Senators at midseason: Still time to meet raised expectations, but will it happen?

As the buzzer sounded on Game 41, a 5-3 win in Arizona, the Senators clocked back in as a .500 team at precisely the halfway point of the NHL regular season.

Should they be more than that?

Although there are still 41 games left to sort it out, at the midpoint a 19-19-3 record has to register as a disappointment, after so much hype over off-season signings and improvements.

The organization dared raise expectations, and so far has not met them.

Expected by their own management to at least contend for a playoff spot to the end of the season, the Senators sit seven points back of the last wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference. The Sens have not been good enough for long enough to have any margin for error. On Monday, a win over the Predators could have pulled them within five points of a playoff spot. By Wednesday, Ottawa was nine back, with several teams to hurdle.

See-saw results mean a step forward and a step back.

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Realistically, are the Senators better than their current 24th-overall standing? They can be maddeningly inconsistent. Their fans never know which team will show up on a given night – the one that beat Boston, twice, and looked awesome in wins over Washington and Buffalo? Or the one that gets shut out by Nashville and is routed by Seattle, 8-4?

We often talk about the bleak period from late October to late November as the hole that set them back, but as one radio host pointed out this week – if you loosely break the first half into four 10-game segments, the Sens were above .500 for only one of the four segments, a stretch of games in December. Otherwise – just not good enough to be in the mix.

Head coach D.J. Smith said from Arizona yesterday that the team’s goal has to be a winning record in January, and then the chips will fall in February and March.

Otherwise the Senators appear headed for the dreaded “tweener” status. Not bad enough to have great odds for the Connor Bedard/first-overall draft pick, not quite a playoff contender. Moneypuck rates Ottawa’s playoff-making odds at 19.4 per cent, with a 2.7 per cent chance of landing Bedard. A few wins or losses in a row can change the picture quickly.

The additions of Claude Giroux and Alex DeBrincat, plus goaltender Cam Talbot, have helped. The Senators power play has improved dramatically – it was 22nd overall at this point last season, and now has a top-six rank. Ditto for the penalty kill – now up to sixth best in the league.

This is a team that just doesn’t get it done, five-on-five.

“We’ve got to get on the goalie more,” Smith said. “Especially off the rush, we’re way too much on the outside.”

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Their goals-against is nearly exactly where it was last season – 3.17 goals allowed per game. Ottawa’s goals-for has risen to 3.02 from 2.70, but because scoring is up around the league, the overall rank in the category is precisely where it was – 24th overall.

The underlying numbers suggest the Senators should be scoring more based on chances generated, but they have not been an opportunistic team, especially at even strength, where they are 30th, with 76 goals.

“Five-on-five scoring has been an issue for us,” said Smith. “We get chances, analytically, all those things, we just haven’t made good on them. We’ve got to score more, be more dangerous, five-on-five.”

We have to remind ourselves, this is still a young core. The Senators will get better. An organization that has been asking for fan patience for five years is going to have to ask for a little more time.

Key Statistics

Record: 19-19-3 (7th in the Atlantic)

Goals for: 3.02 per game (24th overall)

Goals against: 3.17 per game (18th)

Power play: 27.1 per cent (6th)

Penalty kill: 82.4 per cent (6th)

Best surprise: Jake Sanderson

It is incredible how quickly Sanderson has become taken for granted. We all assume the 20-year-old rookie defenceman will make the right play and use his exceptional skating ability to get the puck up ice or get back to save the day. With 14 points in 40 games, he has more offensive upside to tap. Defensively, he is remarkably sound for a kid just out of college. It’s easy to forget he’s a rookie and start to think he’s been in the NHL for eight years. Sanderson is minus-2 on a team with several players in double-digit minuses.

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Biggest disappointment: Mathieu Joseph

When Joseph was acquired at the deadline from Tampa Bay (plus a fourth-round pick in 2024) for Nick Paul, the winger from Laval was thought to have a lot of upside. He may yet show it; Joseph is not yet 26. But the Senators dearly miss the two-way game of Paul, as well as Connor Brown, who left for Washington. Joseph’s struggles with injury (he remains out) and production (2 goals, 7 assists in 25 games) symbolize the lack of scoring in Ottawa’s bottom six. Paul, who scored two goals in Game 7 versus the Maple Leafs last spring to eliminate Toronto in a 2-1 Tampa victory, is well on his way to a career year, with 15 goals and 24 points. Paul’s hockey sense and work ethic are legendary in Ottawa. For Joseph, there is a lot to prove.

Biggest question for the second half: Time for a push, or time to tank?

Though the playoff dream remains distant, GM Pierre Dorion has a bit of time before deciding on additions and subtractions before the trade deadline. Team performance over the next couple of weeks will be telling. At the moment, it doesn’t make sense to take on salary unless it helps the club long-term.

The Senators have a few pending UFAs who could draw interest from playoff-bound teams – defencemen Travis Hamonic, Nick Holden, Talbot and winger Tyler Motte, among them. The Sens could be interested in bringing two or three of those players back on short-term deals. Big picture, the Senators’ biggest need remains their defence, as they lack size and at least one top-four defenceman. What to do about DeBrincat? The 25-year-old is a pending RFA. The Senators have shown interest in extending him, but is he willing to slot in behind Brady Tkachuk and Tim Stutzle on the salary depth chart?

The Senators thought they were past the days of eyeing a top-10 draft pick, but they could be in line for one more.

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