The Athletic Hockey Show - How To Fix: Ottawa Senators

Episode Date: August 12, 2026

Brady Tkachuk has taken his talents to South Beach, but are the Senators better off without their former captain or is this the beginning of a retool in Canada’s capital? Of the ten teams featured in the How To Fix series this offseason, the Senators are the only one to have made the playoffs last season. Sean McIndoe and Julian McKenzie discuss why that is the case, the strength of the team with the forward group, a defense corps that keeps getting better, and the ongoing sore spot for the Sens in goal.Host: Sean McIndoeWith: Julian McKenzieExecutive Producer: Chris FlanneryProducer: Jeff DometWatch full episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@theathletichockeyshowJoin our Discord Server: https://discord.gg/VTm9VjkFSubscribe to The Athletic: https://theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Athletic Hockey Show. I'm Sean McAnew with another edition of how do we fix this team. This is the summer series we've been doing where we check in on 10 teams that could maybe use a bit of help. And we see how we can get them into the playoffs and beyond. And today, it's a bit of a unique one. And I'll get into that in a second.

But we're taking a look at the Ottawa Senators. And I'm joined by Julian McKenzie, our senator's writer and national writer for the athletic. Julian, how's it going? It's going well, man. Hopefully you're enjoying your summer. How are you doing? I'm doing all right. It's, it's, okay, so this is an interesting one because we have, we have done.

or will do 10 of these altogether. And the Ottawa senators are the only team on the list that made the playoffs last year. You may have noticed, I stumbled just a bit in the intro because typically we say, this is how we're going to get this team back to the playoffs. And we don't have to do that for Ottawa. They've been in the playoffs two years in a row. They were the ninth best team. It says here in the NHL last season, 99 points.

maybe we get them back to winning a game in the playoffs would be the goal. But it is certainly I feel comfortable saying this is the best team that we have talked about in this series, which is maybe damning with faint praise a little bit. But there are obvious reasons why we're talking about these guys. So we have been dividing this into the position groups forward defense goalies. I don't think there's any question where we start with Ottawa. Life after Brady Kachuk. The captain is gone.

Arguably the best player on the team. Some would say definitely one of the key contributors is gone. Let's maybe even before we start replacing him, let's just go back to that trait because it's been a little while now. How shocked, if at all, were you when you heard that, yeah, after years of everyone saying Brady was just going to go to Florida to play with his brother, that that is exactly what happened. On a scale of 1 to 10, what was the surprise factor for you? I'm somewhere between a 6 and a 7. And maybe that's a little higher than most.

but I just felt that with the way things were revolving around Brady Kachuk, even if it does make sense that he might look at the situation in the waters and say, you know what, now's the time to get out and leave and go play in Florida and play with my brother, but not explicitly say that I'm doing this to play with my brother, but you get what I mean. There was a part of me that thought that in spite of everything that had gone on this past year, maybe you stick it out for one more year and you make this work because of the fact that you made it to the playoffs back to back years.

And even in that second year where you get swept by the Carolina Hurricanes, you still ran up against the now current Cup champion. You ran up against a really good team. You ran up against a team, which I'm sure we'll get into this later on in this episode, the senators could learn a thing or two or three or five or ten things. about the Carolina Hurricanes,

that might end up being their, their, like, inspiration going forward in terms of a team they'd like to emulate because of the defensive structure, the culture, all of that. But Brady Kachuk decided, you know what, now's the time to leave. And yes, like, that comes after

he said, you know what, I'm frustrated with my name being out there and all that. And I guess I kind of thought, you know what, because of everything he had in Ottawa, because of the fact that, yeah, the allure of going stateside is out there, next year could be sort of like a last dance sort of thing, even if he might not explicitly say that it was. That's where my brain was going with all of this.

So that's why I was more surprised than I think most, because I think a lot of people, particularly in this market, immediately went to the thoughts and feelings of, well, this day was probably going to come. it's here because as much as people were defending this, I think a lot of people felt it was inevitable he was going to leave. And let's get into that. The reaction was fascinating to me.

