As captain Thomas Chabot knows, he carries a certain responsibility to evaluate his team’s performance. Tuesday night he clearly stated his Ottawa Senators just weren’t good enough. “Not good, not good at all,” he said. “There’s no other way to put it.” While the season is young, Tuesday’s 7-2 loss to the St. Louis Blues is a rare misstep on an otherwise impressive start to the season for the Senators. At 5-2-0 the Senators are off to one of their best starts in more than a decade. “We had a game for a bit and we just didn’t have it, or the execution wasn’t great,” said Chabot. “We’re aware of it as a team, as a group, as players, and that’s all that matters and we’ll make sure we answer back.” While it would be easy to call this a one-off there are issues that have to be of some concern to the Senators. The power play continues to struggle. Ottawa was 1-for-4 with the man advantage Tuesday and has converted on just five of 33 power-play opportunities (15.2 per cent) through seven games. “They’re not executing their passes first of all,” said head coach Travis Green. “Simple passes. We’re passing pucks that are rolling instead of passing it flat. I think it’s just the simple things. You’ve got to do those things well before you even start doing anything about the rest of the power play.” Last season assistant coach Daniel Alfredsson was responsible for the power play, but with his departure to the Toronto Maple Leafs Ben Sexton has taken over the special teams duties. Sexton is also missing a key piece of his top unit, with Jake Sanderson’s absence perhaps felt most on the power play. Sanderson hasn’t played since opening night, although Green is hopeful the defenceman could return this week. Without Sanderson the Senators have struggled to get the puck out of their own end on the power play. “At times we’ve had some chances and at times it hasn’t been great,” Chabot said. “Let’s call a spade a spade. We’re going to keep on nailing down details and maybe keep things a bit more simple and get some guys some traffic … It’s on us as players to dig in and find a way to make a difference early in the games.” While the Senators would like to generate more with the man advantage they also need to ensure it’s not a liability. The Blues were able to score short-handed Tuesday to open the scoring. “Yeah, I mean that’s a really good hockey team over there, and they’re 5-2 for a reason,” said Blues head coach Jim Montgomery. “But getting that short-handed goal was really key. Our penalty kill has been very good. I thought both special teams were good for us tonight, which is a really pleasant sign in our growth as a team.” The Senators are dealing with growing pains of their own. Already without Sanderson and Artem Zub, Ottawa also lost Nikolas Matinpalo on Monday. That left the Senators with an inexperienced blue line Tuesday, with Carter Yakemchuk, Jorian Donovan and Hoyt Stanley combining for just 18 games of NHL experience. Yakemchuk finished the game minus-5, but played 22:25. Green admitted guys are being asked to play big minutes. Veteran Claude Giroux says there are lessons to be learned from games like these. “You’ve got to take the feeling that we have right now and make sure it doesn’t happen again.” Ridly Greig left the game midway through the third. Green said he was dealing with a bit of a strain and felt it was best to keep him out for the remainder of the game. Ottawa has played seven games over 11 days and was playing the back half of a back-to-back. The Senators will take Wednesday off before they’re back in action Thursday against the New York Islanders. This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 13, 2026. Lisa Wallace, The Canadian Press
