OverDrive - Green on the Senators' season overview, the importance of offense and the matchup against the Maple Leafs

Episode Date: January 24, 2025

Ottawa Senators Head Coach Travis Green joined OverDrive to discuss the headlines around the Senators' season, the matchup against the Maple Leafs, finding more offensive power on the team, Brady Tkachuk looking for scoring production, the team's playoff hunt in the Atlantic Division and more.

My name is Corey McMullen and I run a small family owned appliance business in Smith Falls, Ontario. Since we joined TikTok, we've almost doubled our retail sales. Having the support of TikTok Canada has been crucial. Knowing the family business is secure for the next generation is incredibly fulfilling. Here's Travis Green. How you doing Travis? What's up guys? Good to hear from you again. Yeah, good to hear from you. We appreciate you doing this. You saw it last

night. You were up close and personal. Have you ever seen a guy take his glove off and try to choke somebody like Marchand did last night? Not on the ice. Valid. Yeah, that was wild, man. It was a pretty, like Noodles was there calling it. He said it was a pretty intense night and crazy game. That was pretty early in the game last night. Yeah, it was, uh, you know, yeah, it was intense game. It was a big game obviously between both teams and uh, you know, you like it when the emotions are running hot. I know I do as a coach and uh, you know, it's great. It seems like it's early in the season, but there are so many teams that are so close.

There are a lot of big games being played right now. So Travis, did you feel last night at least the atmosphere or some of the juice was a little bit of a carryover from Saturday's game where you guys had an epic battle with Boston on home ice? Yeah, yeah, I did I felt like you know when you look at the standings and just the way everything's set up it I think it's pretty obvious that in fact you can look at the schedule and think that you know both those games were to be tagged as an emotional game and you know I think it's great for our team to

get into many of these emotional games that they can and I think it's great for our team to get into many of these emotional games that they can and hopefully we're still playing them down the stretch and in a playoff spot. Greeny, what's the message from the coach when it seems like your team was emotionally invested and they didn't just mail it in and get crushed but they couldn't get any offense cooking? What is the message from that? Is that just from certain guys like, look instead of me trying to draw up X's and O's or do this or do that or don't cheat, it's just you

got to be better, play better? You know what, O'Dog? There's been a lot of talk about offense around our team for a little bit now. We've really talked a lot about being a better defensive team, quite frankly, from the off season until now. And, uh, but I'd like to think we're not idiots and know that, you know, you have to score and you gotta create offense. And we've always kept an eye on our offensive game. And, uh, you know, with today's analytics and you, it's not that hard to take deep dives and

you know, we've been pretty good offensively. Like we've been above the top, in the top half since December the first, expected goals five on five. And the puck's just not going in the net. And there's going to be nights, hey, when you're not going to create as much as you want if certain guys are out of line up. And you can still, you know, you got to find a way to win a close hockey game. And I think last night was one of those nights. I think we hit three or four posts, probably had a goal that should have counted. And it gets magnified a little bit when guys haven't scored in a little while and they're starting to feel it and they're starting and you're losing games.

It'd be different if guys were on a heater and you just had a game where they didn't score, I think. But, you know, it's human nature that they're going to feel it a little bit and they're starting to hear about it and it can affect your game a little bit. But for me as a coach, as long as we're creating chances or getting the looks that you'd hope that the puck's going to go in eventually. Now, last night I thought I didn't think we created enough last night or the ranger game, but I think overall we have been. And confidence is a funny thing. And, you know, that's the one thing coaches talk about.

You try to give a player offensive confidence is, you know, it's not easy. I know how to give them confidence, Greeny. You put them at the four blues and you do the Pat Quinn loop-de-loop drill where you go across and get a pass and you do a spin-or-rama move and then you go down and shoot it on the goalie that works every time. I get to bring back the loop-de-loop by the exact time. You know what? We've done a few offensive practices but I've forgotten about the loop-de-loop. Could you imagine lining up now and saying, hey, this is called a loop-de-loop? I think guys would pass out outside at center ice if you said let's do the loop to the

uh... but we have to bring it up to more than one state give it a shot and that's the only agents call you about our uh... player city lost a loop to the uh... well again i think you'll put up an eight spot, I guarantee it, man. Just give it a rep. We put up an eight tomorrow, and the loop-de-loop

becomes just instantly famous. Absolutely. Every coach in the league will be pulling out the loop-de-loop to do that. Odell will be on every coaching staff in the league, hot commodity. Secret weapon. With Travis Green, leaves in Ottawa tomorrow.

Obviously, you mentioned certain guys with some offensive issues right now in terms of the game sheet. Brady Kichuck is pointless and nine now. I'm curious how you balance what you just said, Travis. Is it battle and confidence? Is it snake-bitten? Is it a and confidence? Is it snake-bitten? Is it combination of both? What do you what are you kind of expecting out of him going into a big game tomorrow night? yeah, I've you know, I talked to our players a lot with each of them individually at different times and

you know, it's when a guy knows when he scored or when he hasn't scored or she's got points and and You know, I'm not worried about Brady at all. Uh, up until the last two losses, uh, I think we had gone six games without, without a loss, five Oh and one or something like that. And all he cares about is winning. Uh, and he's going to get his points. He's not, the great thing about him is he's not just a point producer. Uh, he's, he's tough. He's hard to play against other team.

Knows when he's on the, every time he's on the ice, um, he cares. His points are going to come and all organized. Quite frankly, I, I worried more about how they're playing individually. And, you know when you just play the game to win everything else takes care of itself and it's easy though for me to sit and say don't worry about it just play to win but you know guys tend to worry about it and that's just human nature and I think there are certain moments when a coach can help them to relieve the stress and the pressure of scoring.

That's probably where I'm leaning or where I am leaning right now. So Greenie, there's a lot of adversity throughout the league, but you guys certainly have had some with the scheduling, but now you've got some injuries to some key players. I mean, that's something that you've had to balance too. Is it a challenge when you're looking at your lineup and going, geez, that guy's not available for me or this guy's not available for me? What is the mentality?

Next man up or what's your thought process with that? It is. I think from a team standpoint that it's always next man up there's you know whenever someone was dot on this there's no opportunity for someone else uh... and the reality is

you know when you lose it when you're missing a fad or some of the more official they're big pieces of your team uh... and again you go back to you know play the win and do the right things. Do it every shift. It's not complicated. And it doesn't mean we're not going to win.

And last night's a great example as well. We could have easily won that hockey game. And that will be our mindset again going into tomorrow night's game. Well, the cameras are going to be on that pregame skate tomorrow, Travis. Dude, I might drive to Ottawa in the morning. I'll be calling old dog after the show and just saying, hey, can you send me a picture of diagram it? I know it's a little complicated.

Oh, yeah, it's really complicated. I'll call you after and really describe it so you get a full feel for it. Good luck tomorrow night Travis, thank you for doing this. Alright guys, thanks for having me. You got it, Travis Greene.