Travis Green deserves so much respect for turning Senators’ season around
It’s fair to say that Travis Green earned his salary this season. The Ottawa Senators‘ head coach has led his team to their second consecutive playoff appearance, and a first-round matchup with the Carolina Hurricanes. It wasn’t exactly smooth sailing for Green and the Sens this season, either. His starting goaltender had to take a leave of absence for mental health reasons, his captain started a podcast that occasionally broadcasts less-than-complimentary commentary about the Senators franchise, and he’s dealt with injuries to important players.
Through it all, Ottawa has secured a playoff berth and appears to be peaking at the right time, having earned points in nine of their last ten games. The Senators are underdogs in their first-round series against the Hurricanes, but based on how they’ve been playing lately, it would be no great shock to see them pull off the upset.
On Thursday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, hosts Tyler Yaremchuk and Carter Hutton were joined by former NHL defenseman Jason York to talk about the job Green has done in Ottawa this season.
Carter Hutton: How much credit goes to Travis Green this year? Navigating all the off-ice drama that went on with this team, making them one of the best 5-on-5 teams. For me, Travis Green has got to be the biggest story right now the Ottawa Senators and what he’s been able to do with this group.
Jason York: Hutts, I couldn’t agree more with you on that statement. You’re always going to have injuries during a season, you’re always going to have things to deal with, but you don’t really expect to lose your goaltender for six weeks. That’s just something that you’re just not expecting. So you lose (Linus) Ullmark for six weeks, you lose Jake Sanderson at the most important time of the season, and you kind of get it figured out. Thomas Chabot starts playing probably the best I’ve seen him play in an Ottawa Senators uniform. Then he goes out, and let’s throw Tyler Kleven in the mix. That’s when coaching takes over.
I’ll give a shoutout to Nolan Baumgartner, too, who took some heat this year for the penalty kill. They switched it up and Mike Yeo took over the kill, things got better, but the job that Nolan Baumgartner did with this D, Hutts. They had guys playing that were healthy scratches to start the season. They were calling, not their third and fourth depth guys from the American League, they were calling guys that were probably their fifth guy in the American League and still winning.
You can catch the full discussion and the rest of Thursday’s episode here…