Rearguard pleased with his defensive improvement

If this is indeed the end of the season for Thomas Chabot and the Ottawa Senators, he believes he’s made a step in the right direction defensively.

And so does Ottawa general manager Pierre Dorion, who praised Chabot’s progress in a conference call with reporters earlier in the week. Chabot has done a lot of work with coach D.J. Smith and assistant Jack Capuano to improve that part of his game.

“It’s been going pretty well,” said Chabot, who has six goals and 39 points in 71 games this season. “It’s something I’ve really wanted to get better at and being a good, solid two-way defenceman and playing against the top players from other teams. It’s far from being perfect but if we say every year we can get better and take a step towards being better, then that’s a good sign.

“We’ve been doing a lot of video with D.J. and Jack during the season and we’ve been making sure we look at every little thing in our own zone and those little details that make a big difference in front of the net. It went pretty well and we wanted it to get better and that’s what we were focused on.”

Asked if there was one teammate who impressed him the most this season, Chabot noted the accomplishments of winger Anthony Duclair. A restricted free agent this summer, the 24-year-old Duclair had 23 goals and 40 points in 66 games before the season was put on hold.

“You knew coming into this year he was going to have a bigger role and I think he took a big step, which led him to going to the all-star game and that was very well-deserved,” Chabot said. “A lot of games he (impressed) just with his speed and the amount of skills that he has — and his hockey sense is very good. I was very impressed with the way he played.

“We knew he could definitely do it and he took his chance in having a bigger role on the team and I think it helped him and helped our team to have a bit more success.”