Eugene Melnyk believed in the Ottawa Senators -- bullishly, unabashedly and with trademark bravado.
It's what made the Senators' late owner such a lightning rod around the league. And his stance was firm until he died in 2022 that Ottawa would rise again to be a playoff contender.
"I truly believe that we are a Stanley Cup winner within four years," Melnyk said in 2020. "It can happen any time, but within four years."
The declaration was bold and totally befitting Melnyk's persona. At the time, Ottawa hadn't reached the postseason since falling in Game 7 of the 2017 Eastern Conference finals. The Senators went from being one goal away from a Stanley Cup Final to racking up one losing season after another.
Melnyk backed up his audacious words with a reported 112-page plan devised with then-general manager Pierre Dorion on how Ottawa would clear the high bar Melnyk had newly set. They were prepared to spend right to the salary cap in pursuit of his vision.
What else was written in that document may never be known publicly. What is obvious is that Ottawa failed rather spectacularly in living up to Melnyk's expectations.
For seven long years, the Senators struggled. There were definitive highs and sweeping lows. And now, at last, a breakthrough.
The Senators are officially playoff contenders again, staking their claim on Sunday to the Eastern Conference's first wild-card slot.
It wasn't the prettiest of landings; Ottawa actually punched their ticket after a dreadful 5-2 loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets. But because the Montreal Canadiens beat the Detroit Red Wings that same night, the Senators clinched anyway.
They don't ask how, right?
But seriously. How did the Senators do it, exactly? That's a long story. But there are a few key elements that pushed Ottawa over the top -- and brought them one critical step closer to possibly making good on Melnyk's prediction of a championship-caliber future.
"It's a good first step for this group," GM Steve Staios said of reaching the postseason. "I'm really excited for our players. From day one when they came into training camp you could see that there was this motivation."
The Senators didn't get back to the playoffs before Melnyk died. Dorion -- who came on board with the Senators right before that magical run to the conference finals -- failed to guide Ottawa back into the postseason before he was fired in 2023.
The freefall Ottawa took from Eastern Conference darlings to basement dwellers was baffling. The Senators finished the 2017-18 season in 30th place to signal the start of a surprisingly swift rebuild. Top defenseman Erik Karlsson was traded to San Jose in September 2018, before the start of a miserable season which ultimately pushed away Matt Duchene, Mark Stone and Ryan Dzingel -- all three veterans were traded by the 2019 deadline. The Senators were in last place by March 2019 and head coach Guy Boucher was axed. Ottawa was desperate for change.
DJ Smith took over Ottawa's bench for the 2019-20 season and attempted to turn the youthful Senators around -- Brady Tkachuk, Josh Norris and Drake Batherson were already in the lineup then, and by 2020 Ottawa had drafted first-rounders Tim Stutzle and Jake Sanderson.
Dorion upped the ante in 2022 in an effort to end the rebuild, trading for Alex DeBrincat (then a pending restricted free agent) and Cam Talbot, and signing free agent Claude Giroux to bolster the Senators' chances. Ottawa missed the playoff that next season by six points.
DeBrincat, though, had seen enough. He told the Senators he wasn't open to signing a long-term deal, so Dorion traded him to Detroit. Talbot wasn't retained, either. Suddenly the Senators were in the swing of significant turnover from seemingly every corner -- following Melynk's death in 2022, the franchise was sold in June 2023 to businessman Michael Andlauer. A new era -- at least in that respect -- had begun. But it was a bumpy beginning.
Near the start of the 2023-24 season, Ottawa was reprimanded by the league and docked a first-round draft pick for their invalidated 2021 trade involving Evgenii Dadonov and the Anaheim Ducks. That punishment cost Dorion his job in November 2023; Staios, who was Ottawa's president of hockey operations at the time, took on GM duties, too.
The Senators' on-ice performance was reprehensible amid the background drama. Their woeful 11-15 record put Smith out by December, to be replaced by former coach and team adviser Jacques Martin. Despite Ottawa's talented young depth, the Senators slumped again to finish seventh in the Atlantic.
There were three key philosophical shifts thereafter that led them from the basement to the postseason, with the long-term belief that this is just the beginning of a new era of contention.
Ottawa trusted the process
Stutzle didn't hold back after the Senators clinched their postseason berth. In fact, he probably spoke aloud what most of his teammates were thinking.
