Ottawa Senators

Team information

• Inaugural season: 1992
• Home arena: Canadian Tire Centre, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
• Owner: Michael Andlauer
• Team colors: Red, black, gold, and white

Overview

The Ottawa Senators is a Canadian hockey team in the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League (NHL). The contemporary team is the second NHL franchise to bear that name, the first was one of NHL’s original founding teams in the early twentieth century. The most recent version of the Senators came into the league for the 1992–1993 season after a concerted two-year effort by Canadian real estate developer Bruce Firestone and his partners to convince the NHL to return hockey to Ottawa. In its first two decades, the revived franchise has won four division championships and finished first in the league once, winning the President’s Trophy in its tenth-anniversary season. It also won a conference championship in 2006–2007 but did not win the Stanley Cup. The team is named after Canada’s capital city, which is home to the senators who govern the country. Its logo includes a representation of a Roman general, as these generals were also members of the Roman senate. Originally housed in the Ottawa Civic Center, the team moved to a new arena in 1996. After several name changes, the Senators’ home rink is now known as the Canadian Tire Centre.

History

The very first Ottawa-based team to use the Senators name formed in 1883. This team played in a variety of amateur and professional leagues. By the early years of the twentieth century, it had developed a reputation as a strong and underhanded team willing to use any technique imaginable to beat its opponents. In an era where the Stanley Cup was held by a team until a challenger beat it, the Senators won the Stanley Cup multiple times.

The team joined the new Eastern Canada Hockey Association (ECHA) in 1908. This league eventually split into two leagues. The Senators became part of one of these leagues, the National Hockey Association (NHA), which eventually became the foundation of the NHL. The team remained a powerhouse, developing strategies for winning that forced the league to create rules to restore more balanced play. The team still won the Stanley Cup four times between 1920 and 1927. In its final championship, the Senators dominated the league’s other six teams.

Although the team was successful, it was in a small market. When the league expanded from Canada into the northern portion of the United States, the market shrank further. Despite selling many of its better players to the newly formed American teams and even taking a year off from play, the Senators suffered increased financial pressure and eventually moved to St. Louis. That team, the St. Louis Eagles, played just 48 games in the 1934–1935 season before folding.

In 1987, Firestone decided to revive Senators’ hockey in Ottawa. He approached his friends, Cyril Leeder and Randy Sexton, after they played a pick-up hockey game and asked if they were interested. The three began a “Bring Back the Senators” campaign aimed at drumming up public support for a team and the arena needed to land a franchise. After securing land for the arena and commitments from fans to purchase 11,000 season tickets, Firestone and the others met the NHL requirements for a franchise. The league formally awarded two franchises on December 6, 1990, with one going to Tampa, Florida, and the other going to Ottawa.

The new team played its first game on October 8, 1992, against the Montreal Canadians. The Senators won, but the season went downhill from there, with the team tying for last in the league. The NHL awards draft pick positions based on standings from the previous year, so the last teams get the first pick of the talent in the next year’s entry draft. With its first-round draft pick in the 1993 entry draft, it chose the highly touted Alexandre Daigle. Daigle did not live up to expectations, but the Senators did better with future draft picks, landing Radek Bonk, Bryan Berard, Chris Phillips, and Marian Hossa. Together with its first pick from the 1992 entry draft, Alexei Yashin, these players eventually made the team stronger.

Despite this, the 1995–1996 season was a difficult one. Yashin was at odds with Senators’ management over his contract and did not play in the beginning of the season, and the team suffered several losing streaks. It fired and replaced three coaches by the end of the season, ending with Jacques Martin as the new head coach. Yashin’s contract dispute was resolved in January, but the team still finished in last place.

This gave them the first pick in the 1996 entry draft. They chose Daniel Alfredsson, who would go on to win the Calder Trophy as rookie of the year. This, coupled with Martin’s coaching emphasis on defense, helped the team qualify for the playoffs for the first time. It failed to advance past the first round, but this was the start of a long streak that saw the team reach the playoffs for eleven consecutive seasons. During that time, the Senators finished first in their division four times (1998–1999, 2000–2001, 2002–2003, 2005–2006). They won the President’s Cup as the league’s top team in 2002–2003 and made it to the conference semi-final round of the playoffs.

Despite its performance on the ice that year, the team was struggling financially. Only an infusion of emergency cash in the middle of the season staved off bankruptcy. Later in 2003, Eugene Melnyk, owner of the Biovail pharmaceutical company, purchased the team and ended its financial woes.

