DON’T EXPECT SOME REINFORCEMENTS
Senators will be relying on their youngsters with the NHL trade market sparse at best
The Ottawa Senators took a step in the right direction Wednesday night at home.
Now, they have to take another one.
Coming off a 5-2 victory over the Detroit Red Wings to start this homestand, the Senators will aim to make it two straight wins for the first time this season when the New York Islanders arrive at Canadian Tire Centre on Friday night. Ideally, coach D.J. Smith would like to see some consistency from this group with only two games left on the schedule this month.
While general manager Pierre Dorion has been working the phones to see if there are any fits for a trade — especially with forwards Colin White (hip flexor) and Artem Anisimov sidelined for extended periods — the best bet is for the answers to come from within because a check of the forward market with three league executives Thursday indicated the pickings are slim.
The Senators called up forwards Logan Brown and J.C. Beaudin from their AHL affiliate in Belleville in the last couple of days because of injuries and what Smith witnessed against the Wings was a group that looked bound and determined to get the job done.
The reality is it has to stay that way for this team to enjoy any level of success.
“What I saw (Wednesday) was some hungry players,” Smith said after the club’s skate Thursday. “Logan Brown is trying to prove himself, Beaudin comes in and says, ‘Hey, I want to stay here,’ and you’ve got guys here who want to keep their positions. I thought it was a really healthy, competitive group here.
“I didn’t think we played as hard in the last game on the road (in Dallas) and there were some guys that looked comfortable. Part of this process has got to be that you’ve got to reward the guys that work the hardest. You always have to have people that are pushing from behind you and (Wednesday) I thought we had guys that worked really hard.”
If the Senators can find the answers with the group here — or by calling up more of their top prospects in Belleville — then it makes no sense to look elsewhere. Names on the market include injured Minnesota forwards Kevin Fiala and Joel Eriksson Ek along with centre Ryan Donato.
There’s also Kings forward
Tyler Toffoli, but he’s an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season and will be a trade deadline chip. The indications are the Pittsburgh Penguins also have forwards they’d like to move.
Of course, the Senators have a lot of assets and no shortage of draft picks if Dorion wants to make a deal. The reality is he’s not going to make a trade just for the sake of making a move and any decision on a trade would have to make sense in the long term with the Senators entering another phase in their rebuild.
That’s why the best bet for the Senators is to look at the big picture and let Smith get this group to the point where it’s competitive every night. Smith challenged the players who were given more ice time Wednesday because of the injuries to step up and he got better efforts from the likes of forwards Jean-Gabriel Pageau, Chris Tierney and Nick Paul.
“I need to see it every night from our guys,” Smith said. “If you miss a night every 10, it’s not that you can live with it, but you can understand it. You can’t have one good and one bad. This is a really good time for a lot of guys. Pageau gets to play a ton of minutes with the centres out, Tierney gets to play a ton of minutes on both sides of the puck.
“These guys, this is their chance to play all the minutes and prove they can do it. You’ve got wingers trying to fit in and get their minutes. I really just liked the overall competitiveness of our group, just knowing that we don’t have a set No. 1, No. 2 or No. 3 line, essentially, (because) everybody is fighting for minutes.”
The players know the onus is on them to get the job done again and again because it’s easy to talk about consistency, but it can be awfully difficult to find.
“That’s the X-factor in sports: why does that effort and that attitude come and go?” said alternate captain Mark Borowiecki. “If you could figure that out, you would definitely win more often than not, but it’s also about growth a little bit — growth on the mental side of the game as a group.
“We can’t be motivated by terrible efforts that result in good efforts. You’ve got to find a way to make it a stand-alone effort and that’s part of the maturation process in here and hopefully we get there sooner rather than later.
... You’ve got to find that competitive edge every single night. It’s not going to be easy and you might be drained physically and mentally, but you’ve got to find a way to dig deep.”
We can’t be motivated by terrible efforts that result in good efforts. You’ve got to find a way to make it a standalone effort.