Unfortunately I don't see Smith getting fired yet, mainly because of the horrific luck on injuries .... 3 d-men, and the poor play of goalies. If you are going to fire a coach if he loses tonight, or tomorrow, etc ... then he should just be fired now regardless. If the ownership and Staios don't see Smith coaching beyond this season then they should release him sooner rather then later. But I guess that depends on if their bench boss of choice is available.
In a perfect world, a team fires the GM first and then lets the new GM build his own coaching staff.

It's nice to see the Sens finally well behind in shots but way ahead in the lead. Usually it goes the other way for this team.

It's nice to see the Sens finally well behind in shots but way ahead in the lead. Usually it goes the other way for this team.
- Bartacus

I missed most of the game, but how were the quality of chances against the Sens. Was the defensive team play better tonight?

Korpisalo was very good.

4th line was solid.

Grieg is a bonafide NHL player.

Maybe this rough patch with all the injuries on back end might lead to Sens forwards learning to play a more responsible defensive game.

Korpisalo was very good.

4th line was solid.

Grieg is a bonafide NHL player.

Maybe this rough patch with all the injuries on back end might lead to Sens forwards learning to play a more responsible defensive game.

On Sportsnet interview with Elliotte Friedman (at the outdoor game in Edmonton I think), he brought up the Vegas and Dadonov issue again. Said sometime in the next few days the NHL will will rule if penalties will be set against Ottawa.
If those penalties involve a first or second round pick forfeiture, then I think that may be the death knell of Dorion with the Senators. If its a slap on the wrist and a fine .... who knows.

If you asked me before the season if Ridly Grieg would ever be ahead of Connor Bedard in points at any point in the season, I would have laughed it off. If you had told me he'd be top of the rookie scoring at any point in the season, I would have laughed it off. Yet there he sits, all alone atop rookies. A rare player that makes his linemates better. Kid looks real good, takes the sting out of Pinto. Great drafting by PD.

A much needed win. Grieg is only going to get better. Once he gets his timing down , he will be a force within the nhl.

I liked that compete level with matinpalo against crosby along the boards at one point

On Sportsnet interview with Elliotte Friedman (at the outdoor game in Edmonton I think), he brought up the Vegas and Dadonov issue again. Said sometime in the next few days the NHL will will rule if penalties will be set against Ottawa.
If those penalties involve a first or second round pick forfeiture, then I think that may be the death knell of Dorion with the Senators. If its a slap on the wrist and a fine .... who knows.
- OttawaB

Any thing around a first should result in Dorion's immediate termination. Not sure how such a communications breakdown happens. If it was deliberate he wont be able to get a job answering phones in the NHL again.


I thought this was closed a long time ago, so some new information must have come to light.

A much needed win. Grieg is only going to get better. Once he gets his timing down , he will be a force within the nhl.

I liked that compete level with matinpalo against crosby along the boards at one point
- spazzbot

Great to see a Sens goalie play well, hopefully Korp can use that to gain some momentum / consistency.

Team needs to start better still though.

Saw an insightful comment from Bobbie Ryan. He reminds us that players quit on coaches when they lose the room. His point is DJ has the total support of the room. Folks calling for the removal of DJ may have no idea how knowledgable insiders understand the situation.

Still trying to fully understand the depth of response to the Pinto situation.

The league and owners are profiting in multiple ways from their partnership with organized gambling interests.

Yet, they bring the hammer down on a kid who was implicated in an undisclosed manner. Now they are saying they need to be more informative with players in terms of what they can and cannot do.

This is a mess. Bettman needs to speak up. The more it stays in the shadows, the more sinister it looks. What are they going to do next time? And, with gambling, there is always a next time. It is always about finding an edge and pumping the juice.

Saw an insightful comment from Bobbie Ryan. He reminds us that players quit on coaches when they lose the room. His point is DJ has the total support of the room. Folks calling for the removal of DJ may have no idea how knowledgable insiders understand the situation.
- spatso

What a joke. DJ can have the room all he wants, he’s a run his course and is hurting this team. Any other team, he would have been fired a year ago. It’s clear he’s unable to adapt during or in between games. Your condescending act is tired.

