The month of January has loomed for quite some time now as an important month for the Ottawa Senators.
After a gauntlet of 16 games in 31 days — including four back-to-backs — the team will exit the month with just three games before the Olympic break and seven in total before the NHL’s trade deadline. The Senators sit eight points out of the second wild card spot as play begins Tuesday.
All of that colour is secondary though, to head coach Travis Green, and his job is to make it the same way for his players. After a decisive 7-1 win on Sunday over the Vegas Golden Knights, he told the team to tune out the white noise, disregard anything coming from outside the rink, and focus on the next game, offering belief that the team could go on a run.
“There’s a lot of talk. There’s a lot of talk at this time of year, call it whatever you want, I tend to call it white noise. There’s a lot of passion, especially in Canada, when you play in a Canadian market. And that’s one of the great things about playing in a Canadian market. And what I meant was, you can’t concentrate about too far down the road,” explained Green after practice on Tuesday.
“A lot of people are going to talk about where we’re at right now, and what we need to do to make the playoffs. And you know, we just need to keep playing. Keep bringing our game. [People will say] you’ve got to win this many games, you’ve got to win that many games — you’ve just got to win the next game. If you want to get on a run, or so-called run that people talk about, I know you don’t get on a run if you don’t win the next game.”
While he says he doesn’t use social media, Green played parts of three seasons in Toronto and parts of five coaching in Vancouver. He admits that the pressures have changed in nature from his playing days, thanks to social media — which he stays off of — but that as a player or coach, you still hear it from everywhere. He stressed though, in such a tight playoff race, a team’s outlook can change on a dime.
“You hear it from friends, if you’re on social media, you hear it a lot,” said Green. “There’s nowhere better to play or coach than a Canadian market, for me. I loved playing in one, I love coaching in one, the people want to win so badly,” he added.
“You get a lot of assistant coaches on your side a lot of nights, and you get a lot of assistant coaches not on your side some nights. So I understand how the players can feel sometimes, especially if you’re on social media. It can feel like you’re riding sky-high, and my job is to keep my team even keeled and keep the wheels on the road and make sure that they’re focusing on the right thing, and right now, our whole focus is on getting ready to play [Wednesday].”
Wednesday, of course, marks the third game of a four-game homestand, a meeting with the league-leading Colorado Avalanche. “I think not just last game, I think the last few games we've been playing some good hockey,” said Claude Giroux after practice about the test on deck.
“And you know, Carolina, we didn't get the result we wanted, but I think it was a solid game for us and obviously against Vegas we played really good. So we’ve just got to build on this.”
Giroux also refused to look beyond the next game on the schedule when asked. “That’s looking at the big picture, and that can be draining when you look at the standings, you look at other teams,” said Giroux.
“You’ve got to go one game at a time here, and that’s what we’re going to be doing and that’s what we have we’ve been doing. Right now we’re focused on Colorado and winning that one and then we’ll move on to the next one.”
