Young Senators learning life isn’t easy in the NHL
The Ottawa Senators’ young players are finding out that life in the NHL isn’t an easy road.
Coach Guy Boucher noted after the club’s 3-1 loss to the Nashville Predators on Tuesday night that the young players are experiencing what the NHL is all about.
While winger Brady Tkachuk had a couple of golden opportunities on the power play in Nashville, he has now been held pointless in seven straight games. Winger Drake Batherson is pointless in six games and defenceman Maxime Lajoie has an assist in his past six games.
Boucher said at this point of the season the players trying to establish themselves as fulltime Nhlers will find the level of play is even more difficult than at the start of the season.
“Young guys, they’ll push and they’ll give you everything they’ve got, but come Christmastime, that’s when they start to feel the NHL,” said Boucher, whose Senators have the Detroit Red Wings up next on Friday night at the Little Caesars Arena. “The NHL pace, the grind of it, the travelling and all that stuff.
“Once you get to Christmas, a lot of the college guys have played an entire season already in a very compressed (amount of time). That’s different and then a young junior coming in, playing with men, by Christmas is starting to feel the playing with men.”
But Boucher isn’t discouraged by some of the struggles the young players are having, and he’s trying to help them find solutions so they don’t get frustrated. This year is about making progress and the Senators are trying to find the right balance.
“That’s normal and our job is to get them to push because that’s how you learn and that’s how you’re able to sustain your NHL shifts after that and what you need to do for the future,” Boucher said.
“Right now, everything is being handled the right way, but it’s a process. We’re going through it and we’re doing a lot of things the right way.”
Boucher noted Wednesday that, with injuries to key veteran Senators, the young players are getting experience with opportunities they may not have otherwise received.
Winger Mikkel Boedker has been impressed with what the club’s top prospects have brought and believes in many cases they’ve done a good job helping the Senators have success.
“It’s only going to get harder. That’s something that we know, but it’s something they haven’t experienced yet,” Boedker said.
"That’s something that they’re going to experience for the first time.
“Every game from now on, until the rest of the way, is going to get increasingly tougher. That’s something as veterans we have to lay out for them, but they’ve got to experience it for themselves. So far, they’ve been outstanding, I think.”
But it’s a big challenge.
“It becomes every night and it becomes a grind because you play the star players every night,” Boedker added. The top players “just continually become better and better throughout the year. That’s what makes the star players in this league.
“We have a leadership group that’s really, really good. Mark Stone is an incredible guy and he’s one of those star players — same with (Matt) Duchene — and however they do it, they keep getting better and better every game. That’s important for our young guys to see that, and it’s important that we have it in our room.”
OFF THE GLASS
A guy who has stepped up and done a good job in the absence of the injured players is veteran centre Chris Tierney. He played 19:10 versus the Predators, including time on the power play and the penalty kill. He has been a penalty-killer his whole career and takes pride in the fact that area has improved for Ottawa as of late. “We take a lot of pride in getting the job done and it can be a big part of the game,” Tierney said Wednesday. “If our penalty kill is going, we’re usually in games. Hopefully, we can keep improving and just get better and better at it.”