D.J.. Smith came on the telephone from his hotel room in Tempe on Tuesday morning.
Sports
EXCLUSIVE: Fired coach D.J. Smith leaves Ottawa Senators with his head held high
At some point or another Monday, one-by-one, every player and staff member that worked with Smith dropped by the bar to say thank you and wish him nothing but the best.
The going away meant a lot to him and he wanted that chance instead getting out of dodge immediately.
“It just shows they appreciated the time and effort I put in with them in building relationships,” Smith told Postmedia on Tuesday. “That’s 90% of coaching. As much as you want all the cut-outs, duotangs and the flashy stuff, at the end of the day, it’s about getting guys to give you everything they had.
“You can bring in other guys to help you with the details and the structure and all those things. If you can’t get your top players to play, and to play every day, it’s hard. Those guys played hard for me. They didn’t cheat me on effort. At the end of the day, that they came to say goodbye showed that they respected the effort and the time I put into them and their families.”
“I’m disappointed that we couldn’t turn the corner with this group for whatever reason,” Smith said. “Whether it was injuries or whatever the case may be. When we got it back to .500, you had to see that we needed to make a step and not continue to drop lower.
“I’m disappointed in that, but not disappointed in the whole body of work. I think I did my job in developing these young guys and turning them into real NHL players by giving them the confidence every day.”
Smith wanted to see players like captain Brady Tkachuk, Tim Stutzle, Drake Batherson, Josh Norris, Thomas Chabot, Jakob Chychrun and Jake Sanderson take the Senators to the next level.
But he can leave with his head held high.
“Absolutely, I’m proud of the amount of work that we put in, the amount of people we met and I’m proud of a lot of the players that we brought from young kids to what we think are really good NHL players,” Smith said.
“That job was to come in and do that. I think I leave with a lot of guys that are much better NHL players than when they came in. One of the most unfortunate part of this job is the injuries and you can’t control those. We had insurmountable amount of injuries over my time here.
“Whether it was goaltending, star players or centres. It’s not an excuse, but you need the tools to win in this league. The timing of these injuries were crushing.”
“The expectations were I was going to have Stutzle, Norris and Pinto down the middle. I thought that was outstanding depth, drafting, trading and everything that went into it. That’s outstanding building that group of three centres,” Smith said.
“I don’t know that I coached 10 games with those three guys in the lineup, there were lot of games with only one of those guys playing. When this team gets those three guys in the lineup with a healthy Chabot, they’re capable of winning every night.
His No. 1 goal coming into this season was to help the Senators turn the corner. He’s still confident that can happen under interim coach Jacques Martin with former captain Daniel Alfredsson as an assistant.
“For sure, I love players and I always have,” Smith said. “I don’t only want them to be successful for themselves, but also for the city to experience a winner again. It’s really close and unfortunately my time came up but this team is going to be really good.
“They have good leadership, players that care and like each other, and for a lot of reasons we didn’t find a way to win early in the season. That doesn’t mean this team can’t get it going. There’s too much in that room. I have no doubt that if I had stayed right to the end, we’d be right close to the playoffs.”
“My mom is a diehard D.J. Smith fan,” he said. “Wherever I am she’s watching the games and that is the hard part. She sees her son being fired and especially last little bit here. I don’t go on the social media anymore. I’ve cut that off probably a year ago.
“You could tell by the phone calls she was worried and also it’s a double-edged sword because her and my wife are probably sad, but they’re also probably happy they won’t be getting phone calls about what people are saying about you. That’s why your family is your crowd and regardless of how you’re doing, they are there to support you.
Those ridiculous “Fire D.J.” chants didn’t bother him as much as they were hurt his family. Yes, it’s a tough business, but it’s not just about Smith, it’s the people around him.
“I get the fans, they want to win, they have right to be mad. They want that and we should have been better. It’s on the coach to make them better. I was more worried for my family, not for me,” Smith said.
“My job is to fix it and win games. I thought we had it going. It looked like we had it back on the tracks. This road trip has derailed us more than we thought. I take this experience and I’m better coach and I will be a better coach going forward.”
I thought we had it going. It looked like we had it back on the tracks. This road trip has derailed us more than we thought.
D.J. Smith
Smith won’t let the decision ruin his Christmas. He’ll spend time with Christie along with Brock, 7, and three-year-old Mickey. They’ll head back to Windsor for the holidays and Smith will be able to watch his son, Colton, 19, with the Ontario Hockey League’s Windsor Spitfires.
“My younger children desperately miss Dad when he’s on the road and I don’t get to watch their hockey. That’s the positive and I can watch Colton,” Smith said. “I can watch them. That’s a positive that I get a chance to spend time with the people that have missed out.
“I chose the profession. I love hockey and I’m never going to leave it until they officially kick me out. I can’t think of the last time I didn’t go to the arena or took a day off. Those people miss out and this is a chance to give back until they call me to my next job. Then, it will be back we go and it’s part of the business.”
