OTTAWA — Like most hockey fans in mid April, Ottawa Senators defenseman Thomas Chabot stays inside and turns on his television.
In the past, he’d spent the beginning of his offseasons watching hours and hours of the NHL playoffs until the Stanley Cup was awarded, staying up past midnight or even later. It was as close as he’d ever been to the postseason despite playing over 400 regular-season games heading into this season.
“The last couple of years, were we in a spot where we felt like we could make the playoffs? Okay, maybe one year,” Chabot told The Athletic in February. “But ever since then, it’s just been a process.”
As of now, that all changes. The next phase of the “process” has already begun. Thanks to a Detroit Red Wings loss at the hands of the Montreal Canadiens on Tuesday night, the Senators will return to the Stanley Cup playoffs for the first time since 2016-17 after a significant turnaround from years past.
“We’ve been through some s— here,” center Tim Stützle said Tuesday after Ottawa’s 5-2 loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets. “Some tough years. I’m just really proud of the guys, how we’re all hanging in here. I couldn’t be prouder of all the guys. I don’t think there’s a team who deserves it more than us. I think we worked really hard this year. We’ve just got to keep finding our game.”
Added Chabot after the game, “You’re not going to see me smile a whole lot after a loss but, man, it feels great.”
When Chabot debuted with the Senators during that 2016-17 season — the only game he played that year — the Senators had made the playoffs in four of the previous six seasons. Prior to that, Ottawa reached the postseason every year between 1997 and 2008, a streak interrupted only by the 2004-05 lockout. Then the 2016-17 Senators reached the Eastern Conference finals, where they finished an overtime goal in Game 7 away from advancing to the Stanley Cup Final, losing to eventual champion Pittsburgh.
“You’re coming in as a younger guy thinking, ‘Oh my god, yes, there we go!’” Chabot said. “‘We’re going to go on runs for pretty much the rest of your career.’ And then you come in and it’s the complete opposite of that.”
The Senators finished second-to-last in the NHL standings the following season. Their rebuild was in full swing by the trade deadline, when they moved on from players like Dion Phaneuf and Derick Brassard. Mike Hoffman, Matt Duchene and team captain Erik Karlsson soon left in the ensuing months. Over the next few seasons, more mainstays like Craig Anderson, Nick Paul, Jean-Gabriel Pageau and Mark Stone were also traded.
Meanwhile, the Senators were hit with multiple controversies. Karlsson and Hoffman’s partners were at the center of a cyberbullying scandal, a leaked video of players bad-mouthing the team and an assistant coach in an Uber emerged on social media, and assistant GM Randy Lee resigned after harassment charges.
Longtime Senators owner Eugene Melnyk, a divisive and controversial figure, had his own impact. Melnyk saved the Sens from bankruptcy when he bought the club in 2003 but eventually threatened relocation in December 2017. In response, fans bought billboards and created a social media campaign with the message #MelnykOut. Attendance dwindled, and tarps covered empty seats at the Canadian Tire Centre.
There was constant turnover in the front office, often due to Melnyk’s mistreatment of front-office employees and staffers. His relationships with popular players like Daniel Alfredsson soured throughout his almost two-decade reign, leading to their departures and pointed distance from the Senators franchise until his passing in 2022.
But the Senators also added to their prospect pool during the playoff drought. Stützle, Drake Batherson, Brady Tkachuk, Shane Pinto, Jake Sanderson, Ridly Greig and Tyler Kleven were all drafted during the Sens’ leaner years.
In September 2021, then-GM Pierre Dorion declared the rebuild “done.” It proved to be premature. That year’s Senators finished the season 27 points out of a playoff spot.
The Senators hoped to usher in a new era in 2023-24. Canadian billionaire Michael Andlauer became the team’s new majority owner just before the regular season, buying the team for $950 million USD and beating out celebrities like Snoop Dogg and Ryan Reynolds. But controversy soon found them again.
Dorion was given his walking papers on Nov. 1, 2023 after the NHL stripped a future first-round pick from the Senators. (In 2021, Dorion had traded forward Evgenii Dadonov to the Vegas Golden Knights but failed to disclose the forward’s 10-team no-trade clause.) Steve Staios, then the president of hockey operations, was named interim general manager before being given permanent duties on Dec. 31.
