Report: Ottawa Senators to hire Travis Green, filling vacant head coaching role

Green was a long-time NHL player before going into coaching, playing nearly 1,000 games in his career. He played for various teams including the New York Islanders, Anaheim Mighty Ducks, Phoenix Coyotes, Toronto Maple Leafs, and Boston Bruins. He was a middle-six center and finished his career with 193 goals and 455 points.

Green most recently coached the New Jersey Devils before being replaced by Lindy Ruff a quarter of the way through the 2023-24 season. The Castlegar, BC native retired from his playing career following a stint with Zug EV in Switzerland and went into coaching two years later.

Green was first an assistant coach with the Portland Winterhawks of the WHL during the 2009-10 season but did not coach for the following two seasons. He resumed his coaching career during the with the same team during the 2012-13 season and ultimately took over as head coach early in the year.

The star-studded Winterhawks team, which included future NHLers Seth Jones and Oliver Bjorkstrand, earned a record of 57-12-3 that season with Green at the helm. They ended up winning the WHL championship and ultimately fell short in the Memorial Cup tournament.

Green was then hired by the Utica Comets as their head coach and coached them for four seasons with mixed but overall positive results. They never had a win percentage below .520% and made it all the way to the Calder Cup finals in Green’s second season there. However, they failed to qualify for the playoffs in two of the four seasons he coached there.

In 2017-18, Green was promoted to the head coaching role for the Vancouver Canucks. In the four and a half seasons he coached there, the Canucks only made the playoffs once and were an overall disappointment. He didn’t do much better during the 2023-24 season with the Devils when he spent part of it as the head coach and the rest as an associate coach next to Lindy Ruff.

Green is looking for his breakthrough role as an NHL head coach and the Ottawa Senators will be his latest opportunity to do so. The Senators have struggled to exit the rebuilding phase and become a perennial playoff team. After new ownership led by Michael Andlauer took the reigns, they cleaned house by firing former general manager Pierre Dorion and former head coach D.J. Smith.

They then brought in Steve Staios to be the new president of hockey operations, who later became the general manager as well. In addition, they hired Dave Poulin for the role of senior vice president of hockey operations. Long-time Senators’ head coach Jacques Martin was brought in to be the interim coach in the wake of the Smith firing. Daniel Alfredsson was hired as an assistant coach.

They knew that Martin would not be the long-term head coach and the search for a new head coach began right after Smith was fired. Frank Seravalli reported last week that Green was a candidate for the Senators’ head coaching position.

Among the other candidates for the position were Craig Berube, Dean Evason, Todd Nelson, John Gruden, and Todd McLellan. Claude Julien expressed interest as well.

Included in that list are three coaches who have extensive NHL experience, one of whom has won a Stanley Cup as a head coach. The fact that the team looked at that list and will likely go with Travis Green is a bit of a headscratcher, whichever way you look at it.

Green has a fair amount of NHL experience but has had little success at this level. It is possible that some of the more established names on the list did not want to come to Ottawa and if true that would be a searing indictment of the organisation.

The Senators are hungry to make the playoffs and there is no margin of error anymore. The fans want results and have largely run out of patience. This will be a tall task for Green to manage, but if he can do it he’ll be worthy of being an NHL coach for a long time.