Andreas Burakovsky knows the clock is already ticking on his Ottawa Senators start, and he’s not hiding from it.
After Monday’s practice, the winger said the adjustment to Ottawa’s structure has been tougher than he expected, with his own game still searching for the right blend of control and instinct.
“I think it’s been a little bit harder than I expected to adjust to the way we want to play,” the winger said after practice Monday. “As of now, I’m trying to focus so much on doing the right thing in our system that my instincts are maybe slipping a little bit.”
Burakovsky, who came over from the Chicago Blackhawks over the summer for a sixth-round pick, has yet to make much of a mark in his new colors. Through five games, he has no points and only two shots, and on Saturday against the Philadelphia Flyers, coach Travis Green cut his night to 9:14, keeping him on the bench for the final 11:40 as Ottawa chased the tying goal.
“I’m literally just trying to find a balance between the way we want to play and the way I can play,” he explained. “And as of now, I mean, I’m leaning more towards just doing the right things and show the coaching staff and my teammates that I can adjust to the system and play the system right, and then I’m finding the rest.
The good news for Ottawa is that Burakovsky isn’t the only forward whose finishing touch has gone missing. The broader issue has started to bite the whole offense, and that was easy to see last week, when the Senators managed just seven non-empty-net goals across four games. Over that same stretch, only the Flyers and Los Angeles Kings - both last in their conferences - scored fewer.
That drought has been made worse by a power play that has gone cold at the wrong time. Ottawa sits 27th in the league at 12.8 percent, a number that stands out even more because the Senators keep drawing penalties. They average 7:11 of power-play time per game, behind only the Florida Panthers at 8:01.
Dylan Cozens has also been in the middle of the discussion, and for him the issue is not a lack of looks. He has the second-highest individual scoring chance rate among Ottawa’s healthy forwards, but the finish still hasn’t come. He’s had a string of close calls, including Saturday when Dan Vladar made a glove save on his point-blank wrister on a partial break.
“Yeah, I don’t know,” Cozens said when asked by the Ottawa Citizen what’s stopped him from finishing. “I think I have done a lot of good things.
I think I’ve been playing hard, getting some chances, creating some chances. But at the end of the day, I’ve got to produce, and I haven’t been producing.”
Green tried a tweak at practice Monday, pulling Drake Batherson out of the top line and sending him on rushes with Burakovsky and Cozens. Batherson was the only Senator to score in the last game, and his fourth goal of the season came in that loss.
For now, general manager Steve Staios appears willing to let the group work through it. He is not expected to panic, and the organization is prepared to give the offense a reasonable amount of time to sort itself out. William Eklund’s ankle injury has also complicated the picture, though there is hope he could be back before the new year.
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