After the Senators failed to make the playoffs in 2023-24, Staios started putting his stamp on the roster the following summer.
He hired coach Travis Green in May 2024 after prior stops in Vancouver and New Jersey as interim bench boss. After showing interest in Boston Bruins goalie Linus Ullmark ahead of that year’s trade deadline, Staios traded for him in late June. He then re-signed Shane Pinto to a two-year contract, traded defenseman Jakob Chychrun away for Nick Jensen and added veterans like David Perron, Michael Amadio, Nick Cousins and Adam Gaudette through free agency.
Green spent his summer getting to know his new players over the phone or in person, including a trip to Germany where he encouraged Stützle to become more of a 200-foot player, and meetings with Pinto, Tkachuk and Sanderson during the World Championship in Prague. The goal was to make his players harder to play against while also preaching accountability.
“There’s different ways to be accountable. It’s not always about ice time. It’s about harsher meetings, more direct meetings, behind closed doors,” Green told The Athletic in December. “That’s how I went about coaching with this group.”
Ottawa experienced growing pains with their new system at the season’s start, and a five-game winless streak in November threatened to derail it. According to Dom Luszczyszyn’s playoff chances model, Ottawa’s likelihood of making the playoffs fell as low as 17.7 percent on Dec. 2. Days later, they were fielding critiques over Tkachuk’s leadership. Green even delivered a public vote of confidence for the team captain.
Since Green’s rallying cry for Tkachuk on Nov. 25, the Senators are 34-19-5.
“I think, looking back now, that stretch was important in getting through it and winning some games,” Green said. “Also, the stretch we had where we were on the road for a while and coming through it decently. And just individual conversations that you have with your players. Being able to have honest conversation and players be open to not necessarily hearing things they just want to hear.”
That five-game slide wasn’t the only bump in the road the Senators pushed through. Trade rumors swirled around Tkachuk, only for the Senators to loudly refute them — Andlauer even accused the New York Rangers of “soft tampering.” Ullmark and goalie partner Anton Forsberg both battled injuries in December and January, but rookie Leevi Merilainen stepped in and kept the Senators afloat with an 8-3-1 record, a 1.99 goals-against average and a .925 save percentage. He now looks like the team’s goalie of the future.
The Senators added Dylan Cozens and Fabian Zetterlund at the deadline, parting ways with pieces like center Josh Norris and defenseman Jacob Bernard-Docker in exchange. And though Tkachuk has battled injuries since the 4 Nations Face-Off, last week Ottawa won their first games without him this season, defeating the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Florida Panthers. Those wins have featured a combination of factors that have resulted in Ottawa’s success this year: structured defending, solid goaltending and timely offense.
Entering Tuesday’s games, the Senators ranked 10th in the NHL in goals allowed.
The last time Ottawa finished a season with a top-10 mark in that stat was in 2017 — the last time they made the playoffs.
“Some games maybe we weren’t at our best, but we’ve been finding ways,” forward Claude Giroux said. “So when you’re not playing your best and you’re finding ways to win, that’s always a good sign. Right now, you can just tell that everybody wants to play the right way. It’s fun to play that way.”
Now the Senators await their first-round opponent. Any of the top three teams in the Atlantic Division — Toronto, Tampa Bay or Florida — could be in store. Ottawa’s nucleus of Tkachuk, Stützle, Chabot, Sanderson and more will be thrust into the spotlight as they taste playoff success for the first time. But they won’t be alone, insulated by veterans who know what playing meaningful games is like.
“I’ve already won,” forward David Perron said. “But I see other guys like Claude, Travis Hamonic and so many other guys. Even other guys slowly aging, Nick Jensen, Linus Ullmark who’s in his 30s. Anton Forsberg and other guys who haven’t won. You want to do it for them. You want them to experience a run, you want to give that experience to the younger players.”
The Sens are working hard to be ready for the challenge, no matter who they face.
“Every guy on this team is a good player,” Stützle said. “Every guy on this team has his role and can exceed in their role. I think every team is good in the league. I think any team can beat anyone on any given night. So we just got to have that mindset.”
(Photo: Justin Tang / The Canadian Press via AP)