Ottawa Senators 2023-24 season preview: Playoff chances, projected points, roster rankings

The pressure is rising for this Ottawa Senators team to finally turn the corner.

Ottawa seemed primed to do it last year, after some really smart offseason additions and a splashy deadline acquisition. The Pesky Sens made it interesting late in the season, but ultimately fell short.

Another piece of the core was locked up this summer in Jake Sanderson. Goaltending was addressed with the Joonas Korpisalo signing, and Alex DeBrincat was replaced with Vladimir Tarasenko. Add Josh Norris returning from injury plus last season’s Jakob Chychrun trade and management is betting on this team to take the next step. After finally playing some meaningful games in the spring, Ottawa has to take it further by reaching the playoffs.

The race is on between three up-and-coming Atlantic Division teams, but the Senators start the season in the driver’s seat.

The projection

The Senators may have lost DeBrincat, but they’re far from doomed. On the contrary. That loss is covered by a flurry of other moves from this summer.

Combine all that with some internal growth and Ottawa is on track to make an eight-point improvement toward 94 points. With a 52 percent chance of making it, the Senators should be right in the thick of the playoff race.

Of all the bubble teams the Senators have the best shot, though they still remain on the outside in ninth. That’s life in the East and even if Ottawa doesn’t make it this year, the Senators will be ready to break through in the future. Their young core is too strong not to.

A lot is riding on just how much that young core can grow going into this year and that makes Ottawa a fairly volatile team. The Model expects a sizable jump, but it’s possible that expectation is either too bullish or too bearish. It wouldn’t be a shock to see Ottawa explode into contention similar to the New Jersey Devils last season. It also wouldn’t be a shock to see the Senators stagnate either, similar to the Vancouver Canucks every season.

That’s the beauty of being an average team, the season really could go either way. But even average is a step in the right direction for a franchise that’s been well below it for the past six seasons. The Senators are on the right path.

Percentiles with the bar graphs are based on each player’s Offensive, Defensive and Net Rating relative to their time-on-ice slot, i.e. the first forward is compared to other first forwards only.

The strengths

Of the three youthful, interesting Atlantic Division teams facing increased expectations — Detroit and Buffalo being the others — Ottawa grades out first in the projections. If you’re outside Ottawa, this may come as a surprise. It shouldn’t.

From an offensive standpoint, the forward group is structured well. There are high-end pieces at the top, a second level of quality support and a bottom six that, at least relative to their peers league-wide, shouldn’t cause any harm to the greater good.

Tim Stützle, who won’t turn 22 until January, is coming off a 90-point, level-jumping season that saw him make tremendous progress as a point producer and chance creator. Last season, after a 58-point sophomore season that suggested he was a season or two away from playing like a true first-liner at five-on-five, he was high-end across the board. He was at his best carrying the puck on the rush, but, like other Ottawa forwards, generally showed a diverse offensive skill set.

Stützle projects to be a top-25 player in Offensive Rating this season, 11th among centers, and again finish around 85-to-90 points. He’s certainly capable of more, given his age, skill level and the leap in productivity we all witnessed, but it’s worth noting that consistent 90-point players are rare. That projection isn’t a slight, nor should that production be a disappointment. Six players total have hit the 90-point mark in each of the last two seasons: Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Matthew Tkachuk, Mikko Rantanen, Mitch Marner and Artemi Panarin. Some big names are missing from that group.

Brady Tkachuk, the Sens’ other elite offensive piece, fell a bit short of the 90-point mark, finishing with 83 (35 goals, 48 assists) and augmenting that with elite five-on-five impacts all over the place; shot volume, scoring chances, and outstanding passing ability, especially for a physical, grit-factor forward. All that, particularly the uptick in playmaking, makes him a major asset and a perfect fit with Stützle for, perhaps, the next decade. Offensively, Tkachuk’s only clear area for improvement — and this critique goes back to his eight-goal freshman season at Boston University — is his finishing skill. No player in the league last season — no player since Alex Ovechkin in 2007-08, in fact — had more expected goals overall than Tkachuk’s 52.

That wasn’t simply a function of his power-play work either, either; Tkachuk was third with 25 expected five-on-five goals. If he adds a touch of polish or has a little more luck, his first 40-goal season is on the way. He gets to the net as well and as often as anyone; he just needs to find the back of it with a bit more regularity. Claude Giroux, Stützle and Tkachuk’s likely right winger, remains a solid play-driver and producer at five-on-five (42 points) and on the power play (37). He also gives his line some semblance of a defensive conscience.

