Ottawa Senators head coach D.J. Smith, center, stands behind the bench during first-period NHL hockey game action against the New York Islanders in Ottawa, Ontario, Friday, Nov. 24, 2023. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press via AP
BY STEPHEN WHYNO contributing
The Ottawa Senators fired coach D.J. Smith on Monday, replacing him on an interim basis with Jacques Martin and adding Hall of Famer and former captain Daniel Alfredsson to the staff as an assistant.
It’s the latest shakeup for the NHL team in Canada’s capital city in three months since owner Michael Andlauer took over. Andlauer quickly hired Steve Staios away from the Edmonton Oilers to be president of hockey operations and on Nov. 1 fired longtime general manager Pierre Dorion following a league investigation that caused the Senators to forfeit a first-round draft pick.
Staios, now also interim GM, fired Smith 12 days after hiring Martin as senior adviser, which put the 71-year-old coaching veteran as an eye in the sky. Staios said at the time he consulted with Smith on the decision.
The Senators have since lost five of six games to fall into last place in the Eastern Conference. Only the Chicago Blackhawks have fewer points than Ottawa’s 22.
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“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.”
Martin will be back behind the bench after coaching the Senators for nine seasons from 1995-96 through 2003-04. He has a total of 17 seasons of NHL head-coaching experience and won the Stanley Cup twice as an assistant with Pittsburgh in 2016 and ’17.
“A lot of our issues in our team play are the strengths of Jacques Martin: detailed, structured, organized, disciplined,” Staios said. “To me, in theory, he’s the perfect fit for everything that we had been lacking in those areas.”
He also has a connection with Alfredsson. During Martin’s time in Ottawa, Alfredsson was named captain and wore the “C” as the face of the franchise until a messy parting of ways in 2013.
Alfredsson’s return comes as a replacement for assistant Davis Payne, who was also let go. As part of assuming control from late owner Eugene Melnyk’s family, Andlauer pledged to bring Alfredsson back into the fold in some capacity.
That initially was limited, with Alfredsson being reluctant to travel and be around full time. But now the popular 51-year-old Swede will be helping with the coaching starting Tuesday against the Coyotes.
“The more that Daniel Alfredsson could be around our group, I think the bigger benefit it was for all of us,” Staios said. “He cares so much about this team and about this organization, so that when I approached him again about coming on full time, he said ‘I’ll do whatever it takes.’”
Smith became the fourth coach fired this season, following Edmonton’s Jay Woodcroft, Minnesota’s Dean Evason and St. Louis’ Craig Berube. Mike Babcock resigned from his job with Columbus on the eve of training camp after an investigation into the Stanley Cup-winning coach’s bizarre conduct of asking to see photos on players’ phones.
The firing came in the fifth and final year of Smith’s contract. The Senators missed the playoffs each of the previous four seasons and haven’t qualified since 2017.
“It was a difficult day for him, a difficult day for me,” Staios said. “It’s a difficult day for our players because I think we all feel a sense of responsibility in it, including D.J., so he was disappointed in himself and handled it like a true pro.”