The Ottawa Senators have failed to advance to the Stanley Cup Playoffs in each of the last six National Hockey League seasons — but head coach DJ Smith thinks the team is competitive enough to knock on the door in 2023-24.

The squad has made significant changes to the roster for the second straight season, trading away Alex DeBrincat and signing free agents Vladimir Tarasenko and Joonas Korpisalo this summer.

“I think the biggest thing is the inner competition,” Smith said on TSN1200 this week. “We don't just have one or two top forwards or defencemen. We have guys that can take another spot on any given day. The job of the coach is to recognize who's going and put them on the ice when they're going. That's how we feel we can get ourselves over the hump, is that inner competition among the team.”

The Senators boast one of the deeper top-six groups in the league after adding Tarasenko, as well as Dominik Kubalik in the DeBrincat trade. The goal for the team is to stay healthy in 2023-24, especially after losing forward Josh Norris and goaltender Anton Forsberg for a large chunk of last season due to injuries.

“The biggest thing for us is we have to be healthy. If we're healthy we're going to be a really competitive hockey team,” Smith explained. “Especially with Josh we're a completely different hockey team.”

Smith said that a few of the team's players have already offered to switch positions in order to facilitate different offensive looks, including star forward Drake Batherson saying he will move to left wing and veteran Claude Giroux also offering to play the wing.

A big part of the team's proposed success will come from Tarasenko, a former 40-goal scorer and Stanley Cup champion with the St. Louis Blues in 2019.

“I've spoken to Vladdy at length throughout this process and got his feelings on what he wants out of this,” said Smith. “The biggest thing he wants is to win. My job is to get everyone at their best.”

It's clear that the expectations are high in Canada's capital as the Ottawa Senators look to return to the dance for the first time since reaching the Eastern Conference Final in 2017.