This summer could bring sweeping changes to a Senators team that fell well short of expectations in 2017-18. It won't come on the bench, though.
Guy Boucher will return for a third season as Ottawa's head coach in 2018-19, general manager Pierre Dorion confirmed Tuesday during an interview on TSN 1200.
Dorion also decided to keep Boucher's staff status quo, merely rearranging the responsibilities of NHL assistants Rob Cookson, Martin Raymond and Marc Crawford. The Senators' power play, which finished fifth-worst in the league (16.6 percent), now falls under Boucher's purview.
NHL DRAFT 2018: SN's MOCK 2.0 | PROSPECT RANKINGS
“They came up with a game plan and we’re really happy with the direction the staff wants to go,” Dorion said.
Kurt Kleinendorst, head coach of the franchise's AHL affiliate in Belleville, won't return next season.
Boucher, hired by the Senators in 2016, was on shaky ground — and likely remains as such — a year after leading the team to within one game of becoming Eastern Conference champions. The encore act turned out to be an abject disaster as Ottawa finished 30 points out of a playoff spot in a season marred by injury, personnel flubs and ownership drama.
Dorion and Senators owner Eugene Melnyk held specially organized town hall meetings with season-ticket holders following the season in an attempt to quell the blowback from Ottawa's fan base. At that time, Dorion said he was evaluating the entire coaching staff and would wait until after the NHL's draft lottery to make a decision. He and Boucher met Monday to discuss the future of the team, including changes in coaching style.
Last month, Dorion publicly questioned Boucher's practice methods.
“Rest is a weapon. If I hear that one more time I’ll go crazy,” he said in an end-of-season news conference.
“Our intentions, and they were discussed with the coaching staff right after the year, is that we’re a skating team,” Dorion said in Tuesday's radio spot. “We need to practice. I think speed was Guy’s mantra when he came on board, and I think we derived a bit from it last year and we need to skate hard in practice to play as hard and as fast as much as possible, and they understood that.”With the coaching situation settled, the Senators can turn their attention to a number of pressing offseason questions, most of all the future of superstar defenseman Erik Karlsson. Other core players such as Mark Stone, a restricted free agent, and Mike Hoffman could become trade chips. Matt Duchene, headed for free agency in 2019, didn't provide the franchise a bang for the buck is paid to acquire the star center in a November trade. Could Duchene become expendable in an attempt to recoup some of those assets?
Ottawa "most likely" will keep its No. 4 overall pick in June's draft, meaning next year's first-rounder will go to Colorado as a condition of the Duchene trade.