What a joke. DJ can have the room all he wants, he’s a run his course and is hurting this team. Any other team, he would have been fired a year ago. It’s clear he’s unable to adapt during or in between games. Your condescending act is tired.
- CooCooKaChoo

DJ will not get fired because he has the core group in his corner. He has no defensive system, it's all offense and the core players are happy padding their O stats. They play .500 hockey, and they're probably OK with that although they'll blow smoke up everybody's a$$ and give us the usual lip service about playoffs, cup contenders etc. They'll give us another .500 season.

Interesting. Zub, Brannstrom and Chabot missing from line up.

My thinking, Zub is the guy that we most need to have a speedy return.

We are okay for puck handling and offence. We need more pure D if the Sens hope to stay in the fight.

I heard an interesting theory.
Pinto was actually doing the gambling.
One of his family members agree to take the fall and say "no it was me on his account". The NHL can't prove otherwise. The deal gets brokered for the 41 games instead of 82. No appeals no questions.

Refresh my memory on the Dadanov thing? Did Ottawa try and trade him without checking his no trade list? Or did his no-trade go undisclosed to another team after Ottawa traded him to that team?

I heard an interesting theory.
Pinto was actually doing the gambling.
One of his family members agree to take the fall and say "no it was me on his account". The NHL can't prove otherwise. The deal gets brokered for the 41 games instead of 82. No appeals no questions.
- Octavarium

I read somewhere it was due to him using a bookie (3rd party) to place his bets and that this was the issue.

Saw an insightful comment from Bobbie Ryan. He reminds us that players quit on coaches when they lose the room. His point is DJ has the total support of the room. Folks calling for the removal of DJ may have no idea how knowledgable insiders understand the situation.
- spatso

While there are lots of examples of successful coaches that are well liked by players, there are also lots of examples of successful coaches that are not typically well liked but get the most out of the players. I struggle to observe that DJ Smith is getting the most out of this team whether he is well liked or not.

I think the issue might be that DJ Smith has the assistant coach vibe isn’t of head coach vibe. Traditionally, the assistant coaches are “closer” to players than the actual head coach. The head coach oversees the final game plan and deployment rather than being “close” to players. This might play into his at times, weird deployment.

However, I am sure as fans, we are not getting the full picture one way or another. At the end of the day, another mediocre year missing the playoffs cannot happen and it’s pretty simple to replace the coaching staff as opposed to replacing 20+ players.

It was a good effort in Pittsburgh but that needs to happen consistently. We can keep having 1 or 2 great games followed by 2-3 sub-par games.

I heard an interesting theory.
Pinto was actually doing the gambling.
One of his family members agree to take the fall and say "no it was me on his account". The NHL can't prove otherwise. The deal gets brokered for the 41 games instead of 82. No appeals no questions.

Refresh my memory on the Dadanov thing? Did Ottawa try and trade him without checking his no trade list? Or did his no-trade go undisclosed to another team after Ottawa traded him to that team?
- Octavarium

As I remember:

Dadonov submits his 10 team No trade list to Ottawa, on time.

Ottawa then later trades Dadonov to Vegas. Vegas claims Ottawa told them he had not submitted his No trade list.

Nearly a year later Vegas attempts to trade him to Anaheim, but finds out at the last minute that they can't, because Anaheim is on his no trade list.

Since the league is planning to punish the Sens for this, they did something wrong. Doubtful it was deliberate, so it must have been sheer incompetence. But strange it took this long to make a decision.

Although, it is weird the NHL/ Vegas has no system in place where this information is readily available. Info like that should come attached with the player when trades are made.

If you asked me before the season if Ridly Grieg would ever be ahead of Connor Bedard in points at any point in the season, I would have laughed it off. If you had told me he'd be top of the rookie scoring at any point in the season, I would have laughed it off. Yet there he sits, all alone atop rookies. A rare player that makes his linemates better. Kid looks real good, takes the sting out of Pinto. Great drafting by PD.
- Bartacus

Knock on wood* he stays healthy dammit

As I remember:

Dadonov submits his 10 team No trade list to Ottawa, on time.

