Late December is typically a time of reflection, for looking back on the year that was.
But for the Ottawa Senators and their fans, the year 2022 will pale against the year to come.
Circumstances are aligned to make 2023 the most transformative year since the franchise was formed in 1992. The death of owner Eugene Melnyk last spring and the subsequent move to put the team up for sale have combined to join the other life force surrounding the franchise — the push to build a new arena on LeBreton Flats, just west and downslope of Parliament Hill.
Add it all up and the Senators are bound to have a completely different look a year from now.
A brief summation of what might be in store.
Short term: games to win, or a season slips away
It doesn’t get more immediate than Tuesday’s game against the Boston Bruins at the Canadian Tire Centre. And the game after that, Thursday in Washington. For the players, for head coach D.J. Smith and his staff and GM Pierre Dorion and his hockey management group, nothing is more urgent than stringing together some wins to try to make up ground lost during a horrible stretch of games from Oct. 27-Nov. 23.
During that span, the Sens were 2-10-1. Outside of that rough patch, Ottawa’s record is 12-6-2. Overall, the record of 14-16-3 has the Sens in last place in the Atlantic.
Yet a decent performance for most of December has them within four points or less of the four teams ahead of the Sens in the division standings — Montreal, Florida, Buffalo and Detroit. Ottawa has games against Buffalo and Detroit over the next six days.
Dorion and Smith have no idea which group might end up owning the Senators, nor what their plans might be once they take over the team. As professionals, their job is to do the best they can with what they have, while reporting to the team’s existing board of directors.
Dorion’s main additions over the summer — forwards Claude Giroux and Alex DeBrincat, plus goaltender Cam Talbot — have made a difference. Giroux and DeBrincat have combined for 24 goals and 61 points in 33 games. Talbot, injured to start the year, has eight of Ottawa’s 14 wins. In addition, the team has recently locked up Tim Stützle, Josh Norris and Artem Zub to long-term deals, to go with other core signings Brady Tkachuk, Thomas Chabot and Drake Batherson.
Norris and Zub should return soon from the injured list to give the Sens a shot at getting back into the mix in the Eastern Conference. A playoff berth is a distant dream, but other goals are more immediate — have a .500 or better record by the end of this week.
It’s no small task to sweep Boston, Washington and Detroit with the latter two games on the road, but the push to make things interesting early in 2023 has to start now. This team was expected to play “meaningful hockey” throughout the season for the first time since 2017.
Given that defencemen Zub (broken jaw) and Erik Brannstrom (lower body) plus forwards Norris (shoulder), Tyler Motte (broken finger) and Mathieu Joseph (lower body) were all ruled out for Tuesday’s game against the first-place Bruins, the Sens will be facing a big challenge before 2023 even gets here on Sunday.
Big picture: you ain’t seen nothin’ yet
Regardless of whether the Senators are a playoff team, a lottery team or something in between next spring, the future is bright. Bordering on radiant.
An exciting, young core group of players is in place and will be for years to come. New ownership brings fresh capital into the organization and almost certainly a change in attitude. These myriad and varied corporate bids to buy the team will result in a competitive, deep-pocketed ownership structure suited to a winning product.
The process will take some time. Interested parties have not yet been cleared to even look at the current financial structure of the team, a process that will get underway in January. If all goes well, there could be a new owner in place by the spring.
The off-ice game will be massive
Buying and operating an NHL team is just part of the metamorphosis on the Ottawa hockey front. The new owners are also expected to buy into the process already underway for a new, central arena, plus other developments on a 7.5-acre parcel of land in the LeBreton district, about two kilometres west of Parliament Hill.
Last June, the Senators, represented by club president Anthony LeBlanc and CFO Erin Crowe, signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the National Capital Commission regarding a lease for this land, with the “understanding” the lease would be finalized by the fall of 2023. That should give the new owners time to get a handle on their new franchise and have a deal in place with the NCC, which became custodian of this land in the early 1960s.
It’s no accident that the ownership bidders who have been knocking on the door so far seem have in their group a partner with real estate experience to bring to the table for the LeBreton project. Don’t be surprised — as one source told me — if there is a push to make the parcel available for development slightly larger than the current plan, to make it worthwhile (read: profitable) for retail and residential opportunities beyond the arena.
While there is no set timeline nor cost structure in place for the new arena, LeBlanc told us last June it would likely be “several years” before fans are getting off at light rail stations to walk to the new, green and innovative rink for a hockey game.
That means there is still lots of hockey to be played at the CTC while the new facility gets built.
If a shovel breaks ground on the LeBreton site before 2023 is over, consider it a symbolic and important step toward the kind of facility the team and its fans deserve in the Nation’s Capital.
