After a Few Surprises, Senators Opening Night Roster is Set

After a few days of roster moves, the Senators have their roster set for the start of the regular season. On Sunday, I wrote about the surprising waiver decisions made by the Senators. I considered including a paragraph about Carter Yakemchuk making the team. Thankfully I held off, as yesterday the Senators announced that he was being sent back to the WHL. The other announcement was that Zack Ostapchuk was being sent to the AHL, and Adam Gaudette, who cleared waivers, was going to start in the NHL on the Senators roster. Let’s dive in and take a close look at the 2024-25 Ottawa Senators

 READ MORE: Looking at the Critical First 20 Games for the Ottawa Senators

Forwards

Tkachuk-Stützle-Giroux

Greig-Norris-Batherson

Perron-Pinto-Amadio

Gregor-Gaudette-Cousins

MacEwan

Analyzing the Forwards

As hockey fans are aware, lines are often switched up at the drop of the hat in the NHL. For now, let’s focus more on the entirety of this group. It feels like Sens fans have been waiting for years to see Stützle, Norris, and Pinto all play up the middle for a significant amount of games, together. Now, there’s also Ridly Greig as a young centre that will have to start on the wing, which is by no means a problem. With his feisty style, he can channel his inner Brad Marchand and wreak havoc as a winger.

Steve Staios did a nice job bringing in solid veteran forwards to surround the talented, younger forwards. Given their time spent with winning organizations, you can expect the likes of Perron, Amadio, and Cousins to demonstrate the importance of attention to detail and commitment to two way play. I’m happy to see Gaudette receive the chance to stick around. His preseason play earned him some NHL games, now it’s time for him to make the most of them.

There’s a few internal battles with this group that I’m interested to see play out. As far as depth forwards, Gregor, Gaudette and even Cousins will have to stay in Travis Green’s good books. Not only is MacEwan waiting for his chance, but there are also a few players in the minors, most notably Zack Ostapchuk, who will be pushing for their opportunity as well. As for the top guys, it will be interesting to see who gets to play on the top power play. There’s also a bit of a battle between Norris and Pinto, who both have their sights set on big minutes and quality linemates up the middle.

Defense

Sanderson-Zub

Chabot-Jensen

Kleven-Hamonic

Bernard-Docker

Analyzing the Defense

Last season, Ottawa undoubtedly had a very talented group on defense. In the end, they scored a bunch of goals, but they were also fairly soft. There was a redundancy to the group with the likes of Chychrun and Brannstrom, given that the Senators also had Sanderson and Chabot as left-shot, puck movers. Flash forward to this season, and it looks like a more well-rounded group. Jensen shoots right, and is a more defensive minded d-man compared to Chychrun. Kleven is a much bigger, more physical bottom pairing d-man compared to Brannstrom. Nonetheless, there are still question marks with this group. Can Chabot stay healthy? How much left in the tank does Jensen have? Can Hamonic rebound from a bad year? Is Tyler Kleven ready? If nothing else, Senators fans can find solace in that top pair. Sanderson is a star in the making, and Zub is rock solid on the right side.

Goalies

Ullmark

Forsberg

Analyzing the Goalies

Ullmark provides the Senators with the most reliable goalie that they’ve had in a long time. It’s hard to find a team that made a bigger trade or free agent addition than the Senators did by adding Ullmark, given their need at the position. They went from from a huge question mark in Korpisalo, to a quality number one goalie. The questions are, can Forsberg rebound from last season, and can Ullmark handle a bigger workload? He played only 40 games last year, and 49 in his Vezina winning season the year before. Regardless, there’s no reason the Senators can’t receive much better goaltending this year because of the great trade made by Steve Staios in the offseason.

So, there you have it. This is the Ottawa Senators roster to start the season. The long wait is nearly over. The Senators quest to get back to the playoffs starts this Thursday at 7pm, at home against the Florida Panthers.