“You have to be steady on the rudder,” Smith said. “The highs and the lows with a young team were hard to control with them. The more older players you have on your team, the more it helps What I know is, the older players have steadied the group.
“One of our biggest losses from last year was Derick Brassard. If a healthy Derick Brassard could have given us one more year, it would have made a big difference in the locker room and the play of some of the players with consistency. You realize you’ve got to lean on those guys to help you with young players.
“I believe my communication and bench skills got better as it went on. I don’t want to lose the passion and emotion. I think I need to continue to find a way to be better in all those areas.”
“I think I created a better culture around the arena. I felt everyone felt included — whether it was the players, media or office staff, everybody felt comfortable being around. I never made it about me, I wanted everyone to enjoy it,” Smith said.
Before he hung up the phone to have some breakfast, Smith offered some closing thoughts.
“I had a good run. Last year was a lot of fun getting close and I thought without the injuries to the goalies we had a real chance,” Smith said. “I believed wholeheartedly this year we’d make the playoffs. Not to say that the team won’t, but I hope to see the Ottawa Senators playing in the playoffs.”
Continue Reading
CALGARY – Ryan Lomberg and Brayden Pachal each had a goal and assist on Saturday night to lead the Calgary Flames to a 4-2 victory over the Vancouver Canucks in NHL pre-season action.
Blake Coleman and Adam Klapka also scored for Calgary, which is 4-0-1 through five games.
Jonathan Lekkerimaki and Aatu Ratyu were the marksmen for Vancouver, which is 2-2 in exhibition play.
Dan Vladar, who stopped 17 of 19 shots in 40 minutes of action, got the win. Devin Cooley made nine stops in relief.
Artus Silovs, beaten four times on 24 shots, gave way to Nikita Tolopilo to start the third. Tolopilo had eight saves.
Calgary opened the scoring at 4:23 when Pachal’s rising wrist shot from the blue line through a maze of bodies eluded Silovs, who never saw it.
The Flames surged in front 2-0 three minutes later when Lomberg corralled a MacKenzie Weegar rebound in the slot and fired a shot just inside the goalpost.
Lomberg, 29, who broke into the NHL as a Flame in 2017-18, re-signed in the off-season in Calgary as a free agent after four years with the Florida Panthers, which was capped off by winning the Stanley Cup.
Vancouver got on the scoreboard at 8:35 of the second on a fortuitous bounce.
Lekkerimaki’s shot from the slot deflected off Flames defenceman Artem Grushnikov, went high into the air, and with seemingly nobody aware of where the puck went, it toppled over Vladar and landed in the Calgary net.
Since being drafted by Vancouver in the first round, in 2022, Lekkerimaki has spent the past two seasons in his native Sweden.
This will be the 20-year-old’s first season in North America and with three points (1 goal, 2 assists) in three games in the pre-season, he’s making a push for a job with the Canucks.
One of the players he is competing against is Raty, who after Calgary had taken a 3-1 lead, again got the Canucks back within one on a perfect shot after being set up on a 2-on-1 by Conor Garland.
Raty, a second-round pick in 2021, was acquired from the New York Islanders in the Bo Horvat trade. He’s spent most of the past two seasons in the AHL.
The Flames restored their two-goal cushion later in the second with Klapka firing a shot past Silovs for his third goal in as many pre-season games.
Klapka, who stands 6-foot-8, is looking to make the team’s fourth line. The 24-year-old has shown some offensive pop with three goals in as many pre-season games.
His physicality was also on display Saturday, throwing an open-ice hit in the first period on Nils Aman that sent the Canucks forward flying. In the third, a heavy hit on Akito Hirose send the defenceman careening into the sideboards. Hirose had to be helped off the ice.
UNEXPECTED OFFENCE
Known more for his physicality, Pachal has never had a multi-point game in his 62 career NHL regular-season games. The 24-year-old was in his fifth season with the Vegas Golden Knights organization when he was claimed off waivers by Calgary last February.
HUBERDEAU-MANTHA COMBO
Left-winger Jonathan Huberdeau played in his second pre-season game for Calgary and has been the case throughout camp, the right-winger was veteran Anthony Mantha, who the Flames signed to a one-year deal as a free agent. On this night, Yegor Sharangovich was at centre. In the first game, the two were centred by Martin Pospisil.
UP NEXT
Canucks: Visit the Edmonton Oilers on Monday.
Flames: Host the Seattle Kraken on Monday.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 28, 2024.
The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
EDMONTON – When the key to a win is work ethic, it is not surprising to see Mattias Ekholm rise to the occasion.
Ekholm had a goal and two assists as the Edmonton Oilers snapped a three-game skid with a 5-4 victory over the Seattle Kraken on Saturday.
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Noah Philp, Vasily Podkolzin and Raphael Lavoie also scored for the Oilers, who improved to 2-3 in NHL pre-season play.
“They are a hard-working team, no matter who they have in the lineup, so we expected that,” said Oilers forward Derek Ryan, who picked up a couple of assists.
