Senators fire head coach Smith, name Martin as interim replacement

The Ottawa Senators have fired head coach D.J. Smith amid yet another losing season in the nation’s capital.

The Senators made the announcement a day after Ottawa lost its fourth straight game with a 6-3 defeat to the Vegas Golden Knights on Sunday.

Jacques Martin, who previously served as Senators head coach and recently joined Smith’s staff as a senior adviser, will take over on an interim basis.

Assistant coach Davis Payne was also relieved of his duties. Longtime Ottawa captain Daniel Alfredsson, who rejoined the Senators in a player development role in October, will serve as his replacement in an on-bench role.

The Senators have missed the playoffs for four straight seasons under Smith.

They are currently 12 points behind the Washington Capitals for the final wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference with an 11-15-0 record.

Fans at Canadian Tire Centre have shouted “Fire D.J.” on numerous occasions as the team continued to struggle. He was the sixth-longest tenured coach in the NHL and the fourth to be fired this season.

The 46-year-old Smith follows former general manager Pierre Dorion out the door after the latter parted ways with the organization on Nov. 1.

New Senators owner Michael Andlauer and president of hockey operations Steve Staios had preached a need for stability since Dorion’s departure, which appeared to signal some temporary job security for Smith.

Staios bolstered Smith’s staff by adding Martin, Alfredsson and Matt Nichol (Director of Player Health and Performance) in the last months.

Ottawa, however, lost 11 of 18 games after Dorion left the organization.

Smith, 46, went a combined 121-154-32 in the nation’s capital after getting hired in May 2019.

“It’s never good timing, but I think this was the time to make the decision to bring some hope to our players and really in search of some consistency to our game,” Staios said on a video call with reporters from Arizona. “We’re all looking for more consistency, more detail to our game, more structure.”

Unfulfilled expectations

The Senators were in full rebuild mode when the Windsor, Ont., native took over, but expectations grew exponentially heading into the last two seasons.

Ottawa, which hasn’t made the playoffs since getting to double overtime in Game 7 of the 2017 Eastern Conference final, expected its young core built around captain…