal to allow late in the first period after Ottawa had started so well. 

A less fragile team would have survived that, but Martin put the blame on a five-minute stretch late in the second period, when the Kraken scored two goals to put this one away. 

“We had a couple of good chances to score, their goalie (Joey Daccord) makes some saves, and then we don’t stay the course — we try to cheat,” Martin said. “We gave them some opportunities, they score two, and it’s tough to come back.

“It’s 1-0, you can’t give them that second goal,” Martin said. “If they earn it, fine. But if you give it to them, it makes your job difficult.”

Cruelly, Daccord came back to haunt his former team, although he is haunting the sleep of a lot of teams these days. Daccord, 27, drafted by the Senators in 2015, is 7-0-2 over his last nine games, including a shutout win over Las Vegas in the New Year’s Day Winter Classic in Seattle. Over that stretch, Daccord has a .958 save percentage and 1.31 goals-against average. 

Ottawa lost Daccord to Seattle in the 2021 expansion draft, opting to keep Filip Gustavsson instead. Gustavsson was later traded to Minnesota for Cam Talbot. All part of the Senators futile goaltender merry-go-round since Craig Anderson was here. 

Things don’t get easier from here for Ottawa’s would-be road warriors. They have a meeting with the Edmonton Oilers Saturday night and then hang around Alberta until Tuesday’s match with the Calgary Flames. 

The Senators have one Eastern stop on this five-game trip, a Jan. 11 date in Buffalo, before returning home to face the San Jose Sharks on Jan. 13. 

In those heady pre-season days, a game against rebuilding San Jose would have been considered an automatic win, but those days are gone. 

Ottawa is officially now an NHL bottom-dweller. With 20 regulation losses in just 34 games, the Senators can only look at three teams with more defeats, all in the Western Conference: Chicago (25), Anaheim (23) and San Jose (27).