Picture is clear for Sens
Team prepares for shakeup after disappointing out-of-playoffs season
It was picture day at the Canadian Tire Centre, but the picture is hardly pretty for the Senators.
Preparing for an off-season of change — which could begin not long after the final buzzer sounds Saturday afternoon at the TD Garden following their season finale against the Boston Bruins — the Senators gathered for their team picture on Wednesday.
It was one of the last times they’ll be together this season.
The Senators will close out the home part of their schedule with fan appreciation night during Thursday’s visit by the Florida Panthers. They’ll have one final skate Friday before they charter to Beantown in the afternoon to complete what has been a disastrous season.
While they’ll hold a couple of team dinners on Saturday and Sunday before cleaning out their lockers Monday morning, it will hardly be a fond farewell to a season that has gone totally sour. If you can find any smiles in the team picture Wednesday, they were forced.
“It’s very bittersweet,” captain Erik Karlsson said. “The situation that we’re in is something that we don’t want, but here we are again. We’ve just got to deal with it the best that we can.
“I still think we have a good group of guys and we made a lot of good memories together this year even though we haven’t achieved what we ultimately wanted. That’s the way it’s sometimes. It’s a tough league we play in.”
There’s no chance the status quo will remain here in the off-season. Behind closed doors, a lot of meetings are taking place to try to make sure the organization gets back on track quickly next season because missing the playoffs isn’t acceptable to anyone here, especially to the man who pays the bills, owner Eugene Melnyk.
He has spent the last two days in town and the Senators are expected to clarify soon what GM Bryan Murray’s role will be next season. His contract calls for him to become a senior adviser, but he indicated last week he’d like to stay on as GM.
If Murray, who is battling colon cancer, doesn’t return to his post, then assistant GM Pierre Dorion is expected to take over, and assistant Randy Lee would have his role expanded. Once that is settled, then next up will be the future of coach Dave Cameron and the rest of his staff, who have one year left on their contracts.
All signs point toward a change, with Cameron and possibly the whole staff jettisoned, but no final decisions have been made. Still, this may be the last time fans see Cameron behind the Senators’ bench at the Canadian Tire Centre.
Even if he stays, his staff will change, mostly because the club had some of the league’s worst power-play and penalty-killing units. To fix those, there will also be personnel moves, which means the players know when they look around the dressing room next year there will be different faces.
Melnyk and Murray have promised a full evaluation and the players know they haven’t performed up to expectations, which is why not everybody is going to return next season.
“Whenever you know you’re out, it’s tough to swallow, it really is,” said alternate captain Chris Neil. “The team photo today and you know the year is wrapping up. It really is tough to put a smile on your face, but we’re going to have a long summer to reflect on it. You’re going to have a fire lit under you to do whatever you have to do to come back better (next season). We need everybody who is going to be part of it next year to be doing that.”
Players aren’t prepared to speculate on what may happen here.
“It’s a tough question. It’s a loaded question a bit, but there’s definitely some changes have to be made,” said Neil, who signed a one-year, $1.5-million contract extension in February. “They’ll address them and they’ll make the proper changes to make us better as a group.”