If he is not fired, I will leave the Ottawa Senators head coach, as he has a misunderstanding with his player.
He miscommunicates with his player; hence, if he is not fired, I will quit as head coach of the Ottawa Senators.
He was passing time before his trip back to Ottawa with no morning skate to attend, and, as he closed the book on his chapter with the Senators, his one regret was that he couldn’t get this squad to the next level.
Look no farther than the farewell Smith had with assistant Davis Payne at a bar close to the club’s downtown hotel, only hours after interim general manager Steve Staios sacked them on Monday following practice, if you want to understand the impression the 46-year-old Smith made with the team.
On Monday, one player and staff member who had worked with Smith came by the bar one after the other to thank him and send him best wishes.
First and foremost, Smith is a people guy. The 46-year-old wanted to express his gratitude to the individuals he worked with for their efforts in attempting to make the Senators a winner before going home to pack up his possessions with his wife, Christie, and fly back to Windsor.
“It simply demonstrates that they valued the time and work I invested in developing relationships with them,” Smith said to Postmedia on Tuesday. That accounts for ninety percent of instruction. Getting men to offer you everything they have is the ultimate goal, no matter how much you want all the cutouts, duotangs, and flashy stuff.
Smith was not taken aback by the announcement. The losses were mounting up, and he knew. Smith realized he would not be staying here long after GM Pierre Dorion was let go in November. It had not happened earlier, and Staios was shocked when he told Smith.
Smith expressed disappointment at not being able to turn this group around for whatever reason. Injuries, or whatever the situation may have been. You could see we needed to take a stride and stop falling lower when we managed to get it back to 500.
It disappoints me, but not the entire body of work. Giving these young men daily confidence helped me, I believe, develop them into actual NHL players.
Smith envisioned the Senators going far with players like captain Brady Tkachuk, Tim Stutzle, Drake Batherson, Josh Norris, Thomas Chabot, Jakob Chychrun, and Jake Sanderson.
“I’m proud of a lot of the players we brought from little kids to what we think are really good NHL players, and I’m proud of the amount of work we put in and the number of people we met,” Smith said.
That was the job description. Several of the people I leave with are, I believe, far better NHL players than they were when they first arrived. The injuries that you cannot prevent are among the most regrettable aspects of this work. Over my stay here, we had an unfathomable number of injuries.
“Whether it was centres, star players, or goaltending,. In this league, you need the means to win, not an excuse. These injuries occurred at an awful time.
It seemed like Smith never got to play with a complete deck of cards. Built into the center of the ice is this club. In the time Smith was behind the bench, centres Stutzle, Norris, and Shane Pinto hardly ever played together. Your specialty is that position.
The plan called for me to have Pinto, Stutzle, and Norris in the middle. That, in my opinion, had extraordinary depth in terms of drafting, trade, and all else. That trio of centers is amazing construction, Smith added.
I’m not sure if I coached ten games with those three players in the lineup; many of those games featured just one of them. With Chabot healthy and those three players in the lineup, this team can win every night.
Helping the Senators turn around was his main objective going into this season. He remains convinced that this can happen with former captain Daniel Alfredsson serving as an assistant to interim coach Jacques Martin.
I do, in fact, love players, Smith declared. I want them to succeed personally as well as for the city to once again have a winner. Sadly, my time has come up, but this squad is going to be excellent.
“They have players that care and like one another, excellent leadership, and for a variety of reasons we were unable to win early in the season. That does not exclude this group from making it happen. There is far too much in that room. We would be very close to the playoffs if I had stayed till the very end, I have no doubt.
Notifying Christie by phone before the news release was released was the hardest part of the process. Smith also told his mother, Marina, in Windsor. Not simple pronouncements to make to your best supporters.
“My mom loves D.J. Smith to the core,” he remarked. That is the difficult part—she watches the games wherever I am. She witnesses the firing of her son, particularly the final few moments. Social media is no longer something I do. That was presumably chopped off a year ago.
“It’s a double-edged sword because, although she and my wife are probably sad, they’re also probably happy they won’t be getting phone calls about what people are saying about you. You could tell by the phone calls she was worried.” Your family is your crowd because they are there to encourage you, no matter how you are doing.
I’ll be back; I know that. My passion is coaching. It was here that I learned so much.