"We've been through some s--- here," Stutzle said, directly following that loss to Columbus. "Some tough years. I'm just really proud of the guys, how we're all hanging in here. I don't think there's a team who deserves it more than us. I think we worked really hard this year."
Ottawa's current success wouldn't have come about -- or feel nearly so good -- if it weren't for a challenging recent history.
When Thomas Chabot debuted in 2016-17 with the Senators, they had missed the playoffs only four times since 1996-97. The young blueliner thought he would see plenty of postseason action in the NHL. Instead, it would take over 500 career games before Chabot was assured his first crack at Game 83.
"You're not going to see me smile a whole lot after a loss," Chabot joked when the Senators secured their spot, "but, man, it feels great."
Tkachuk can relate. The Senators' captain has more than 500 pro games under his belt and over 400 career points. He has tried willing Ottawa to the postseason in prior seasons, and they've come up frustratingly short. Tkachuk's commitment to the Senators was never in doubt, though -- something he doubled down on when trade rumors began circulating earlier this season.
The Senators were still clawing their way up the standings in early February when Tkachuk found himself linked by media reports to the New York Rangers.
Andlauer was furious, and even wanted the Rangers investigated for soft tampering with Ottawa's top forward. Tkachuk let his play do the talking as he continued to lead the Senators up front. The whole situation was a distraction for the Senators and directly opposed to an internal strategy focused on leveraging its young core toward that elusive playoff return.
But those rising stars couldn't get there alone. It's veterans like Giroux and David Perron who have supported the club's maturation with critical leadership. Giroux has been in the fold since signing as a free agent in 2022, proving he hadn't lost a step by pumping in 35 goals and 79 points the following season. The 35-year-old has continued to play a considerable role in Ottawa's offense and keeps the group even-keeled when roadblocks crop up.
"Some games maybe we weren't at our best. But we've been finding ways," Giroux said. "When you're not playing your best and you're finding ways to win, that's a good sign. You can just tell that everybody wants to play the right way. It's fun to play that way."
Giroux can also lean on past playoff experience -- although he hasn't had much of it in the last decade. Since the 2012-13 season in Philadelphia, Giroux has been to the postseason just five times, most recently as part of Florida's 2021-22 campaign. And he has never won a Stanley Cup.
Perron has, with St. Louis in 2019, along with a Cup Final run with Vegas the year prior. He knows what it takes to scale that mountain. And while it's hard to predict the Senators will be making it all the way there this year, an initial stride toward that loftiest of goals is a crucial stage of Ottawa's development.
"I've won [before], but I see other guys like Claude, and so many other guys [who haven't]," Perron said. "You want to do it for them. You want them to experience a run, you want to give that experience to the younger players."
Ottawa slowly, surely put themselves in position to do it now. The lean years toughened up the team's top skaters. They won't take this opportunity for granted.
Ottawa found the right coach
The Senators needed a new voice to go along with their new owner and general manager. Travis Green -- hired in May 2024 -- was their guy.
It didn't take long for Green to recognize Ottawa was ready to put its losing ways on the shelf.
"From day one, they were open-minded, and open to wanting to win badly," Green said. "They're open to coaching, and it's the whole team. That's not always the case."
Green's résumé included just one other full-time head coaching role -- with the Vancouver Canucks from 2017 to 2021 -- and an interim head job closing out the New Jersey Devils' 2023-24 season.
He was referencing the Senators' coachability after the club endured its most trying stretch of the season -- a 5-8-1 run through November that could have torpedoed all hopes of playoff-level traction.
"[That] was a big part of our season," Green said. "It's one thing to say you're open to coaching. It's another thing to do it. Being able to have an honest conversation and players be open to hearing things they do not necessarily want to hear. But there are certain parts of every player's game where they must be a little better. [Then they have to] agree with it, and then try to do it."
In return, Green has earned praise from Ottawa's front office for the way he's steering the ship.
"The vision that Travis had, and how he's been able to coach this group and turn it from where we were last year to be able to play the type of hockey to give ourselves a chance to make the playoffs [is huge]," Staios said.
It was how Green shifted Ottawa's mindset -- and installed a winning structure -- that brought the organization's playoff vision to life. Staios knew Green was capable of setting the Senators on a path toward winning hockey games. But lots of coaches can draw up the X's and O's. What has made Green special is how players received his messaging and implemented it -- which is ultimately turning the tide for Ottawa.
