SENATORS’ KIDS LEARNING FROM THEIR MISTAKES
Boucher’s relaxed approach with team’s young players starting to pay dividends
For Thomas Chabot and the rest of the Ottawa Senators, the opening three games of the National Hockey League regular season have been all about experimentation: hits and misses, trial and error, a dose of this, a dab of that.
Or, in the words of Matt Duchene after the Senators’ 1-1-1 start, “a mixed bag of everything.”
The underlying tone applies off the ice, too.
In a fun, goofy, successful attempt at deadpan humour put out by the Senators’ in-house video team before Monday’s game against the Boston Bruins, Chabot found himself in the role of straight man.
“I had no clue what we were talking about, to be honest, but I thought it was pretty fun and I’m glad people enjoyed it,” Chabot said Tuesday, in advance of Wednesday’s game against the Philadelphia Flyers at Canadian Tire Centre.
“I saw all the people laughing (on social media) and having fun with it, so it worked out well.”
It was a calculated gamble in what figures to be a season full of them during the rebuilding process, with countless ups and downs along the way.
The holiday weekend games were cases in point. Chabot was the star of Saturday’s 5-3 victory over the Toronto Maple Leafs, scoring twice, adding an assist and registering a plus-four rating. In Monday’s 6-3 loss to Boston, Chabot was part of a squad that made too many mistakes as they let Patrice Bergeron and his Bruins teammates take control.
“When we looked back at the video, those were team mistakes. Those (errors) we can get out of our game and get better at,” Chabot said. “We’re pretty happy with the way we’re going.”
Make no mistake about it, the Senators are a long way from battling for an Eastern Conference playoff spot. It will remain that way until head coach Guy Boucher can find a pair or pairs of reliable defencemen who can consistently keep top opposition lines from dominating.
However, during a season focused on growth and development for a brighter tomorrow, the team’s young players aren’t paralyzed with the fear of making mistakes. That stands as a big change from the 2016-17 and 2017-18 Senators, also coached by Boucher.
“(Chabot) is finally confident in being able to make the plays that he knows he can make,” alternate captain Mark Stone said.
“When he first stuck with the team out of training camp (two years ago), he kind of just made the play he was told to make. When you’re young and trying to make the team, you’re trying to not make mistakes, instead of maybe playing the way that got
When you’re young and trying to make the team, you’re trying to not make mistakes, instead of maybe playing the way that got you here.
you here. (Now), he’s made the plays that have helped our team win a lot of games.”
The on-the-job training has also allowed defenceman Max Lajoie to relax as he finds his feet in his first NHL season.
“They’re making me learn from my mistakes, which is nice,” said Lajoie, who scored in the seasonopening 4-3 shootout loss to the Chicago Blackhawks. “Because, if you make a mistake and you get sat (out), your confidence goes down pretty quick.”
Boucher will continue tinkering with this, that and every other thing as the Senators kick off a five-game homestand against Claude Giroux and the Flyers.
For now, Chabot’s defensive partner is Dylan DeMelo, while Lajoie will play beside Cody Ceci. Mark Borowiecki and Chris Wideman form another tandem as Boucher tries, desperately, to find at least one solid defender on each pair.
At forward, Brady Tkachuk will play with Duchene and Mikkel Boedker, while Ryan Dzingel skates alongside Zack Smith and Stone. Boucher likes the looks of Alex Formenton beside Chris Tierney and Bobby Ryan. The unit of Colin White, Magnus Paajarvi and Tom Pyatt could see duty against the Flyers’ top line of Giroux, Sean Couturier and Jake Voracek.
“I need to try things to see what I’ve got,” Boucher said.
Let the experiments continue.