Josh Norris missed the vast majority of last season due to a shoulder injury that required two surgeries, and the Sens’ forward group may well hinge on whether he can be a strong second-line center behind Stützle. The belief here is that he’ll come through, both as a producer and one of Ottawa’s few forwards with positive defensive value. In 2022-23, he scored 35 goals and played at a 43-goal pace. That came with some caveats — he scored just 16 of them at five-on-five and shot 20 percent — but still, 2Cs with that type of finishing ability don’t grow on trees.

He also pairs well with Drake Batherson, who remains a solid five-on-five point producer despite last season’s dip. It’s worth noting, too, that he didn’t have Norris around to finish his set-ups. In 2021-22, Batherson led the Sens’ regular skaters in points per 60 at five-on-five and overall. The idea of him as a facilitator for Batherson and Vladimir Tarasenko, who still has plus offensive ability, is interesting. It’s a very strong top six that could form two “first” lines that are especially dangerous with the puck. By Offensive Rating the group is at plus-53, a mark that ranks eighth in the league behind six legitimate contenders and the upstart Sabres.

The bottom six is generally filled with solid, unspectacular players who fit in their roles, though prospect Ridley Greig showed some flashes in his first 20 NHL games earning an average Game Score of 0.67. The Athletic’s Corey Pronman says Greig has NHL-caliber speed and skill, high-end compete and a second-line ceiling, depending on the team. He was the No. 28 pick in 2020 and should have a home on Ottawa’s third line for 2022-23.

Ottawa’s blue line, ranked 11th in the league, might be a touch underrated, though how Thomas Chabot and Jakob Chychrun work together remains to be seen; they played 35 minutes together after Chychrun was acquired from the Coyotes. Small sample size, but they earned an impressive 59 percent of the expected goals together. Chychrun had some strong transition numbers last season and should give Ottawa another puck-moving weapon from the back-end if his numbers translate to tougher minutes (he was surprisingly sheltered in Arizona).

The play of Jake Sanderson and Artem Zub, their likely second pair, deserves some credit. Sanderson’s new deal may have given some people sticker shock, but he’ll be worth it real soon. He was Ottawa’s best puck-moving defenseman last year and should pair very well with Zub, an underrated stay-at-home type. No regular Sens defender posted a lower goals against/60 last season than Zub’s 2.1, a lower expected goals/against per 60 or fewer shots against/60.

On the third pair, Erik Brannstrom, one of the pieces Ottawa received from Vegas in the Mark Stone trade, had the best expected goals differential/60 on the team in his first full NHL season. He may not be a true top four defender, but he can absolutely crush sheltered minutes and gives this team serious depth.

GO DEEPER

Senators' big question: Are the offseason additions enough to make Ottawa a playoff team?

The weaknesses

This is unlikely to surprise anyone: Ottawa’s defensive play up front was an issue last season, and it’s projected to be an issue again in 2022-23. For all of Stützle and Tkachuk’s offensive fireworks, the Sens were outscored with them on the ice at five-on-five. Is it possible they outscore their problems this season? Sure — but it’s also unlikely. As we mentioned earlier, stacking 90-point seasons, as Stützle is attempting, is difficult. Projecting more finishing touch for Tkachuk isn’t out of line, but it’s also far from a guarantee.

So, for the time being, the top of the lineup is projected to bring negative defensive value. It’s worth reiterating though that Stützle and Tkachuk improved offensive facets of their games by leaps and bounds last season, and both are still in the front half of their 20s. It also should be said that their expected goals percentage was each higher than their actual and that the Sens goalies put up sub-.900 save percentages with them on the ice. Ideally, that would change. Some of the responsibility, though, falls on the two franchise forwards. To Stützle’s credit, he did have above-average defensive results in his sophomore season so it’s clear the tools are there — he just has to put them all together.

The third line is also a work in progress; Shane Pinto needs to take a larger step than what the model projected for him, regardless of his linemates. Pinto managed just 1.31 points-per-60 last season at five-on-five — and that’s while spending a lot of time next to Alex DeBrincat. He’s still only 22, though, and had some of his on-ice results affected by Ottawa’s goaltending, as well.

On the blue line, Chabot needs to bounce back from a pair of stagnant seasons, as shown in his drop on the Player Tiers from 3B to 4B. He’s still driving play from the back end, but the results at five-on-five have dropped off. Among the 212 defensemen who’ve played at least 1,000 total minutes over the past two seasons, Chabot was 118th in points/60 with 0.84, between Sean Durzi and Dante Fabbro. His defensive play didn’t go up as his productivity dropped, either; he was 164th in expected goals against/60. Chabot is capable of more — injuries and a series of overextended partners are certainly a factor — and for Ottawa to progress, he’ll need to show, once again, that he’s a better-than-average No. 1 defenseman. Right now he falls below the mark.

