Senators deliver on Redden’s special night as former defenceman’s journey comes full circle

The moment that @ReddenWade was inducted into the Senators Ring of Honour!#GoSensGo pic.twitter.com/hlfPEVdmwz

— Ottawa Senators (@Senators) December 13, 2022

The Ottawa Senators hope to make history as a franchise.

They are also catching up on their own history.

On Monday, Dec. 12, their silky smooth defenceman, Wade Redden, became the first Senators player named to the Ring of Honour and the second appointee ever, after general manager Bryan Murray in 2017.

Redden’s teammates, Daniel Alfredsson and Chris Phillips, have already had their jersey numbers retired and Alfredsson was recently inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame. Those “expansion Sens” of 1992-93 are growing up.

“I remember being at Terry O’Reilly’s jersey retirement and at Larry Robinson’s,” Redden said, prior to his Ring of Honour ceremony at the Canadian Tire Centre (CTC). “Not to put myself on the same pedestal as those guys, but yeah, there’s a history that’s been built here, and it’s 30 years for the organization. So, it takes time.”

Now 45, looking as lean and fit as the day he joined the Senators as a 19-year-old, Redden has come full circle. He works in player development for the Senators, helping out youngsters like impressive rookie Jake Sanderson. Redden is awed by the poise and flair of these emerging stars, already polished by the time they reach the National Hockey League (NHL).

Coincidentally, Redden and current Senators head coach D.J. Smith attended an Islanders training camp and roomed together, back in 1995.

Looking back on an NHL career that launched in 1996, Redden finds that the memories blur, but he surely remembers scoring his first goal on his first shot in his first NHL game, versus the Montreal Canadiens.

As he spoke to reporters, Redden looked to the back of the room with pride at sharing the Ring of Honour moment with his wife, Danica, and their three young daughters Leni, Harper and Ryann. Also on hand was Wade’s father, Gord, who was a constant presence at this same rink once the farming season was over.

Redden wasn’t a Senators draft pick, but it always felt as though he was homegrown. Selected by the New York Islanders second overall in 1995, Redden was traded to the Senators in January of 1996 for the player Ottawa had picked first overall in 1995, Bryan Berard.

Redden, who grew up Lloydminster, Sask., heard about the trade on the car radio while he was en route to the rink in Prince George for a junior all-star game. His agent, Don Meehan, pointed out that these Senators had a new GM, Pierre Gauthier, and had just hired a new head coach, Jacques Martin. That same January the team moved out of the tiny Civic Centre and into the new Palladium in Kanata (now the CTC).

“I remember coming to that first training camp and we ended up having 11 new players,” Redden says. “The team took a really big step and I got the opportunity to play – I ended up playing all 82 games that year, which got my feet under me.

“It was a great place to be for a small-town guy. I felt comfortable and at home here. I really grew up here.”

The 1996-97 Senators qualified for the post-season with a victory over Buffalo in the final game of the regular season, marking the first time in franchise history that Ottawa had reached the playoffs. They lost their opening series to the same Sabres team in a seven-game series.

Wearing the familiar number six, Redden quickly became a mainstay on the Senators blueline, along with another defenceman from the Canadian west, Chris Phillips, drafted first overall by Ottawa in 1996. Oddly enough, as close as the pair were off the ice, they rarely played together on it.

That first core group of young players – Alfredsson, Marian Hossa, Martin Havlat, Redden, Phillips and later Jason Spezza – remain close friends today.

“We’re like brothers,” Redden says.

With his slick two-way game and crisp first pass, Redden often played alongside Karel Rachunek, and others, while Phillips became a shutdown D-man next to Anton Volchenkov.

As a group they grew and prospered – Redden’s Senators never missed the playoffs during his Ottawa years (“there were some quick exits, though,” he quipped). Redden put up 45 career NHL playoff points, including 10 in nine games in 2006.

Phillips went on to become a Sens lifer and had his number four jersey retired in February of 2020. Together, the great pals were part of a contending team that reached the Eastern Conference Final in 2003 and the Stanley Cup final in 2007. Their best team might have been 2005-06, until goaltender Dominik Hasek got hurt.

“Our teams were so committed to each other,” Redden says. “And we played as a team. I think that’s really what drove a lot of our success, especially early on.”

Off the ice, Redden set the tone with his charity work, most notably with Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario patients – whom he welcomed to watch Senators games in his ‘Wade’s World’ suite. The club announced that the Wade’s World CHEO suite has been reinstated for this season.