Why Can’t Travis Green be Transparent with Injuries?
Written by Tyler Beauchesne
Injuries and sports teams are a tale as old as the sports themselves. Every team deals with them in one way or another. With key injuries, great teams struggle, teams in the middle of the pack tank for the draft lottery, and bad teams get worse.
What all these situations have in common is that moves have to be made to compensate. In these situations, fans get up-to-date on what is happening with these players from coaches and how long they will be out…unless that coach is Travis Green.
Green’s first year with Ottawa is still an improvement from the DJ Smith era despite how it feels at this moment. He has made lots of progress with this core, making the fans believe in the team again and their ambition to make the playoffs. He is a solid coach and I have nothing but respect for him as a man and as a leader. However, I am not a fan of just this one thing.
A key flaw in his style is not being transparent with the public about the injuries that happen to the players and how long they will be out. I understand his experience with the Vancouver Canucks has made dealing with the public tough. I understand he does not want other teams “targeting” these areas when the player returns. I understand why he does it, but it does not make it any less frustrating to deal with as a fan.
Recently, Graeme Nichols tweeted this about Nick Jensen. Jensen has been struggling to perform in the last few games so the question needs to be asked: was he playing injured during that stretch and what does a “maintenance day” truly mean?
A maintenance day normally means a player misses practice but is still healthy enough to play. So if they take a maintenance day, they should be back in the lineup the next day…except with the Senators. On October 13, 2024, Green announced that goaltender Linus Ullmark was taking a maintenance day after playing against the Montreal Canadiens. Then the very next day, this Claire Hanna tweet appears in my feed:
So, Ullmark needed a “maintenance day” but the next day, goaltender Mads Soggard got an emergency call-up from the Belleville Senators. Why would the Sens need a call-up if it was only a maintenance day? Well, because Ullmark was out for almost two weeks with an injury. If that sounds confusing, that is because it kind of is. Although, we know now that maintenance day is code for short-term injury…well that is also not true.
On October 18th, my good friend Alex Adams at Sportsnet put this tweet out:
Okay so maintenance day means that they were out short-term just like Ullmark, but the very next day, both forward Shane Pinto and defenseman Thomas Chabot are back in practice lineups as seen in this tweet here:
So, maintenance day also means “out short-term” or “just for one practice”. Cool cool, totally not confusing whatsoever. On October 24, Shane Pinto was a “game-time decision” against the Vegas Golden Knights and was not in the lineup. Fine, I’m sure it’s nothing except it was not as three days later, it turns out Pinto was week-to-week with “undisclosed”.
You know what, Green disclosed defenseman Artem Zub’s concussion and forward David Perron dealing with personal matters so fine it is okay to be picky. However, the pickiness only gets more frustrating.
In December, Ullmark finds his resurgence and returns to form as a top-five goaltender in the league. It was beautiful to witness and gave the fans hope again. Then on December 22 against the Edmonton Oilers, Ullmark had to leave after the first period because of “back tightness”. That’s fine, it’s only one game, and it is the holiday break. Back tightness can be healed in a few days, he will return when the break is over… except he did not.
On December 27, Green announced that Ullmark would not go on the western road trip due to a tweaked back. Then on January 5, 2025, there was finally some transparency as Green announced that Ullmark’s status was week-to-week. This process was incredibly frustrating as a fan because “minor” injuries become “out for weeks”.
Throughout the season, players would regularly show up to practice in yellow non-contact jerseys after getting the “maintenance day” status like forward Noah Gregor in November. Gregor was not in the lineup for a couple of games and then randomly showed up in the yellow jersey. Now, Green announced that Gregor is out again “for a while” as forwards Matthew Highmore and Zack MacEwen have been called up from Belleville to replace him. When will Gregor be back, great question as we do not know.
This is a frustrating process for fans as we only want to know timelines for when we can see players back on the ice. This story is not a knock on the players themselves as they have nothing to do with any of this and we only wish the best recovery for them. This story is about how difficult it is to go through this process on the outside.
We want to see these players night in and night out and when they cannot, we just want the reason why. Is that so hard to ask for? I might sound like a whining baby to others but I could not care less. I am sick and tired of this, and I know a lot of fans are too. It is not normal for players to randomly show up to practice in no-contact jerseys, or for maintenance days to become maintenance weeks. I do not want anyone playing through injury either, that is much worse in my opinion as that ruins their bodies and careers. I just want the truth to come out when the reporters ask Green about injuries. It is a normal thing that coaches do, and Sens fans deserve that normalcy if they cannot see these players on the ice.
