The Ottawa Senators are in good hands with coach Travis Green.
Exiting the Stanley Cup postseason parade in the first round, as was the case last spring, won’t be tolerated in 2026 by Ottawa’s management and coaching staff. Qualifying for a chance to grab a hold of the Cup is Green’s expectation. Once in the last eight NHL seasons the Senators have been skating past the final regular season scheduled game. Finishing in fourth place, with 97 points last season isn’t acceptable hockey behavior anymore at Canadian Tire Center in Canada’s capital city.
The losing culture is a thing of the past, since May 2024, when the Senators signed Green to a four-year contract that runs through the 2027–2028 season. Green offers the Senators a sweeter version of the “My way or the highway” mantra. He is going to change how Ottawa is seen around the NHL, or be fired for trying. His guidance does make a difference in how the four lines that the Senators send out onto the ice perform. Green has a pattern of getting immediate results and obvious success wherever he has been put behind the bench.
In his only season as head coach of the Western Hockey League’s Portland (Washington) Winterhawks, after taking over the position in mid-season, Green led his team to a 37–8–0 record down the stretch. The rally and his young players responding to his method of coaching saw the league’s championship trophy—the Ed Chynoweth Cup rest in Oregon’s “Rose City.”
One year later, Green accepted a deal to steer the Vancouver Canucks’ American Hockey League affiliate—the Utica (New York) Comets. Missing the Calder Cup playoffs in his rookie pro coaching career, the following season, Utica went to the championship round in 2014–2015. The Comets faceoff with the Manchester (New Hampshire) Monarchs went five games. In Utica’s nine seasons since being in the Calder Finals, they have yet to duplicate the winning experience when Green guided them.
Five seasons as the Canucks’ head coach starting in 2017–2018, Green managed to direct his squad to a second-round postseason appearance.
Now, it’s the Senators who are benefiting from Green, who skated 14-seasons in the NHL.
“As a coach you gain a little from each stop you’re at. You learn from your failures,” former NHL player and executive Pat Conacher told The Epoch Times on Sunday from his home in Phoenix.
“I always had a good working relationship working with Travis at the AHL and NHL level. When he was given the opportunity to coach in Vancouver, the team surrounded Travis with really smart individuals.”
During Conacher’s nine-year association with the Canucks’ organization as their Utica general manager, it was during this time that Vancouver would call Conacher to advise on players who were available, and if they could benefit the rosters on either level of play. Conacher would also check-in with Green on what dependable skaters and goalies he may have specifically be in need of.
“Travis brought stability to Utica and Vancouver, and that’s what he’s doing now in Ottawa. The Senators have a very bright general manager in Steve Staios. I think in Ottawa, Travis is learning to lean more on his assistant coaches more than he has in the past. This way, the head coach’s message isn’t drowned out. Great players make great coaches. In Brady Tkachuk, [Green] has one of the greats of the game today.”
Tkachuk, Ottawa’s captain, returned to Green’s lineup this past Friday after sitting out much of the season’s first six weeks with a thumb injury. Injured during the third game of the Senators’ schedule in October, Tkachuk’s presence on the ice is beyond a morale booster to his teammates. When healthy, Tkachuk is in the NHL conversion as among the most dominant power forwards.
Although considered to have one of the better defenses in the NHL this season, the Senators see their penalty kill play as a work in progress. With Ottawa ranked 22nd among the 32 teams, Green has placed an emphasis on improving the Senators overall defense since training camp began at the Bell Sensplex in Kanata, Ontario. Ottawa this week finds their power play at No. 11 among all NHL teams.
Ottawa is a hungry hockey market for a taste at a championship. Dating back to the 1972–1973 Ottawa Nationals of the fledgling World Hockey Association, Canadian NHL winning teams that have shared prestigious trophies have been won to the west of Ottawa, in Edmonton and Calgary. To the East, the Montreal Canadiens have collected their share of Stanley Cups. The standards and practices; the level of expectations put forth by Green and his staff, at least on paper, have the Senators closer to officially reversing the postseason skid. His second season on the job in coaching is when Green’s teams have experienced their greatest triumphs.
As the Senators’ 14th head coach in franchise history, there appears to be a new attitude towards winning, on the ice and in the dressing room in Ottawa.
“I think in Vancouver, Travis was handcuffed somewhat on how his team should be played. I don’t think that’s the case with Ottawa. Staios, I believe, is much more out in the open with Travis on how to handle the roster,” said Conacher, who won a Stanley Cup ring as a member of the 1983–1984 Edmonton Oilers.
A man of few words with the media, Green allows his strategies to elevate his players’ performances, and do much of his talking. Having Green on the bench is akin to having an extra skater on both sides of the blue line; quickly cunning to switch game plans and always at the ready to pounce on the opponent’s weaknesses.