We're both located in Ottawa. And when I saw the news drop on Father's Day, I thought a few things. I said, you know, first, what a blockbuster. What a huge trade. you know, obviously the ramifications for both the Senators and the Panthers and all that hockey stuff. But then my second thought pretty quickly after that was, oh man, this Senator's fan base is going to be devastated. They're going to be furious because for the last five years, if you wanted to pick a fight with a Senators fan, this is the card you pulled, right? Brady's going to leave. Brady doesn't really want to be there.

Brady's going to go to Florida and play with his brother and you know it. and all of this stuff. And then it actually plays out. And this fan base that had defended this guy and pumped his tires and, you know, maybe overlook some of the antics and that sort of thing. Now he turns their back. The captain is bailing on the ship. And I thought, man, these fans are going to be furious.

And then I kind of went looking for the reaction. And I was surprised. It seemed like while there was. of that, there was an awful lot of Ottawa fans who were going, you know what, good, I'm, I'm, I'm ready to move on. I'm ready to turn the page. I was getting tired of the act. And that surprised me. So I guess my question to you is, did this fan base just, just flip on a dime here on this guy? Or was there an undercurrent here that maybe people like me were missing because we're not directly plugged into this team the way you are? Was there like, was there a little bit of growing frustration in this market with, the whole Brady-Kachuk experience. This past year led to that undercurrent, I would say.

A lot of fans felt disenchanted with Kachuk over how it felt as if there were some inconsistencies with his play, which is kind of funny when you look at his stats, even though he missed a quarter of the year with a thumb injury, he was still a near point per game player.

But he wasn't scrapping or fighting or going into the hard areas is many would like him to just some of the different attributes we expect of a power forward type player like Brady Kachuk for whatever reason a lot of fans felt was not there sufficiently enough and then of course the gold medal experience with with team USA and all the celebrating after the fact like even the first game back he had

like there were a few fans who were kind of muted to say the best in their praise for Brady Kichuk and his gold medal victory and the way that he handled certain questions in the media after the fact. I don't know if you remember there was the TikTok video that the White House put out

where they manipulated his voice to make it seem as if he was talking crap about Canada when it was not in fact the case. And I think some people were left dissatisfied with that entire experience. And I think it plays

into why some people felt, you know what? Now that he's gone, there's a sense of relief. There's also a pocket of sense fans who were happy about the trade because of the fact that at least they got a good return out of it in their eyes. They got three first round picks out of that. And they were able to flip one of those picks for William Eklin out in San Jose. Like for another story I was working on a couple months ago, there were a few fans who were like, yeah, like at least we got something for Brady Kichuk.

And I think a few more fans, as time goes on, they will bring that fact up, the fact that at least Brady Kachukh said, you know what, I'm not going to resign. And he gave the team an opportunity to trade him for assets. Like what his brother Matthew did in Calgary. I think more and more fans, and maybe this is a more general thing to speak of with other players, more fans are processing the fact that the idea of being a lifer like a Sidney Crosby playing for the same. team, that is becoming rarer and rarer as time goes on. So if you put yourself in a position where you might not want to play or stick out, stick it out for the entirety of your contract, but you give your team an opportunity to trade and get something for you,

your legacy in your now previous city could stand out better versus if you decide to leave for nothing. And that was, you know, a not a small part of this is that Brady Kachuk, we reportedly gave the senators a very short list of teams. And even then it was apparent that there was only one team. He wanted to go to the Panthers. Given that, you've got to give some credit to Steve Steyas and the senator's front office to get three first round picks plus a second.

You know, no, they didn't get any immediate help. And yeah, maybe there's some guys you look at on that Panthers roster and you say, would have been nice if they could have pride that guy away. But to get three first round, but the list of guys in the NHL who've been traded for three first round picks in one shot is, it's an extremely small list and it's a very weird one. It's Wayne Gretzky, obviously in the trade,

where there were three first round picks in addition to all the money and everything else. It's Glenn Wesley, who got traded from Boston to Hartford for three first first. round picks and uh which was very funny because jim rutherford the jama harford at the time was like ah we never hit on our first round picks anyway so we might as well try okay and then and if you think glen wesley's macao redberg got traded for four first round picks but that was in in some offer sheet weirdness where one team they signed chris grattan they gave up the four

