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The Head Coach merry-go-round in Ottawa continues as Craig Hartsburg has been relieved of the duty as of today. Binghampton Senators coach Cory Clauston will be the new inter-rim coach. Meanwhile assistant coach Curtis Hunt has also been let go from Ottawa, but given the chance to move to Binghampton instead.

Ottawa Senators General Manager Bryan Murray expressed his regret that the team has been unable to perform this season. He said that the club had high expectations going in to the season and when things started to turn sour early on “we hoped there would be change in our performance [but] it didn’t happen.” [Quote from the Ottawa Sun]

The Ottawa owner Eugene Melnyk had hoped the team would make the playoffs this year, but as that has increasingly become a pipedream; something had to give. Murray said that a reason for making this coaching change was “to find out the level of performance this group is capable of. Is it what we’re playing like now, or is it what we’ve seen out of a lot of these players in the past?” [Quote from The Fourth Period]

That of course remains to be seen. However, with the players available to the Head Coach it is perhaps not unreasonable to expect a serious playoff challenge. Being so far behind already and the cumulatively dismal performances by the Senators made a change seem inevitable. Ottawa isn’t exactly famed for its patience with coaches either. In the last year they will now have had four different coaches behind the bench.

While it is easy to blame the Head Coach, it is reasonable to try and bring someone else in and see if indeed it is a coaching problem or a player/team chemistry problem. If it is the latter the club of course needs to know this and make the necessary changes amid playing staff and rebuild the roster. If this turns out to be the case, and the new coach Clauston can’t get the team playing as a team, one can expect Ottawa to be heavily involved by the trade deadline; moving veteran/star players for draft picks and prospects.

Considering it was just the year before last that the Senators were in the Stanley Cup Final, this turn of events must be mystifying to many; especially considering the roster hasn’t changed all that much. But then again maybe that is, in itself, at the heart of the problem.

Nonetheless, it is trying times in Ottawa and Clauston is set for one enormous uphill challenge – to try and turn things around in the Canadian capital.

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