Hang around the Ottawa Senators players for a while and there is no escaping the dichotomy within this group.
On the one hand, NO team has more fun at the rink. Come to see the hockey, but stay to listen to the stories — of Josh Norris accidentally losing Anton Forsberg’s dog while dog-sitting (he was found, happy ending). Of captain Brady Tkachuk calling budding superstar Tim Stützle “outrageous” and veteran Claude Giroux calling both of his linemates “goofs.”
“Outrageous?” Stützle said. “If I’m outrageous, what is he?”
In his spare time, Stützle can tell you stories of how insanely competitive Giroux is at pickleball.
You get the picture. They’re young (but tease Giroux about his age), talented and have it all — except their playoff chops.
And here’s where the flip side of that split personality comes in. The business side.
Giroux, one of the few Senators with playoff experience from his years in Philadelphia, has let it be known it’s not acceptable for this new group he is with to fall short anymore.
“It’s not the position we want to be in right now,” Giroux said, while his young sons, Gavin and Palmer, played in the media room. Palmer, not yet two, was sporting two skinned knees, indicative of a future player.
“For me personally, I know we took a step from what this team did last year, but we want to be in the playoffs,” Giroux added. “You want to be competing. And it’s just a little frustrating right now.”
Unlike so many of his teammates in their early 20s, Giroux is 35. And while he enjoyed a career-high 35-goal season, mostly alongside Tkachuk and Stützle, the clock is ticking on Giroux’s time as a top-six player. There is urgency to him winning a championship with this group.
“It kind of sucks right now, the season’s over and you have to wait a couple of months to get back into it,” Giroux said. “But a break is going to be good now, and just make sure guys are ready to go when the season starts.”
Tkachuk, at 23, sounds no less annoyed than his elder linemate at missing out on a playoff berth by six points.
I asked the captain if he is used to the idea that yet another season is over.
“Yeah, I don’t like to be done in April anymore,” Tkachuk said. “Pretty done with it. I think moving forward, that won’t be the case. That’s the belief we have in the locker room.”
Tkachuk believes the “natural progression” of the young core will partly make up for the shortfall this season. Stützle is still just 21. Fellow centre Josh Norris, 24 in May, missed almost the entire season, and if he can stay healthy provides a strong 1-2 punch down the middle for Ottawa. Shane Pinto gained experience, stepping in for Norris.
And suddenly the back-end has veered from a weakness to a strength: Jake Sanderson exploded onto the scene as a 20-year-old defenceman, top four D-man Jakob Chychrun was acquired at the trade deadline, and Erik Brannstrom progressed as a third-pairing player.
At times, especially during the two-game “playoff-type” series against the Detroit Red Wings in late February, when both teams were in contention for a wild-card spot, the Senators got a feel for what it means to be in an intensely competitive arena. A year ago at this time, the Sens missed the dance by 27 points.
“Being so close, being six points out, it’s kind of a taste of getting into the dance, and not getting there,” Tkachuk said. “That hurts a lot more this year and we’re more disappointed, overall.
“I’ve got a lot of motivation going into the summer. I want to find out a lot more individually and I want to take the next step.”
Does anyone doubt Tkachuk’s ability to carry this team on his back into the post-season, if necessary?
Perhaps no one in the room represents the dichotomy of the Senators better than Timmy ‘Süperstar’ Stützle. The kid wears his heart on his sleeve: the happiest young man around when the team is winning and the most self-critical in a loss. “I was terrible,” Stützle would often say, when the fact is, no one showed more growth this season than the team’s scoring leader, at 90 points, with 39 goals. Stützle became the youngest player in franchise history to record 50 or more assists. He finished with 51.
Stützle accomplished these offensive highs while taking on the responsibility of playing against the opponent’s top centres, from Patrice Bergeron to Auston Matthews.
“I think it made me better,” Stützle said. “As a young player, you always think about offence and all that stuff. But for me it was really important to learn quick that it’s not all about that, it’s not all about points. Playing against the top line makes me worry about playing defensively and I think for the whole group, the whole year was about getting the wins and nobody cared about who had more goals or more points. That was just a special group in there.”
Special and fun-loving.
Stützle finished his 10-minute departure interview with this beauty line about his pal, Brady.
“He got really funny over the summer,” Stützle says of Tkachuk. “He wasn’t that funny before, I hate to say it, but I think he’s going to be even funnier next year.”
With that, Stützle left the scene. But a half hour later, he walked past the media room with his arms full of sticks and yelled, “bye everybody!”
Ottawa is said to be a town that fun forgot, but the Senators are the top entertainers in the region, on and off the ice.
Forsberg expects ‘normal’ summer
The competition for most gruesome injury of the season for the Senators is a fierce one. Veteran forward Derick Brassard had his fibula snap after getting caught up with Flyers goaltender Felix Sandstrom, Thomas Chabot had an ugly wrist injury, and goaltender Anton Forsberg suffered MCL tears in both knees at the same time in a February game against Edmonton.
Forsberg told us he underestimated the injury at first, figured he would be back on his feet the next day, but found himself getting carried off on a stretcher. The toughest part was confronting his family in the car after the game. The Forsbergs have two children: Ben, 4, and Stella, 3.
“The kids were waiting for me and I saw my son crying because he saw everything on TV,” Forsberg said. “That was a tough one. Walking around with the braces the first few days, every time they saw me coming down the stairs they were crying. That was the toughest part.”
Forsberg says the rehab is going well and he would probably be skating with full gear by now, if the team was heading to the playoffs. As it is, he plans to continue off-ice workouts and get back on skates with gear on in July.
“I feel good,” Forsberg said. “I’m going into a normal summer of training. I’m happy with the progress so far.”
Chabot still rehabbing wrist
Chabot came clean on the extent of the wrist injury he suffered in late March. Chabot says he suffered a ligament tear and a cracked bone in the wrist when he was hit into the boards.
“The main focus heading into the summer is fully rehabbing it and making sure it’s not something that stays all summer and maybe into next season,” Chabot said. “I think that’s the most important thing, making sure everything is healed so when I start in the gym and start skating again, I’m not going to make it worse.”
Despite his injury and the playoff miss, Chabot described this season as “probably the most fun we’ve all had playing here … the amount of games we played where the energy was high, the game was intense and every single point mattered in the standings. This is what it’s all about.”
Watson seeks multi-year deal
Veteran winger Austin Watson would love to return with the Senators, but knows he may have to go elsewhere to get the contract he wants.
“I don’t think the door is closed on coming back here and being part of this group,” says Watson, a pending unrestricted free agent. “But I think things would have to kind of fall into place with the direction the team wants to go and for what I need personally.
“For me, my next contract, I’d like it to be a multi-year deal. At this rate, getting older, there’s maybe only one of those (deals) left out there. After 30, the league doesn’t seem to like signing guys to too many multi-year deals.”
Watson, 31, was playing through a fractured foot in early March when he took a shot off his other foot. At that point, he was shut down for the season. The role player finished with 123 penalty minutes, second only to Tkachuk at 126. He chipped in with nine goals and 11 points.