Ottawa then later trades Dadonov to Vegas. Vegas claims Ottawa told them he had not submitted his No trade list.

Nearly a year later Vegas attempts to trade him to Anaheim, but finds out at the last minute that they can't, because Anaheim is on his no trade list.

Since the league is planning to punish the Sens for this, they did something wrong. Doubtful it was deliberate, so it must have been sheer incompetence. But strange it took this long to make a decision.

Although, it is weird the NHL/ Vegas has no system in place where this information is readily available. Info like that should come attached with the player when trades are made.
- david22

Punishing the Senators so far after the fact would be very strange. The punishment being a 1st round pick, would be even stranger. The strangest part of all of this is that the information was readily available in the public domain but not in the internal domain. I am not sure why Vegas is getting off the hook not doing their due diligence when working on the trade.

Fine the club and move on. NHL should obviously work out a better system to have information available internally.

However, this could be grounds for easy reasoning to part ways with Dorion.

Punishing the Senators so far after the fact would be very strange. The punishment being a 1st round pick, would be even stranger. The strangest part of all of this is that the information was readily available in the public domain but not in the internal domain. I am not sure why Vegas is getting off the hook not doing their due diligence when working on the trade.

Fine the club and move on. NHL should obviously work out a better system to have information available internally.

However, this could be grounds for easy reasoning to part ways with Dorion.
- Gord_Wilson_2.0

Is anything beyond the existence of the M-NTC in the public domain? We can look at capfriendly and see Dadonov has one, but that was never up for debate. Vegas knew he had such a clause, but just thought he hadn't submitted his list for that year. Unless people would argue that voids the M-NTC for one year.

I think you need to submit a new list each season, so Vegas was ready for him to submit that list in the summer had they not traded him.

Is anything beyond the existence of the M-NTC in the public domain? We can look at capfriendly and see Dadonov has one, but that was never up for debate. Vegas knew he had such a clause, but just thought he hadn't submitted his list for that year. Unless people would argue that voids the M-NTC for one year.

I think you need to submit a new list each season, so Vegas was ready for him to submit that list in the summer had they not traded him.
- david22

Correct. Just the existence of the clause is in the public domain. I feel Vegas needs to do conduct due diligence when it comes to trade negotiations. Obviously, Ottawa is at fault if they said one thing and another thing happened but isn’t there an element of buyer beware? What team just takes other team’s words for it?

I am likely missing a clause that all GMs and teams need to obey when it comes to trade negotiations so other GMs and teams can take their word for it, but I don’t have a ton of sympathy for Vegas in this situation.

Considering some of the pickles that have floated around the NHL the last couple of years (Hockey Canada situation, cap circumvention, Hawks assault case, etc), this seems like small potatoes, but it seems like the NHL is prepping for a punishment worth more than cases that should receive larger punishments.

We are about 10% complete the season. Another 19 games, we will about 1 third done. The Sens are 4-4-0, second last in the division and 13th in the conference. Simply unacceptable!!

On a positive: trade shane pinto ! We have Ridly Grieg who I think long term will have a much better career than Pinto and Pinto still has a lot of value. Maybe let him come back and play amazing, then trade him next year

Correct. Just the existence of the clause is in the public domain. I feel Vegas needs to do conduct due diligence when it comes to trade negotiations. Obviously, Ottawa is at fault if they said one thing and another thing happened but isn’t there an element of buyer beware? What team just takes other team’s words for it?

I am likely missing a clause that all GMs and teams need to obey when it comes to trade negotiations so other GMs and teams can take their word for it, but I don’t have a ton of sympathy for Vegas in this situation.

Considering some of the pickles that have floated around the NHL the last couple of years (Hockey Canada situation, cap circumvention, Hawks assault case, etc), this seems like small potatoes, but it seems like the NHL is prepping for a punishment worth more than cases that should receive larger punishments.
- Gord_Wilson_2.0

Friedman and Marek on Dadonov situation] They expect a ruling to come out this week that exonerates Vegas and has some kind of penalty for the Senators. They don’t know what it is exactly, a fine or draft pick, but they think the punishment will be light because of new ownership.

Fingers crossed.