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If there’s been one sore point for the Ottawa Senators over the last decade, it’s been shaky play in the defensive zone. There is a mountain of fired coaches to prove the point.

The explicit message in hiring new head coach Guy Boucher: It’s time to get this reasonably talented team into the playoffs. The implicit message in hiring Boucher: It’s time to fix the issues in the defensive third, an accomplishment that has escaped essentially every coach predating his reign.

Boucher has had success on the defensive zone overhaul front once before, in his prior stop with Tampa Bay. Before Boucher took over the Bolts in 2010, they were notoriously leaky on the shots against front – Rick Tocchet’s team were seventh worst in shots against at 5-on-5 and fifth worst in shots against in all situations.

It was an obvious sore point for the team then, and led to Boucher’s introduction (and, at times, a 1-3-1 trap system).

The effects were obvious. Below are the two-year splits during the Tocchet and Boucher eras. From a shot-generation-against standpoint, the disparity was night and day:

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The improvements on the defensive end, at least in year one, paid major dividends. Boucher pushed his previously underperforming team all the way into the Eastern Conference Final. But Tampa Bay couldn’t sustain the same level of success in years two and three – and despite the incremental improvements made from the previous Tocchet era, Boucher was let go in 2012-13.

It’s interesting that Boucher has essentially been tasked with solving the same exact issues in Ottawa. Again, let’s look at the Senators in prior periods – it tells a fascinating story as to why a franchise with a wide-ranging calibre of teams has often struggled when it came to unburdening their goaltender.

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Clouston’s team actually showed the signs of being average defensively, but that situation devolved during his tenure. The Senators’ all situation rank in Clouston’s first full year was fourth. By year two, they had slid to 20th.

It’s been a disaster ever since. The Senators have only bettered of two teams (the Buffalo Sabres and Toronto Maple Leafs) since 2011 – two teams that have been anything but competitive, to say nothing of the fact that both teams have at least one tank year under their belt in that span.

The Boucher era is obviously in its very early stages – the sample you are looking at here is just three games worth of data in their games against Toronto, Montreal, and Detroit. But in all three of those matches we have seen a team that has struggled at times with cleanly exiting the defensive zone and limiting the opposition to one-and-done attacks.

They’ve looked equally vulnerable against lines that can attack with speed and lines that can attack on the cycle. Without saying as much, I bet Boucher still considers this very much a work in progress. And yet, with three games under their belts, there’s been a marginal improvement from the low bar set in prior years.

The primary driver for positive change here will ultimately be Boucher’s impact on the second- and third-defensive pairings in Ottawa. Erik Karlsson and Marc Methot are going to play their high-tempo, attack-at-all-costs style that will always pan out as optimal strategy for that group. To that end, a lot of the clean-up duty will be left to the Dion Phaneuf/Cody Ceci and Mark Borowiecki/Chris Wideman pairings. Historically, these groups have offered significantly less in the offensive zone. And because of that, they need to be better in slowing down the opposition attack.

Time will tell if Boucher has the cure for what has traditionally ailed this organization, but considering how leaky this group has been, it shouldn’t be difficult for the new coaching regime to improve the status of this defence in year one.