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News Article: Sens hire DJ Smith as head coach

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Variable26 said:
Smith, 42, becomes the 14th head coach in the team's history. He has spent the last four seasons as an assistant coach on Mike Babcock's staff with the Toronto Maple Leafs. He joined Toronto in 2015-16 after leading the Ontario Hockey League's Oshawa Generals to the 2015 Memorial Cup title.

In three seasons as head coach in Oshawa, Smith compiled a record of 135-53-3-13 and earned the honour of the OHL's Coach of the Year after guiding the Generals to a 42-20-0-6 record in 2013-14. Oshawa finished with a 51-11-2-4 record during their championship season in 2014-15.

Before his time in Oshawa, Smith spent six seasons as an assistant coach with the OHL's Windsor Spitfires. During his tenure in Windsor, the Spitfires captured back-to-back Memorial Cup championships in both 2009 and 2010.

Smith has also played professionally, appearing in 45 career NHL games as a defenceman with both the Maple Leafs and Colorado Avalanche after being selected with the 41st overall pick by the New York Islanders in the 1995 NHL Draft.

He also spent parts of nine seasons playing in the AHL with the St. John's Maple Leafs and the Hershey Bears. A native of Windsor, Ontario, Smith played his junior hockey with his hometown Spitfires from 1994-97.

"D.J. Smith is a winner. We believe he is the best person to drive the development and success of the Ottawa Senators," said general manager Pierre Dorion. "D.J. is a great communicator and an exceptional strategist. His passionate approach, coupled with his ability to teach the game, is exactly what we were looking for throughout the process. We're thrilled to welcome D.J. and his family to Ottawa."
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DJ smith has a good track record motivating teenagers. That's it.

His track record in the NHL is bad. He is a meathead, we shall see how he fares with adults.
 
Do Make Say Think said:
Players love assistants. He's going to be an NHL HC now, it is a different game.

We don't know who asked for how much money. However, we can be certain DJ Smith was the cheapest option since he was the one with the weakest and shortest track record
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I think you are putting way too much into the cheapest option narrative.

None of the cadidates had much leverage in terms of salary negotiation, save Roy, and you can all but guarantee he was making more in Toronto as an assistant than say Mann is in Belleville or Leaman in Providence.

The guys with extensive experience in Martin and Bowness hadn't been head coaches for years. I'd get it if we were looking at vignault or quennville but we were only looking at cheep guys to begin with.
 
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I am meh on coaching choice, but did Dorion just say he is "okay with guys that dont have talent, but wont accept guys that dont have a winning attitude?"
 
Qward said:
I am meh on coaching choice, but did Dorion just say he is "okay with guys that dont have talent, but wont accept guys that dont have a winning attitude?"
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isn't that obvious? He's saying no matter what level of talent you have you should compete hard.
 
[TABLE="class: brtb_item_table"][TBODY][TR][TD]Questions[/TD][TD]Yes[/TD][TD]No[/TD][/TR]
[TR][TD]Alive?[/TD][TD]x[/TD][TD][/TD][/TR]
[TR][TD]Willing to play young guys?[/TD][TD]x[/TD][TD][/TD][/TR]
[TR][TD]Speaks French* at least attempts[/TD][TD]x[/TD][TD][/TD][/TR]
[TR][TD]Cheap[/TD][TD]x[/TD][TD][/TD][/TR][/TBODY][/TABLE]

Yup, checked all the boxes
 
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Micklebot said:
I think you are putting way too much into the cheapest option narrative.

None of the cadidates had much leverage in terms of salary negotiation, save Roy, and you can all but guarantee he was making more in Toronto as an assistant than say Mann is in Belleville or Leaman in Providence.

The guys with extensive experience in Martin and Bowness hadn't been head coaches for years. I'd get it if we were looking at vignault or quennville but we were only looking at cheep guys to begin with.
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DJ Smith had the least leverage of all the candidates. It is very safe to assume he was the cheapest option.

We'll never know but this organization's track record speaks for itself.
 
Do Make Say Think said:
DJ smith has a good track record motivating teenagers. That's it.

His track record in the NHL is bad. He is a meathead, we shall see how he fares with adults.
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He was an assistant to a team with a flawed group of dmen. Not sure how you can make definitive conclusion about his track record hen we can't even tease out what degree he was implementing his own ideas and how much was Babcocks
 
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I'll be honest I liked some of his answers, I only paid attention after the Canada win, though.

(Smith that is)
 
Qward said:
Leafs fan just pointed out a valid point. Melnyk criticized the leafs defense publicly. So the Sens hire the Leafs defense coach...
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As group the leafs blueline sucks so bad Melnyk that was impressed that Smith got a mediocre performance.
 
Micklebot said:
He was an assistant to a team with a flawed group of dmen. Not sure how you can make definitive conclusion about his track record hen we can't even tease out what degree he was implementing his own ideas and how much was Babcocks
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He didn't control personnel but the Leafs' D was bad at the positional-level (that is not personnel related) and the special teams went cold as the going got tough. It is not his fault Zatsiev is laughably bad defensively or that Sparks is a garbage goalie, agreed.

His track record in the NHL is weak.

Again, that doesn't mean he can't be a good HC for us. It is just explaining why so many of us are very unhappy.
 
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