What do the Ottawa Senators need to do during a long NHL off-season?

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While it’s highly unlikely the Ottawa Senators will be torn apart and rebuilt, it will be a busy summer for a team that will finish off another disappointing season Tuesday in Boston.

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Expect the expected during the coming off-season but, also, don’t be surprised if they swerve and do the unexpected.

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“The teams that are willing to be bold are the teams that usually take that step forward,” longtime NHL defenceman Marc Methot told Postmedia a couple of weeks ago.

In the days, weeks and months to come, the Senators will hire a new coach and reshape a roster that once again wasn’t good enough to play hockey beyond mid-April.

They’ll try and move beyond a season that was disrupted by the firing of a general manager (Pierre Dorion) and a head coach (D.J. Smith). A roster with a talented young core of players that was supposed to take a step ahead. Instead, they teetered and fell backward.

It starts with the players.

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“As a player, etch into your memory what it feels like to lose the way they have,” Methot said. “It sucks.”

A non-playoff team for the past seven years, going back to an excellent 2016-17 season where they battled their way into the Eastern Conference final before falling in seven games to the Pittsburgh Penguins (losing the deciding game in the second overtime period), the Senators need to figure out what went wrong, then fix it.

That should start with adding veteran leadership and “200-foot players,” Methot suggested.

“You need to insulate your lineup with quality veterans,” he said. “It just takes a couple. You’ve got Brady (Tkachuk), I know he’s got the captaincy, but he’s still a relatively young player. He hasn’t won yet. You need (more) guys that have been there, done that.”

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Included in the Senators plans will be the hiring of a head coach, with interim head coach Jacques Martin stepping aside.

Postmedia’s Bruce Garrioch has reported the candidates include John Gruden (head coach of the AHL’s Toronto Marlies) and former NHL head coaches Todd McLellan (Los Angeles Kings), Craig Berube (St. Louis Blues) and Dean Evason (Minnesota Wild).

Philadelphia Flyers associate coach Brad Shaw and Boston Bruins assistant Chris Kelly could also be among those on the Senators talk-to list.

Then, general manager Steve Staios and his hockey operations folks will shuffle the roster.

“As an organization, we still have a lot of work to do,” Martin said late last week. “We haven’t been as good as we need to be. The first step is to identify the people that are here you want to go forward with. The second part is to work at making changes.

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“You can make changes in different ways — through the draft, trades, free agency. Identify your game plan, then work on it.”

Let’s look at the goalies. Anton Forsberg has one year ($2.75 million) remaining on a three-year, $8.25-million deal. More worrisome is the four years left on the five-year, $20-million contract handed to Joonas Korpisalo last summer.

Going into the final game, Forsberg had a 14-12 record, with a 3.30 goals-against average and .886 save percentage and Korpisalo was 21-26-4 with a 3.27 GAA and .890 save percentage. Mads Sogaard had a 1-3 record, with a 4.05 GAA and .859 save percentage.

Summing it up: Not good enough in goal.

So, who’s No. 1 next season? Because of his contract, are they forced to stick with Korpisalo, who, to be fair, looked good at times but lacked consistency?

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Then, there’s the defence. It’s hard to imagine any scenario where Jake Sanderson and Artem Zub don’t return.

Sanderson, who will begin an eight-year, $64.4-million contract extension, is elite. The solid Zub has three years at $4 million per season remaining.

But it seems unlikely both Thomas Chabot and Jakob Chychrun are back. Chabot has four years (at a salary cap hit of $8 million per season) remaining. Chychrun, who is entering the final season of his deal (at a $4.6-million cap hit), will be expecting a big raise on his next contract and could be on the way out.

The Senators could explore the trade market for potential restricted free-agent Erik Brannstrom.

Sanderson, Chabot and Chychrun are all left shots, so high on the Senators’ wishlist will be a right-shooting defenceman.

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For the 2024-25 Senators, a different identity will need to be established in training camp. As a young core of players gets older and matures, the new head coach will look to raise the defensive conscience of this team, the things that happen away from the puck.

Work ethic and accountability will be other areas that need to be addressed. If a player isn’t doing what’s asked, there needs to be repercussions.

“They need a (coach) who can hold players accountable,” Methot said. “And they need a guy that has job security. You want a guy that isn’t shy to sit Brady Tkachuk or Tim Stutzle or Jake Sanderson because they’re not playing well over a period of time.”

As the players clean out their lockers this week, with many heading home, they’ll have plenty to think about.

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“There’s a lot of time to reflect,” Tkachuk said. “It could be about the opportunities we missed individually or collectively. You think about those things. We can learn.”

“A season like this, with the injuries with everything that happened, is a good learning curve for us,” Chabot said. “There are no easy nights (during a season). Some nights don’t go your way, so it’s about finding a way to play consistent hockey.”

For an anxious fan base, it’s also about finding a way to get back to the playoffs. And, that starts immediately.

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