first round picks and then the other team said we'll give you the picks back but instead we want this guy, this guy, and this guy. And so that's how it worked out. The point being, we've seen some very, very good players, superstar players in this league traded for certainly not the hall of draft picks that Brady Kachuk got. And I guess, you know, I look at this guy, put aside the politics and the podcast and the distractions and all of that. This is a guy who has had exactly one season in his career where he was a point of game player. And that was a year where he got 83 points in an 82 game season. So he just cleared the bar. Obviously, he brings things to the table that increasingly are

hard to find in this league. So he's not a guy you measure just by points. But is he a superstar? Is he a guy that leads a team into Stanley Cup contention? I don't know. And I guess now we won't find out in Ottawa. You mentioned William Ecklin. You mentioned what they did with the picks. is there a case to be made that the senators up front are going to be better? Heading into next year than they were, Claude Jouz's back, not any other really earth-shattering off-season moves. What's the optimist view here?

Like, is this, like, William Meckland isn't going to replace Brady Kachuk as that type of player, but can he replace the offense? Can he replace, can it work better? I guess is what I'm asking, despite the fact that they had to trade their captain way without getting any immediate help back from the Panthers. I always felt with the way that Kachuk trade went down, you couldn't just replace Brady Kachuk with one player. And unless the Sends had like some kind of like chamber in the bottom of at the basement of the CTC

where they're able to clone Brady Kachuk, like there was no way you were going to replace them with one player. Their hope with William Eklund, who has been a 50-point player the last two seasons in San Jose, is that he could grow into a 60 or a 70-point frontline player who has shown that he's able to score goals. Maybe not so much in bunches as a 30-goal scorer, but someone who at least has the potential to at least get better in that regard, while also being able to play in a top six role with some of the team's best centers, including Tim Stutzla. And Dylan Cousins is currently in that spot right now, but I've seen other people's deaf charts, and they're wondering, hey, maybe you put Dylan Cousins on the wing, maybe you move Ridley-Greg into a center position,

which speaks to a really underrated part about this team. They have depth on the forwards side. Like the fact that you have different players, I'd even mentioned Shane Pinto, who can go in and out of a center position. You can put them on wing if you want to, but my expectation is a Tim Stutzler, Dylan Cousins, Shane Pinto, one, two, three down the middle.

Like, that I think is there, strength and then you figure out who's going to be their four C because Lars Eller is no longer on this team. He actually signed with the Florida Panthers and joined Brady Kachuk over there. Maybe you put in a guy like Stephen Holliday in that spot. A good young player who showed promise this past year. Or if you need Kold Juru to be an everyday center, that could be it too. But you don't need him to be an everyday center on this team. He can play on the wing, which, by the way, with Cole Juru, I don't know if people realize this.

He ended last year with the league's best faceoff rate. He was not an everyday center, but that was a player that the Ottawa senators relied upon in late game situations where they needed a face off, and he had the highest faceoff rate of anybody in the NHL. This team is deep at forward. The one thing I think they're just missing is just like a high-end finisher, a superstar player who could round out that core, but to go back to the Carolina Hurricanes for a second here, off top of your head, how many guys on that team, particularly at Forward, could you say are in the top 20, maybe top 25 in the NHL? Yeah, I wouldn't, I would not put Sebastian Ajo on that list. And certainly the guys on the

second line were playing that way in the playoffs. But heading into the season, I think maybe there's the answer is there's nobody. So it can be done. That's my whole thing. Like, Tim Stutzel is probably the best example of a guy who could be knocking on the door of a top 20, top 25 guy, but if this forward core is able to basically replicate what they were able to do last year, which is play a tight defensive system, that's everybody on this roster, find opportunities to score where you can. Remember, they still have Drake Batherson, who gets better and better every year when it comes to playing the puck in the net, including Tim Stutzlislo's up front in that top six as well. You're hoping guys like a Warren Fogel and Fabian Zetterland can contribute

sufficiently as secondary contributors. If you get an all-around contribution from guys in this lineup and you're still able to frustrate teams defensively, you could be a playoff team. My biggest question is, can that still carry over into next year

as the Atlantic division has seemingly gotten better with the Panthers getting better, the Leafs getting better? The Buffalo Sabres are no longer a doormat in this division, right? Like, the Montreal Canadians, like they're a team with a lot of good young pieces that are trying to get better.

