OTTAWA, Ontario — Alex DeBrincat’s serious expression, reflecting on his somewhat disappointing first season with the Senators, at last broke out into a grin Thursday when the question was posed.
Might he deliver a friendly hit on somebody Friday in his first game against the Blackhawks?
“Maybe Kaner,” he quipped. “I’ll probably have to fight after that one.”
DeBrincat and Patrick Kane, his former Hawks partner-in-crime, have indeed stayed in close touch ever since the former was surprisingly shipped off to Ottawa at the draft last summer. DeBrincat didn’t take the rumors seriously — they were “not really something you want to believe,” he said — until the trade suddenly happened.
Since then, things haven’t gone according to plan for either of them.
Kane obviously now finds himself in the midst of his own overwhelming trade drama. DeBrincat ventured to say he can’t imagine Kane “wants to be in a rebuild right now,” given what he knows about how the longtime Hawks cornerstone’s competitiveness.
And DeBrincat, who hoped the reloaded Senators would provide the opportunity to enjoy a real playoff run for the first time, hasn’t found that immediate team success.
The Senators entered Thursday sitting 13th in the Eastern Conference, seven points out of a wild-card spot, with a 26-24-3 record — even after winning five of their last six games. DeBrincat is certainly familiar with the feeling of aimlessness that radiates around the bottom edge of the playoff bubble.
“This year hasn’t gone great for us,” he said. “Coming into the year, expectations were high. We’re still a young team that’s still early in [the window of] what we have here. Maybe those expectations were a little too high. But we’re playing well right now. We’re still in the race.”
Individually, DeBrincat has adapted his style to the Senators’ grinding approach.
“We have a more physical team; everyone plays physical,” he said. “You don’t want to be the one guy that doesn’t. ... It gets you in the game quick. You have to have that work ethic every night. I would say I had that in Chicago, too, but it’s a different beast here.”
He is on pace to record 139 hits this season, which would shatter the career high of 101 he set last season. But points-wise, he hasn’t been quite as prolific. He ranks fourth on the Senators in both goals (18) and points (44) over 53 games — a 68-point pace, down from 78 last season.
He’s taking more shots than he did the last two seasons but scoring on fewer of them. And although his 51.7% scoring-chance ratio (at five-on-five) is his best since his rookie year, that hasn’t translated into actual results, as he sports a career-worst minus-15 rating.
The fact DeBrincat’s first Hawks meeting comes so deep into the season will make it “less weird,” he theorized. He’s comfortable now being a Senator rather than a Hawk.
And he did receive some reassuring news Thursday about his future in Canada’s capital, with Senators general manager Pierre Dorion saying there’s “no chance” DeBrincat gets traded again before the March 3 deadline.
This latest speculation had stemmed from his contract situation, as the Senators will have to tender him a whopping $9 million qualifying offer to keep him a restricted free agent come July. The Hawks’ anticipation of that conundrum played a role in their decision to move on, too.
How it will play out remains to be seen — DeBrincat said he “honestly doesn’t know too much” about what negotiations have occurred — but, for his sake, one hopes it leads to a situation where he finally experiences winning.
“You want to play in the playoffs,” he said. “That’s definitely a goal of mine. It’s something I want to do for years to come.”