Part of that hinges on how he meshes with Chychrun. Chychrun played 12 games with the Sens before an injury ended things, and he’s played more than 56 games just twice in his seven NHL seasons. Chychrun’s health is the difference between Ottawa’s Net Rating climbing as high as plus-19 if he plays 82 games or as low as plus-12 if he only manages around 50 games again.

An undercover red flag for the Sens, though, is an overreliance on the power play. They spent more time on the man advantage than any other team last season, with a gap between them and second place larger than the one between second and 10th. Stützle and Tkachuk, specifically, were 10th and 11th in the league in total penalties drawn. That skill, valuable as it may be, doesn’t typically repeat itself to this extreme of a team-wide level. The bright side is that, if a lower number of opportunities is indeed on the way, the Sens will still likely cash in at an above-average rate and they’ll have Tarasenko and Norris back in the mix. Both are assets. The Senators were top 10 in overall percentage, expected goals/60 and actual goals/60 on the power play — the difference will be that they should finish closer to that range rather than second overall in total power-play goals. If Ottawa finished with the same power play ice-time as Boston in fifth, the team would’ve finished with eight fewer power play goals scoring at the same rate, good for ninth in the league. Big difference.

Ottawa is going to need all the offense it can get, especially if it turns out the team’s goaltending isn’t as solved as it looks. Joonas Korpisalo currently grades out as a below-average starter with the model wanting to make sure last year was the real deal rather than an aberration after a lengthy history of sub-par play. The Senators invested a lot in it being the former, but the latter has potential to destroy any and all progress displayed elsewhere.

Was Jakob Chychrun’s bounce-back season an aberration? (Richard A. Whittaker / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

The wild card

Can Jakob Chychrun live up to the hype?

Ottawa’s blue line is a huge strength going into the season and part of that is the addition of Jakob Chychrun.

He had a huge bounce-back season with the Coyotes, scoring 28 points in 36 games while posting excellent five-on-five numbers relative to the team. He looked like a true top-pairing option and is projected to be Ottawa’s best defenseman this season.

When we did our annual player tiers project earlier this month however, opinions were much less rosy. There were many around the league who felt our opinion of Chychrun was too high.

“I think he’s a solid second pair D when he’s healthy, but I don’t think he’s ever really shown top-end ability,” one team front office executive said. “I just don’t see him as a difference-maker.”

One of the reasons to give pause: Chychrun’s “bounce-back” being an orchestrated ploy by the Coyotes to prop up his trade value. On the surface, everything sparkled and even his tracked data from Corey Sznajder looked excellent. But Chychrun got surprisingly cushy usage for a player of his stature on a bad team; he was sixth in quality of competition and first in offensive zone starts. It’s worth noting that half of his 28 points were secondary assists too.

That all came to roost in Ottawa where Chychrun had a very tough time getting acclimated. Ottawa earned just 45 percent of the expected goals during his 12-game stint (before he got injured, of course) which was far below the team average. Defensively he was a wreck.

Maybe those are kinks Chychrun can work through as he familiarizes himself, but the possibility that Ottawa paid too much for a player who may not stay healthy and can’t actually handle a top pair role is very possible.

To make the playoffs, Ottawa needs Chychrun to be as good or better than advertised.

The best case

Stützle keeps developing into a star, Tkachuk does a better job converting on his chances, and the return of Norris stabilizes the top-six. The Senators’ defense stabilizes which helps Korpisalo replicate his career year all the way to the playoffs. The vibes are great under new ownership that’s more than willing to invest in his club and elevate them on and off the ice.

The worst case

Chychrun can’t stay healthy, Chabot wilts as a number one, and Sanderson quickly doesn’t look to be worth his contract. Ottawa’s forward group falls short of playoff-caliber, and Korpisalo turns into a pumpkin. Another year outside the playoffs and without a top pick to bring in a high-end difference-maker.

The bottom line

The DeBrincat trade may have backfired, but that doesn’t totally derail what Ottawa is building. The Senators are still an exciting team on the rise with plenty of talent throughout the lineup that’s ready to make the jump. The front office has augmented that talent with some key reinforcements and the end result is a franchise on the cusp of a return to the playoffs.

That return is no guarantee and neither is progression from that exciting core. Development isn’t linear and Ottawa’s place on the bubble means it’s just as likely that the season ends in disappointment rather than success. Whichever way the season ends, it’s still clear there’s a bright future ahead.