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The Senators announced on May 23rd that DJ Smith was their newest head coach, although it wasn’t until just a few days ago that Smith and the organization rounded out the rest of their coaching staff. Here are the newest members of the staff:
We have known for several weeks that Jack Capuano was going to be one of Smith’s assistants, and news of Davis Payne’s hiring came shortly before this news release as well. I can’t say I have heard of Bob Jones or Mike King before this, but I’ll provide some information about their backgrounds. Pierre Groulx must be a name that fans know by now, as he is staying on as the goaltending coach and has been in that position with the Senators since 2016-17. He has also been a goaltending coach in Florida and Montreal, and he seems well-liked by people within the organization, so I have to assume that it is better to keep him around, especially with Marcus Hogberg and Joey Daccord coming up.
It’s no surprise to me that either Smith or the Senators (or both) wanted to bring in some coaches with previous NHL head coaching experience, as Capuano coached the Islanders from 2010-2017 but made the playoffs just three times in his six full seasons. As I’ve said before, I can’t say I’m a huge fan of his previous work in Long Island, although I’m glad that Smith will have a coach right next to him who has been around the block and can help him along. Payne also has experience as he coached the St. Louis Blues from 2009-2012, although 2010-11 was his only full season there and they never made the playoffs.
Payne was an assistant in Los Angeles for five seasons immediately after leaving St. Louis, then was in Buffalo for the previous two seasons, so he has never been out of work in the NHL for more than a few months since 2009. I know even less about him than I do about Capuano, but again, it’s good to have someone with experience, and we’ll have to wait and see if he is the kind of coach that is going to be good for this young group.
Jones is a very unknown commodity, as he has only spent one season outside of the OHL, as last year he was an assistant with the Texas Stars. Even in the OHL, he had only been a head coach in Oshawa for three seasons and in Windsor for one, but he spent 17 other seasons as an assistant in Sault Ste. Marie, Brampton, Toronto, Sudbury, Windsor, and Oshawa. That resume includes back-to-back Memorial Cup championships with the Spitfires where Smith was also an assistant during that time. Overall, Smith and Jones worked together in Windsor from 2007-2012 and Jones actually replaced Smith in Oshawa after he left in 2015.
King was hired as a video coach for the Senators, and he had that same role with the Hershey Bears for the past three seasons. I’m assuming Troy Mann knows him well from his team with the Bears organization, not that Mann would have any say in who the Senators would be hiring. He is somebody who works behind the scenes and nobody knows about, but if he does his job well, he might actually be able to quietly help the team in a few places.
It’s hard to have too strong of an opinion either way with the hiring of assistant coaches as nobody really knows the dynamics of how much impact assistants actually have on a team. The only thing I will say about these hirings is that I hope there is at least something different about them compared to previous Senators regimes and that they are all on the same page about how this team should be built. Otherwise, it’ll be more of the same old from Ottawa.
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