The team advanced to the Stanley Cup playoffs for the first time in its modern history in 2006–2007. The Senators lost the Stanley Cup that year to the Anaheim Ducks and started a stretch during which they made the playoffs some years but did not in others. Their next closest brush with the Stanley Cup came in 2016–2017, where they made it to the conference finals but lost to the Pittsburgh Penguins three games to four in the best of seven series.

During the 2018-2019 season, the Senators were forced to do a complete rebuild. Among other disappointments, they were unable to resign Matt Duchene, Mark Stone, and Ryan Dzingel before the trade deadline. They missed the playoffs for the second consecutive season.

D. J. Smith, a new head coach, was hired for the 2019-2020 season. He focused on improving the skills of the younger players. The season was cut short because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Senators finished second to last in the NHL. The team did not see improvements until the 2022-2023 season when it missed the playoff by six points. During the 2023-2024 season, the Senators signed two free agents: goaltender Joonas Korpisalo and forward Vladimir Tarasenko.

Notable players

Two men with connections to the Senators have been inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame. Roger Neilson, who was known for his innovative strategies and was with the team from 2001–2003 as a coach, was inducted into the Builders Hall of Fame in 2002. Goalie Dominik Hasek, who played one of his sixteen NHL seasons with the Senators in 2005–2006, was inducted in 2014.

The team has retired three jersey numbers. The first was Frank Finnegan’s, a right winger who played two stints with the team between 1923 and 1934 and was honored during the reincarnated team’s inaugural game on October 8, 1992. Finnegan was part of the Stanley Cup champion teams in 1927 and 1932 and also played in the first All-Star game in 1934.

Alfredsson, the team’s 1996 draft pick, also has his number retired. Alfredsson played with the team from 1996 through 2013 before leaving to play one season with the Detroit Red Wings. He returned to Ottawa in 2014 to finish his career. He is the team’s all-time leading scorer, with 426 goals and 682 assists in 1,178 games played. In addition to the rookie of the year award, he earned a spot on the 1996 all-rookie team. He won the 2012 King Clancy Memorial Award for leadership and humanitarianism and the 2013 Mark Messier Leadership Award. Alfredsson also holds the Senators’ record for most playoff games played, with 121, and best plus/minus record in a season, with 42 for the 2006–2007 season. Plus/minus is computed by taking the number of times a player is on the ice when his team scores a goal and subtracting the number of times he was on the ice when the other team scored.

The third retired Senators’ number belonged to defenseman Chris Phillips, who played his entire career with the team between 1997 and 2015. He scored 71 goals and 217 assists in 1,179 games. That games-played total stands as the most career games played by a Senator.

Other team record-holders include forward Dany Heatley, who holds the Senators’ records for most goals in a season with 50 in both

2005–2006 and 2006–2007, and most points in a season, with 105, also in 2006–2007. Goalie Patrick Lalime holds the team’s goaltending records for most wins (39) and most shutouts (8) in a season, both accomplished in 2002–2003. Goalie Craig Anderson holds the record for the lowest goals against (1.69 per game) and best save percentage (.941), achieving both in the 2012–2013 season.

Bibliography

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Brodie, Rob. “Sens' Founders Together Again in Sports Hall of Fame.” NHL.com, 2024, www.nhl.com/senators. Accessed 19 Mar. 2024.

Gretz, Adam. “Remembering the Original Ottawa Senators, the NHL’s 1st Dynasty.” SBNation,17 Sept. 2014, www.sbnation.com/nhl/2014/9/17/6165305/ottawa-senators-history-stanley-cup-silver-seven. Accessed 19 Mar. 2024.

“Ottawa Senators.” Hockey Reference, 2024, www.hockey-reference.com/teams/OTT/history.html. Accessed 19 Mar. 2024.

“Ottawa Senators Team History.” Sports Team History, 2024, sportsteamhistory.com/ottawa-senators. Accessed 19 Mar. 2024.

“Ottawa Senators Statistics and History [1992-2024 NHL].” HockeyDB.com,www.hockeydb.com/stte/ottawa-senators-7328.html. Accessed 19 Mar. 2024.

Stewart, J.D.M., and Mike Commito. “Ottawa Senators.” Canadian Encyclopedia, 4 Oct. 2018, www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/ottawa-senators. Accessed 19 Mar. 2024.