Last year at the Canadian Tire Centre, the only regular chants from the Ottawa Senators faithful were the occasional “ref, you suck” and optimistic “Go Sens Go.” Not to mention, “Go Leafs Go” whenever Toronto was in town.
In Ottawa’s first homestand of the season, where the Sens have tied a franchise record of four straight home wins to start the year, there’s a different feeling at the rink. The Sens made up for two away losses against Buffalo and Toronto with 22 goals scored in four games. Rookies Shane Pinto, Jake Sanderson and newly-extended Mark Kastelic are impressing early. The power play looks much better than last season.
“With our start 0-2 on the road, we wanted to do something good here coming back home and playing in front of our fans,” said Thomas Chabot, Ottawa’s longest active Senator. “The excitement’s been there since the start of the summer.”
Last year, it was easy to see the red and maroon seats spotted throughout the stands. But in the home opener on Oct. 18 against the Boston Bruins, finding an empty seat was like finding Waldo. Season ticket sales increased “significantly” leading up to this point, said Senators president Anthony LeBlanc.
The “Go Sens Go” chants were louder. The beer sold out. And the pre-game excitement climaxed when former captain and newly named Hall of Famer Daniel Alfredsson walked out from the dressing room to perform the ceremonial puck drop.
‘Alfie’ had been away from the organization since 2017 when he left his senior advisor position, which was the last year the Senators made the playoffs. Ever since then, it had been a scorched earth rebuild with multiple controversies plaguing the team.
Ottawa GM Pierre Dorion declared the rebuild over in the 2021-22 season, followed by a seventh-place finish in the Atlantic Division. But after adding forwards Alex DeBrincat and Claude Giroux along with goaltender Cam Talbot – the rebuild has no choice but to be over.
That’s what made the 0-2 start even more concerning. The Senators held one-goal leads against the Buffalo Sabres and Toronto Maple Leafs, but their play loosened up and allowed the other teams to come back and take the lead for good.
However, the opening goal against Toronto was a sign of good things to come over the next week and a bit.
Mitch Marner went to the penalty box for holding, so out came the power-play unit of DeBrincat, Giroux, Tyler Motte, Pinto and Sanderson. Motte positioned himself beside Leafs goalie Ilya Samsonov, Sanderson and the two wingers circled the puck along the perimeter and Pinto opened himself in the slot waiting for a one-timer.
In the pre-season, the trick was for a winger to ‘tic’ the puck down low, ‘tac’ the puck up to the low slot and ‘toe’ the one-timer past the goalie. It worked in Ottawa’s game against Toronto in Belleville, Ont. and again at home against the Montreal Canadiens.
This time, Giroux saw the Leafs’ defenseman covering the pass down low, so he threaded the needle to Pinto in the slot for the successful one-timer low glove side. Giroux and Sanderson got their first points as Senators (Sanderson with his first career point).
Meanwhile, Pinto (32nd overall in 2019) began his five-game goal streak, with a one-timer against Boston, a low slot tic-tac-toe finish against Washington, a low slot snapshot against Arizona and another snapper against Dallas.
After missing most of last season due to a shoulder injury, Pinto said he’s just playing his game and making the most of his help from teammates.
“Just to play a game, that’s all I wanted to do,” Pinto said last Thursday. “Definitely to help the team win, that’s what I wanted to do coming into this year, but yeah, I definitely visualized this.”
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On Thursday, the Senators extended rookie center Mark Kastelic to a two-year contract after the fourth-liner scored two goals in six games. Kastelic (125th overall in 2019) also has a 71.2 percent faceoff win percentage on 52 draws and plays a part in the fourth line’s hard-hitting style of hockey.
“Mark has worked tirelessly to earn all that has come his way since being a late round draft pick three years ago,” Dorion said.
Defenseman Jake Sanderson has also gained trust from coach D.J. Smith – the 20-year-old (5th overall in 2020) is averaging more than 19 minutes of ice time per game, good for fourth in the league among rookie defensemen. That includes when he was high-sticked on Oct. 20 against Washington and returned to the game after getting 15 stitches.
“He’s going to continue to get better, but for how good he is defensively already for a young guy is exceptional,” Smith said.
Despite the positives of the homestand, there’s been cause for concern after top-six center Josh Norris injured his shoulder on a faceoff last Saturday against the Arizona Coyotes. The original timetable was a couple of weeks, but that’s been extended to a month-by-month basis with a looming decision on whether he needs surgery.
“At some point, if we get him back, great,” Smith said. “He has the ability to play against elite players, he can score, he can do a lot of things, so if you take that player out of a lot of team’s lineups, it changes the dynamic.”
The Senators handed the Dallas Stars their first regulation loss of the season without Norris in a 4-2 win last Monday. Derrick Brassard filled in as the second-line center between DeBrincat and Giroux after that combination saw success in the pre-season – he scored.
Another question is whether the wins at home will keep drawing fans to the Canadian Tire Centre in Kanata, an Ottawa suburb. After the sellout home opener, the Senators saw 14,200 fans against Washington, 15,107 fans on a Saturday matinee against Arizona and 12,000 fans on Monday against Dallas.
Their next test is Thursday night against the 2-3-1 Minnesota Wild. Only time will tell whether the Senators can keep up their momentum without Norris in the lineup, whether their start is sustainable and how much the club can improve their average attendance. Until then, as their tagline goes, “the Sens are in session,” and they’re looking to keep it that way.
