Steve Staios didn’t want to spend Monday wrapping up the Ottawa Senators’ season and bidding a fond farewell to the players. Thirty-six hours after the Senators were eliminated from the National Hockey League playoffs in four straight by the Carolina Hurricanes on Saturday, the players gathered at the Canadian Tire Centre for exit meetings as another long off-season began.
“In no way are we satisfied,” said Staios, the president of hockey operations and general manager, sitting beside coach Travis Green at the podium. “We felt like we’ve made some strides again with this group, but my job is to continue to build on this team, and it’s not just about making the playoffs, but striving to win a Stanley Cup.”
The Senators showed progress by making the playoffs for a second straight spring, but they came up well short of the ultimate goal by being bounced in the first round by the Hurricanes. After spending some time dissecting the season that ended with a 4-2 loss to Carolina, Staios and Green are already studying the options to improve this roster.
“I don’t know if there’s one specific area of our group where we need to improve greatly. Our depth got tested this year, we were able to survive some pretty extraordinary circumstances as far as injuries,” said Staios. “There’s room for this team to continue to improve.”
Staios is leaving the door open for the answers to come from within. That means the core led by captain Brady Tkachuk, along with Tim Stutzle, Thomas Chabot, Jake Sanderson, Dylan Cozens, Shane Pinto, Ridly Greig and Drake Batherson, will have to get this club to the playoffs. After a slow start — mostly because of shoddy goaltending in the first half of the season — the Senators had to go on a miraculous run down the stretch to make the playoffs.
In the playoffs, Linus Ullmark gave the Senators his best performance of the year, but they didn’t give him enough run support. Ottawa had only five goals in four games against the Hurricanes, which leaves one with the notion that this team is screaming for a top-six forward who can put the puck in the net, who can play alongside Stutzle.
Does Staios need to find a pure goal scorer? “I mean, it’d be nice. They’re hard to find, and what you have to give up to get it is one thing, but we were eighth in goals for this year,” said Staios. “You always like to add to the group and give them more support in certain areas. But we didn’t score in the playoffs against a very good defensive team, but we scored throughout the regular season. We improved in five-on-five scoring. And we finished eighth in goals for in the league last year.”
The Senators have been searching for a top-six goal scorer since they lost in the first round last spring to the Toronto Maple Leafs, but as we know, those are hard to come by. Getting a high-end unrestricted free agent to sign here on July 1 is tough, and the asking price in a trade is high. Staios acknowledged the challenge but remains committed to building a contender. “My job is to continue to build on this team,” he reiterated.
