Ottawa Senators History.

Ottawa Senators, professional ice hockey team and one of five teams in the Northeast Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League (NHL). The Senators play at the Corel Centre in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, and wear uniforms of black, gold, and red. The original Ottawa Senators played from 1917 to 1934. The current team began play in 1992. The team’s name was chosen because Canada’s senate is based in Ottawa, the capital and administrative center of the country.

The original Ottawa Senators were among the NHL’s strongest teams from 1918 to 1927. They reached the playoffs in all but two seasons during this time and captured four Stanley Cup championships. The second Ottawa Senators franchise has encountered limited success.

The Senators helped found the NHL in 1917. The early team boasted four future Hockey Hall of Fame members—goalie Clint Benedict, right wing Harry “Punch” Broadbent, left wing Cy Denneny, and center Frank “Dutch” Nighbor. Head coach Pete Green led the Senators to three of their four Stanley Cup titles in the 1920s. At that time, the championship series was played between the winner of the NHL and the winner of the Pacific Coast Hockey Association (PCHA).

In the 1919-1920 season Benedict posted five shutouts in 24 games; that season he was the only NHL goalie to record a shutout. The Senators won the Stanley Cup in 1920 when they defeated the Seattle Metropolitans 3 games to 2. They won the cup again in 1921 when they defeated the Vancouver Millionaires 3 games to 2. In 1923 the Stanley Cup was played as a three-way competition between the champions of the NHL, the PCHA, and the Western Canada Hockey League (WCHL). The Senators won their third Stanley Cup championship in 1923 by defeating Vancouver of the PCHA 3 games to 1 and the Edmonton Eskimos of the WCHL 2 games to 0.

In the 1923-1924 season, Nighbor received the first Hart Memorial Trophy as the NHL’s most valuable player (MVP), and Denneny led the league in scoring. Coached by Dave Gill and led by goalie Alex Connell, who had recorded 15 shutouts in regular-season play, the Senators won their fourth Stanley Cup championship in 1927. In the finals they defeated the Boston Bruins 2 games to 0, with two additional games ending in ties. After several losing seasons, the club moved to St. Louis, Missouri, in 1934 and was renamed the St. Louis Eagles. The franchise was dissolved a year later.

A new Ottawa franchise called the Senators joined the NHL as an expansion team in 1992. Center Aleksey Yashin was the team’s leading scorer and one of its first prominent players. While the Senators won fewer than 15 games in each of their first three seasons, they showed some improvement in the 1995-1996 season, earning 18 victories. First-year right wing Daniel Alfredsson led the club with 61 points and won the Calder Memorial Trophy as the NHL’s rookie of the year. Goalie Damian Rhodes was also a notable player. In 1997 Ottawa reached the playoffs for the first time in its modern history, but the team was defeated by the Buffalo Sabres in the first round. The Senators again advanced to postseason play in 1998 and 1999.