Ottawa Senators hire former Canadian team head coach in risky decision

With the Ottawa Senators' continued struggle, they seem to always be rumoured to be looking for new coaches. After many disappointing season they finally fired ex-head coach DJ Smith, and replaced him with interim head coach Jacques Martin. Martin coached them to a 26-26-4 record, which didn't impress new management enough to re-sign him after the season. They've been out in the very deep head coach market and have signed the second coach off the board, Travis Green, to their vacant position.

This should be an immediate issue for Senators fans, as Travis Green is known to
not be a very poor coach. Green has 5 seasons of experience behind the bench, coaching for Vancouver from 2017-2021 and for the last 21 games of the season for the Devils after the firing of Lindy Ruff. Despite the seasons he's spent, his record while coaching both teams has not been good at all.




During his tenure in Vancouver, Green was known for not really running much of a system at all with his players. He left a lot to be desired with his coaching as shown by his results, with the Canucks only making playoffs one of these 5 years. He then went to an underperforming New Jersey team where he closed out their season going 8-12-1 when they had a chance to push for playoffs again.

The senators chose to hire Green over much better candidates such as Jay Woodcroft, Dean Evason or Craig Berube. Evason and Berube are proven coaches, with winning records and history of winning in playoffs. Jay Woodcroft is a great young coach who would've been a much better fit if the Sens wanted to take a flyer on a young head coach with things to prove. It seems like a very weak hiring from the Senators, who may have more years of mediocrity ahead of them if this signing proves to be as terrible as most theorize it could be.