Smith prepares to start all over again, without Tkachuk starting

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Put yourself in the shoes of Ottawa Senators coach DJ Smith when training ground opened on Wednesday.

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After spending all that time over the past two seasons, patiently waiting, and then helping groom the organization’s impressive young talent as losses pile up, making the playoffs is finally a realistic expectation again.

Naturally, Smith wants to start racing on the ice, building on the confidence and composure that came from finishing last season with a 9-2-1 record.

A good start this time around is critical to reaching that postseason potential, putting all the pieces in place to try to make it happen.

What Smith has little control over, of course, is the $ 64 million issue (sort of), also known as the tense contract negotiations between the Senators’ administration and Brady Tkachuk.

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Senators owner Eugene Melnyk being too stingy? Is the Tkachuk camp being too greedy?

Discuss that however you want, but there is no discussion on this point: Senators are not the same without future captain Tkachuk, who has led the club’s youth core since he arrived as a rookie in 2019.

If Smith has said it once, he has said it a hundred times: Tkachuk is the player who drags the team into battle most nights.

It’s the bittersweet reality of major league sports organizations.

When you have great young players, you have to pay them to remain great veteran players.

Nor will it end with Tkachuk.

Next year, Josh Norris will be in a similar place, Tim Stuetzle the following year. And so on.

In terms of Tkachuk’s current situation, Smith and general manager Pierre Dorion did their best to handle the issue at Wednesday’s press conference. Smart move. Why add fuel to the fire?

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As for how all of this plays out in the locker room, Smith says he won’t address it directly with the other players.

“These are smart guys who know what’s going on, they know what the negotiations are about,” he said. “It’s also about preparing. They have a job to do and they must prepare. It is a lot like having an injured player. We have to prepare with the guys who are here and that is exactly what we are going to do ”.

So for now, Smith’s Plan B means temporarily plugging Nick Paul in place of Tkachuk’s left wing on the top line alongside Norris and Drake Batherson.

Smith alluded to Paul’s history of adapting and adjusting to whatever is put in front of him, be it on the wing or in the center, without losing what makes him effective. Paul also completed his 2020-21 season playing a pivotal role, alongside his Senators teammate Connor Brown, on Canada’s gold medal world championship team.

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Interestingly, at one point last April, Smith rearranged his attack lines, donning a line of Tkachuk, Norris and Paul.

At the time, Tkachuk praised Paul’s versatility.

“It’s a Swiss army knife,” Tkachuk said. “He can do whatever you want him to do. He is an incredible player. Big, strong, he plays physical, he goes to the net, but he also has tremendous ability and a great shot ”.

It seems that he was describing himself. After Tkachuk’s deal closes, maybe Paul should hire him as his agent.

The Senators’ coach is optimistic, generally looking at the best possible scenarios and saying he has “full confidence” that Tkachuk will be back soon enough.

Again though, he’s not the one in the bargaining room processing numbers and working out the finer details of signing clauses and / or bonuses for what might entice Tkachuk to pick up the pen and sign a new deal.

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Smith has a whole team to worry about.

“If we get to the point where Brady is not here (in the longer term), we would have to look at other options,” he said.

At some point, the depth of the Senators at the helm could become an issue.

Regardless of whether Tkachuk starts the season with the Senators, there are question marks, especially in the middle.

Training camp will begin with Chris Tierney as a second-line center, presumably playing Stuetzle.

Tierney had a difficult 2020-21 season, scoring just six goals and 13 assists in 55 games. Senators were unable to trade Tierney in the summer and he was unprotected in the Seattle expansion draft.

The center point of the second line is also a carrot to hang in front of Colin White and Shane Pinto during training camp and the exhibition program. Don’t hold your breath, but maybe, just maybe, Logan Brown will get another look to win a spot.

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Dorion allowed that he is always looking to improve as well, doing what he can to help Smith put players in their proper places in the lineup.

They think there’s a lot of leadership here, out of their heads rhyming names from Connor Brown to Paul to Nikita Zaitsev to Austin Watson.

So much more power for all of the above.

If senators are finally going to make that big leap into the playoffs, they will need contributions large and small from all of them.

However, the sooner Tkachuk arrives to take on his lead role, the sooner Smith can put his master plan for success into action.

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