Senators quietly confident
A couple of fairly significant Ottawa Senators anniversaries passed largely unnoticed as the team wrapped up training camp.
Erik Karlsson says nothing should be different simply because he hit the one-year mark as the club’s captain. Bobby Ryan wasn’t even aware it had been a year since he’d signed his $50.75-million extension, the most lucrative contract in franchise history.
“I didn’t know that; I guess I should celebrate,” Ryan said following a late-morning practice on Friday. “But I’m too tired. I’m going home to sleep for a few hours.”
It was that kind of training camp for the Senators, a largely controversy-free, commotionfree sprint toward the regular season, leaving them quietly confident about the regular season, which begins Thursday against old friend Robin Lehner and the Buffalo Sabres.
The only mild distraction was prospect Mikhail Wikstrand’s decision to return to Sweden, prompting a suspension from playing hockey anywhere.
All the uncertainties of a year ago — Ryan’s future, Karlsson’s captaincy, Marc Methot’s drawnout contract fight and injury battle, and Paul MacLean’s iffy hold on the head coaching job — are distant memories.
The re-appearance of Daniel Alfredsson on the ice Saturday, mentoring Curtis Lazar on the finer points of shooting, adds to the sense of organizational stability.
“That’s the way you want camp to be,” centre Kyle Turris said following Saturday’s preseason finale, a 5-4 win over the Montreal Canadiens.
“You want to go about your business, work on things, improve. The less attention the better.”
Boring doesn’t make for entertaining headlines, to be sure. Even the biggest pre-training camp question mark — do the Senators keep Shane Prince or Matt Puempel? — is likely on hold, pending an update on the health status of Clarke MacArthur, who left Saturday’s game in the second period.
Yet with so little turnover from the squad that raced to the playoffs on a record-setting run last spring — the Senators traded Lehner to Buffalo and thirdpair defenceman Eric Gryba to Edmonton and defensive specialist Erik Condra signed with Tampa as a free agent — there are high hopes.
“To see 20, 21 guys return is usually a rare occasion,” said goaltender Craig Anderson, who is expected to open the season busy, playing three games in four nights.
“It shows the faith management has in the group we have here. It’s up to us to make good on the deal and prove to management they made the right decision by not bringing in extra players and moving guys out.”
Looking around the dressing room at all the familiar faces, Karlsson says, “It felt like we almost didn’t have a break.”
Ryan suggests the team has drawn from the positives of last spring. “The feeling carries over when you see that many faces coming back,” he said.
Senators coach Dave Cameron employed a serious, no-nonsense approach to his first camp as head coach, putting an “NHL group” in place after only a few days. As expected, his emphasis was on skating and more skating, and he came away generally satisfied with the effort and results.
“In our business, as coaches, we’re never completely happy,” Cameron said.
“Overall, I have no real complaints. I have some individuals I’m pushing a little harder than others, but on the overall, I think it has been pretty good.”
His chief concern is about players getting ahead of themselves by looking back, thinking they can simply flip a switch to repeat their sensational spring.
“Your confidence comes from seeing them achieve a certain level and they have a real good ceiling,” he said. “Now, it’s about never getting comfortable. It’s about ‘you have to do it again’. It’s an everyday league.
“You have to manage expectations. With a record run, we finished seventh (in the Eastern Conference), right? You should enjoy it, it was good. But we have a lot of work ahead of us to keep the seventh spot, and there’s even more work to improve upon the seventh spot. That’s my message to my players.”
It’s unquestionably a changed atmosphere from a year ago. In what is fast becoming a younger league, Cameron will use whatever players give him the best chance to play an up-tempo style.
Perhaps nobody illustrates the switch more than Mark Stone, who wasn’t sure where he fit in when the 2014-15 season began, battling for ice time, even a permanent spot in the lineup.
In 25 games under MacLean, he scored five goals and six assists. In 55 games under Cameron, most of it spent with first-line centre Turris, he scored 21 goals and 32 assists.
“We knew we were going to skate (at training camp),” said Stone.
“When (Cameron) took over last year, we were a slow-paced team. We worked at it for a month. At first, we were a little bit out of shape and not able to play his style.
“It’s up-tempo, a lot less time in our own zone. He wants us to find that tempo to play that kind of hockey.”
It was all so exciting a few short months ago, but now the Senators need to prove that the same approach will breed future success.