"I know how badly they want to win," Green said. "You don't always get into the playoffs, but being on the side of our room, I truly felt like this group was willing to do whatever it took to take the next step. Now we've gotten there."
Ottawa fixed its defense, and got the right goaltending
This was the Senators' pièce de résistance: a full-scale buy-in to the defensive side of their game.
Ottawa had to lock in at both ends of the ice if they were ever going to see the playoffs. Green provided a blueprint. The players went to work seeing it through.
"I've learned a lot from [Green], especially [with] the defensive side of things," Tkachuk said. "It's easy to see now when he shows the mistakes that we've made and how we can correct them."
Again, it goes back to Ottawa's patience. Because the Senators didn't start this season as defensive stalwarts. Ottawa opened the season with an 11-12-2 record, sitting 26th overall and eighth in goals against per game (3.20).
Emotions ran high, and often boiled over. But Green stuck to his philosophies and stood behind his players as they absorbed what he was trying to teach them. The faith Green had that he could turn Stutzle, Tkachuk & Co. into 200-foot players was a complement to his belief in their abilities. The Senators' core only needed to apply itself.
"He's got a unique way of being hard and holding players accountable," Staios said of Green. "But also developing that relationship and having a real honest, open line of communication."
Eventually, Ottawa was on track. In the next 25 games from early December through January, the Senators showed true progress on the defensive end, going 15-8-2 and giving up the second-fewest goals per game in the league (2.20).
All told, Ottawa has improved dramatically. They went from allowing 2.34 goals per game at 5-on-5 last season to just 1.84 this season. The Sens have 21 wins this season when they were outshot by an opponent, tied for fourth most in the NHL. By comparison, that's more than the Senators had their previous two seasons combined.
Ottawa had to be diligent defensively given they couldn't always rely on offense to save the day. The Senators rank 22nd this season in scoring (2.89 goals per game) and are 30th in even-strength goals (131). The club's 15th-ranked power play (22.8%) has come in handy on occasion.
Regardless, what Green is establishing in Ottawa isn't a one-and-done system. This is a foundation for how the Senators can be reborn as a team that anticipates a postseason run each year. And Ottawa's defensive upswing is owed not just to Green and the skaters up front, but to the Senators' (finally) reliable goaltending.
Ottawa had churned through their share of goalies during that seven-year playoff drought. Craig Anderson made the most starts (133) in that span before departing in 2020. There were failed experiments with Matt Murray and Talbot. Anton Forsberg (with 130 starts) did his best to fill the voids and Joonas Korpisalo had a short, unsuccessful stint with the Senators too.
It wasn't until June that Ottawa reeled in the right No. 1. Staios brokered a deal with Boston to bring on Linus Ullmark, and Ullmark immediately signed a four-year extension to affirm his commitment to the organization.
Ullmark had just won a Vezina Trophy in 2023 and shared the William M. Jennings Trophy that same season with Bruins' teammate Jeremy Swayman. That Boston decided to back Swayman as their guy going forward and not Ullmark was all the better for Ottawa; notably, the Senators are in the playoffs this season while Boston is in line for a top-5 draft pick.
Ullmark endured injury issues but emerged as a bona fide stalwart compared to what Ottawa has been used to in the crease. Last season, the Senators boasted a collective .879 save percentage. This season, Ullmark has a 24-14-3 record, with a .911 SV% and 2.67 goals-against average. That's the third most wins ever by a goaltender in his first full season with Ottawa. And Ullmark has been a terrific partner to Forsberg, who has seen his own stats improve this season as well (10-12-2, .904 SV% and 2.66 GAA).
Linus Ullmark dives and catches the puck to prevent a goal against the Bruins.
Now Ullmark wants the Senators' tandem to excel in a playoff scene. The veteran has his own memories of long playoff-less stretches from a seven-year run with the Buffalo Sabres. And while Ullmark did get to experience hockey's second season in three consecutive years with Boston, he still commiserates with Ottawa teammates who are just stepping on that stage now.
"I'm happy now that the guys now that have been there for a long time," Ullmark said. "Like [Chabot] and [Tkachuk], for example, to have been there the longest, and now have an opportunity to play really meaningful games and get into a position where you can battle for the Cup."
Ottawa may not hoist Lord Stanley's chalice this season, or in years to come. The point is that they're now officially in the fight. That's all Chabot wanted when he arrived in Ottawa, to be a player -- rather than spectator -- of late spring hockey.
At long last for the Senators, that dream has officially come to life.