Marc DesRosiers-Imagn Images
A lot can change for an NHL team in a year.
Take the Ottawa Senators, for example. Last season in December, the Sens’ road trip wound up costing coach D.J. Smith his job on Dec. 18.
But at the moment, the Senators are looking as good as they’ve looked in a while after winning three straight games for the first time this season and sitting in a playoff position.
With the world juniors taking place in Ottawa this year and sending the Senators on the road for the next nine games, the players are in control of their own destinies. If they stumble and sink backward again in the Atlantic Division standings, they’re more likely to miss out on the Stanley Cup playoffs for the eighth consecutive season.
Needless to say, the stakes are high for Ottawa. But they’re 7-2-1 in their last 10 games, and their 5-1-1 record in December is good for 11 points, the most in the NHL so far this month ahead of Monday’s games. Their .786 points percentage is the sixth-best, as some squads have one or two games in hand, but their latest stretch has looked very promising.
So far, Ottawa has rebounded from having the worst points percentage in November, when they went 5-8-1. They’re getting elite goaltending from Linus Ullmark again after a poor stretch, earning the third star of the week on Monday.
Is this Senators team the real deal? Or are they about to be exposed as a group that still can’t turn the competitive corner? Let’s look at what’s immediately ahead for them and see what their fans should expect.
One clear issue is their subpar road record this season. They’re currently just 5-7-1 away from home, and that could be an ominous sign for them. Meanwhile, the teams they’ll be facing on their extended road trip will not make it easier on them. In order, Ottawa will face Seattle, Calgary, Vancouver and Edmonton on the road before the holiday break and then Winnipeg, Minnesota, Dallas, St. Louis and Detroit on the road once games resume.
None of those nine teams are pushovers. The Senators could easily go 5-4 or 4-5 or worse by the time they return home on Jan. 9 against Buffalo. That might not be enough to push them back into the playoff picture. This road trip presents a huge challenge for the Senators, and how they react to it will go a long way toward defining the rest of the season.
The Senators have about $508,000 in salary cap space at the moment, per PuckPedia, so there’s no cavalry on the…