“There were points in the game where we were kind of matching that intensity and work ethic and things were going well for us. We let the work ethic dip a little bit and then the game gets away from us. It is a good message to the guys who were playing and the whole group that it starts with work.”
Jacob Melanson, Eduard Sale, John Hayden and Ben Meyers responded for the Kraken, who fell to 1-3 in exhibition action.
“I thought we were getting up the ice well, playing fast, playing north,” said Meyers. “I think we probably just gave up a little bit too much to win that game, but I thought offensively we played pretty well and we had our chance.”
The Oilers started the scoring just over three minutes into the opening period as both defenders tried to cover Connor McDavid on a two-on-one, but he made a nice backhand pass back to Nugent-Hopkins, who beat Kraken goalie Philipp Grubauer upstairs blocker side.
Seattle tied the game nine minutes into the first after Oilers goalie Calvin Pickard made a couple of saves in tight before Melanson was able to poke it in from the crease.
Pickard left the game soon afterwards after teammate Noah Philp got angled into his own netminder, hitting him in the head. Pickard did not return to the game.
Olivier Rodrigue replaced Pickard in the Edmonton net and surrendered a power-play goal with six minutes to play in the first as Ryan Winterton lifted a deft pass over a defender across to Sale for the goal.
Edmonton knotted the game with 2:43 remaining in the first frame as Ekholm spotted Philp driving the net and completed a long saucer pass through a couple Kraken players to allow him to wrist it home.
Seattle made it 3-2 5:32 into the second period after Rodrigue attempted to direct a puck away from the net, only to have it hit Hayden and carom into his net.
With two minutes left in the middle period, the Kraken added to their lead as Meyers elected to shoot on a two-on-one opportunity, beating the Oilers’ goalie upstairs.
Edmonton got that goal back just 26 seconds later as Derek Ryan threaded the needle to a trailing Ekholm and he beat Grubauer to make it 4-3.
The Oilers tied the game six minutes into the third on a short-handed tally as Ryan made a great play to draw the defenders his way before sending it over to Podkolzin for the easy tap-in.
Edmonton avoided overtime with 2:53 remaining in the final frame as Lavoie battled hard to retrieve the puck before swinging out front and sending a shot through Grubauer’s legs.
Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch has been impressed with Lavoie’s skills as a sniper.
“He’s got good hands and an even better shot,” he said. “He showed great skill on that goal.”
NOTES
The Oilers still had 41 players in camp — with four goalies, 13 defencemen and 24 forwards. … Seattle was down to 37 players at camp — 33 skaters and four goalies — after cutting eight players before Friday’s contest against Vancouver. … Edmonton had both of the players in camp who are on PTOs in the lineup on Saturday, forward Mike Hoffman and defenceman Travis Dermott. … Grubauer made his first appearance since last Sunday’s 6-1 loss to Calgary, during which he allowed four goals on 19 shots.
UP NEXT
Kraken: Visit the Calgary Flames on Monday.
Oilers: Host the Vancouver Canucks on Monday.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 28, 2024.
The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
CHICAGO (AP) — Jonathan Dean scored his first Major League Soccer goal in the 84th minute for the Chicago Fire on Saturday night in a 1-1 draw with Toronto FC.
Ariel Lassiter cut back to evade a defender and the played an arcing ball from the left corner of the area to the back post, where a charging Dean tapped in a one-touch finish from point-blank range to cap the scoring.
Prince Owusu converted from the penalty spot in first-half stoppage time to give Toronto (11-17-4) a 1-0 lead at halftime.
Chicago (7-16-9) has just one win and four losses in its last six games.
Chris Brady a save for the Fire.
Sean Johnson stopped two shots for Toronto.
—
AP MLS:
The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
Sports39 mins ago
Flames remain hot in pre-season, beat Canucks 4-2
News47 mins ago
Hajrullahu kicks record-tying eight FGs to lead Argos past Alouettes 37-31
Sports48 mins ago
Oilers end pre-season skid with 5-4 win over Kraken
Sports5 years ago
AP source: Bears acquiring quarterback Nick Foles from Jaguars – Sportsnet.ca
Investment5 years ago
dynaCERT Inc. Invites You to Join Us at the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference | INN – Investing News Network
Media1 year ago
12 Bizarre Things People Did Just To Make Social Media Content
-
News7 hours agoSarah McLachlan, Tom Cochrane to be toasted at Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame
-
News2 hours ago
Canada announces $10 million for humanitarian assistance in Lebanon
-
Politics7 hours ago
Trump lists his grievances in a Wisconsin speech intended to link Harris to illegal immigration
-
News7 hours ago
Asheville has been isolated after Helene wrecked roads and knocked out power and cell service
-
News2 hours ago
Hurricane Isaac and Tropical Storm Joyce move through the open Atlantic far from land
-
News2 hours ago
North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson treated for burns after accidentally touching exhaust pipe
-
News7 hours ago
Alberta municipal leaders squash advocacy for permanent resident voting rights
-
News7 hours ago
Biden and Harris call the Israeli strike killing Hezbollah’s Nasrallah a ‘measure of justice’
