Senators Hire Davis Payne as Assistant Coach

The staff is beginning to round out.

Adding to an assistant staff that already includes Jack Capuano, D.J. Smith’s latest assistant is another one with NHL pedigree.

The Ottawa Senators announced, today, that they have hired Davis Payne as an assistant coach. The 48 year-old inked a three-year deal with the Sens, and was last an associate coach with the Buffalo Sabres for two years, when he was let go at the end of this past season, along with the rest of Phil Housley’s coaching staff.

After a lengthy stint in both the ECHL and AHL, Payne was hired as the head coach of the St. Louis Blues on January 2nd, 2010. He was fired 13 games into the 2012 season, after failing to reach the playoffs during his tenure.

Payne then moved on to the Los Angeles Kings for the 2012-2013 campaign, where he would spend the next five seasons, winning the Stanley Cup in 2014.

As a player, Davis Payne spent most of his career as a minor-leaguer, only appearing in 22 NHL games for the Boston Bruins. During the 1995 lockout, he played for the New Jersey Rockin’ Rollers, of Roller Hockey International, which makes him my favourite Sens coach of all time.

With a staff that now boasts, Smith, Capuano, and Payne, the Sens will look to finish hiring the rest of their staff as the summer goes on, hopefully with as awesome-sounding names as the rest. Supposedly, all the while searching for a new President of Hockey Operations...

We’ll keep you posted.


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