The Ottawa Senators are a tire fire, a fact that clearly isn’t lost on the players.
In fact, in recognizing the disaster they inadvertently stoked the flames.
The Sens, who are in the midst of a total rebuild, currently sit at 5-6-3 to begin the season. They were the second-worst team in the NHL last season, and are expected to end up right around there again once the dust settles on this campaign.
While in Phoenix during a late-October road trip that included a tilt with the Coyotes (which the Sens lost 5-1), seven players — Matt Duchene, Chris Wideman, Dylan DeMelo, Thomas Chabot, Alex Formenton, Chris Tierney and Colin White — were caught on a dash camera openly ripping the performance of their team as well as the coaching staff.
In the leaked video, the players took specific aim at assistant coach Marty Raymond, who is in charge of Ottawa’s special teams.
“Marty Raymond, the only coach in NHL history to have the worst power play and the worst PK within a calendar year,” Duchene said, via CBS Sports.
“Do you notice that when (Raymond) runs the video, if you actually do pay attention, he doesn’t ever teach you anything?” Wideman added. “He just commentates what’s happening.”
“We don’t change anything, ever,” Duchene responded. “So why do we even have a meeting? I haven’t paid attention in three weeks.”
Yeah, not great.
You can watch the whole video here, but be forewarned, it has quite a bit of NSFW language.
While the Sens’ penalty kill is a disaster (at 68.8 percent they sit at second-to-last in the NHL), their power play actually is seventh-best in the league (27.3 percent). Either way, both the players and head coach Guy Boucher released a statement in response to the video.
Make no mistake, openly flambéing your coaches and team performance isn’t a great idea, but the Uber driver making that clearly private conversation public is next-level shady.
