Fans dream about No. 1 draft pick, but Ottawa Senators won’t tank

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How bad are things going for the Ottawa Senators?

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We’re not even at the halfway point of the National Hockey League season and some Senators fans are already urging their team to tank — “purposely” lose as often as possible, bottom out and maybe “earn” an opportunity to select first in the 2024 draft, positioning themselves to grab Boston University (and Canadian junior team) star centre Macklin Celebrini.

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It’s unrealistic, wishful thinking by a fan base that’s been let down too often for too long and is still waiting for that blowharded “five-year run of unparallelled success” that was promised four years ago.

But tank? Dream on. Fall Back for Mack or whatever you want to call it isn’t going to happen.

Before fans get their lottery balls in a knot, tanking doesn’t make much sense in the NHL. The lower you finish in the standings, the better chance you have of landing the top pick, but it’s no guarantee. A year ago, the Anaheim Ducks had the best odds (18.5 per cent) at landing the No. 1 (Connor Bedard). But the Chicago Blackhawks, the league’s third-worst team, won the lottery despite their odds having been just 11.5 per cent.

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It’s not like the National Football League, where the worst team gets the top pick. To be transparent, I’m an Arizona Cardinals fan and hope they lose their final two games to secure either the first or second overall pick in 2024. But I know the players are never going to purposely lose and the coaches will coach to win.

Back to the Senators, who won’t/shouldn’t think about tossing away the remainder of the season to focus on obtaining a higher draft pick.

More immediately, they’re trying to figure out how to move beyond Friday’s embarrassing 6-2 loss to the New Jersey Devils. The Senators, who went into that game with two nice wins, need to bounce back in a New Year’s Eve (6 p.m.) home-ice showdown with the Buffalo Sabres.

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From there, the Senators head out on an extended road trip, playing in Vancouver on Jan. 2, Seattle on Jan. 4, Edmonton on Jan. 6, Calgary on Jan. 9 and Buffalo on Jan. 11.

Special teams and goaltending haven’t been consistent and during Saturday’s practice the Senators worked on their neutral-zone forecheck.

Jacques Martin, who took over as Senators head coach after D.J. Smith was fired Dec. 18, is trying to push positivity while fine-tuning some parts of the team’s game that have hurt them time after time 31 games deep into the regular season.

Along with being a mentor to players, Martin probably needs to be a part-time psychologist.

“Players have a lot of questions and you have to give them a lot of answers,” Martin said Saturday. “As coaches, the key is to try to get the best out of each individual, get them to play within their strengths. I was really pleased with the progress we had made. (Friday night) was a setback, but I fully anticipate we’ll be good (Sunday). We’ve proven we can compete with the best teams.”

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To work their way back into the playoff picture in the Eastern Conference will be an uphill climb for the Senators, for sure. But, as improbable as it may seem, there’s still a lot of runway to make it happen.

Let’s look at least season. The New York Islanders, with 93 points, and the Florida Panthers, with 92, were the East’s two wild-card teams (the Senators finished with 86). So, assume it’s going to take at least 92 points to qualify for the post-season in 2024.

With 26 points in 31 games, the Senators would need 66 points in 51 games to get to 92. Can it happen? Sure. Will it happen? With the upcoming returns of defenceman Thomas Chabot, winger Mathieu Joseph and centre Shane Pinto, the Senators will be a better team.

But the question remains: Can they be good enough?

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Heading into Saturday’s games, with three games in hand on the Devils, who held the final East wild-card spot, the Senators were 14 points behind. Let’s say they put together a winning streak. To get into a wild-card spot, they still have to pass the Pittsburgh Penguins and Tampa Bay Lightning, among others.

The mathematics of the chase for a playoff spot aren’t something Martin wants his players worrying about.

“I’ve tried to get (the players) to think in terms of progress, not really focus on the end result,” he said. “I’m a firm believer, if you do the right things, if you play the right way, you have a better chance of winning the hockey game.

“Sometimes you don’t control whether you score and you don’t control the opposition. It’s important for us to focus on our game, our system, our execution, make sure we’re in the right frame of mind and let the results take care of themselves.”

They need just need to hope those “results” are wins.

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