Hope springs eternal in the fall for fans of the Ottawa Senators. That’s what makes the leaves changing colours and the cooler nights easier to stomach because they know that the start of the season is around the corner with a strong belief the Senators are headed in the right direction. Steve Staios, the National Hockey League club’s president of hockey operations and general manager, senior vice-president Dave Poulin and assistant GM Ryan Bowness had their work cut for them when the final buzzer sounded on last season.
The Senators missed the playoffs for the seventh straight spring and there wasn’t one aspect of their game that was good enough. As they sat down to debrief and look ahead, the group knew the areas that they had to prioritize to make improvements coming into this season. “I’m a list guy,” Poulin told the Ottawa Citizen in a one-on-one interview Thursday at the Canadian Tire Centre.
As the Senators prepare to set the final roster and open the regular season next Thursday at home against the Florida Panthers, management is confident in the changes they’ve made. Do they feel like they checked all the boxes? “We feel like we did, but then again we’re the ones making the boxes,” Poulin said with a chuckle. “The lists you make are subjective.
There’s objectivity to them, but they’re still subjective because this is what you think you need to improve the team. “From that standpoint, we feel like we accomplished what we wanted to. Now, onc.