The Tampa Bay Lightning are still the Tampa Bay Lightning. Even if they take a step back, you can't sleep on those guys. That Atlantic Division is really tough. So the Senators need a lot of things to go right. And it starts it forward. I mean, yes, goaltending, it probably starts there. But their forward core needs to pick up the slack with a guy like Brady Kachuk on. And one more thing I'll add, they had a winning record with him out of the lineup last year.

They're going to hang on that. It was quite good, right? It was, I don't have it in front of me. But, I mean, it was a winning record not by a point. or two, if I remember, it was, it was pretty good. Had at least 11 wins with that. And feel free to correct me with the actual stat. But at least 11 wins in the handful of games, they did not have Brady could chuck them

the lineup. It was a winning record. So one last question on forwards, and then we'll move to the blue line. We've talked about, you know, this team, they've got the pieces, but they don't have necessarily the superstar. And maybe you need that. Maybe you don't. this team has drafted well over the year,

so the prospect pipeline is okay, but there's no stars coming from there. And as we're recording this, at least, they haven't really added anyone in the offseason other than Eklund, who sort of comes into the Kuchuk spot. Even attracting players in Ottawa as a market can sometimes be a little bit tricky. So I guess if there's going to be that star,

It feels like it's somebody who's already here who's going to break out and find that next level. And there are a lot of guys on this team who are in that like 23 to 27 age range where usually by the time you get there, you are what you are. But some guys do find that next level at that point. If you had to pick one guy on this roster up front who maybe is going to have that breakout, who's maybe going to take that step. and become, let's not say a superstar, but become something more than he is now, enough that it moves the needle for the whole team. Is there somebody that stands out to you as someone you'd pick?

So that depends on how you view tips that slow already in this league. I know we kind of established maybe the sense might not have a top 20, top 25 guy, but he's the best player on this team. I think he's a really good player, but I would put him on the list of guys who could have another level. I think when you look at him two or three years ago when he had his 90-point season, you kind of felt like, here we go.

The rocket has been strapped to this guy. And he's been perfectly good since then, but the rocket never seemed to fire. I think it's still, there's still juice in that rocket. Like, this is a guy who, like I wrote about him last year and you could make the argument, maybe he established himself as a superstar. Then I think a lot of people around the league recognize this dude has skill. He has talent, and maybe his biggest flaw is that he doesn't shoot the puck enough. This is a guy who could be a 30 goal score every year if he wants to.

But he's also committed himself to doing so many great things, like playing a two-way game and being a better defensive center, a guy who committed himself to being a really good face-off guy. There was a point in the year where his face-off rate was above 60%. He had never finished a year leading up to last year, where his face-offs were better than, like, 49% as far as I remember. like Tim Stutzler is a guy who maybe a little too much puts it on himself

to be a better player. And I think there's a perfect recipe or a perfect storm brewing where maybe people on the outside are looking at the Ottawa senators and they're sleeping on them and everyone's going to want to talk about Brady. I know for sure when we talk to Tim Stutzlo about it, he's going to put on his best face and be like,

we don't need to talk about this guy anymore. He's not on the team. He'll say some nice stuff publicly. But this is a guy who maybe more than anybody on that team is going to want to move on from all of this and focus on everything on the ice. You could make the argument he could be the guy. You can make the argument, Jake Sanderson is that guy, unless you wanted to keep it just a forwards. But if you want to keep it just a forwards, Stutzler, Drake Batherson, too. I mentioned the fact that this is a guy

who's getting better and better every year. He had 33 goals last year, his best year as a pro, and a guy entering his peak, you're hoping that he stays at that level, if not better. It's really going to come down, I think, to those two front line guys, at least in terms of attack. And also something to keep in mind, too, as we have at this point, when we're recording, they haven't named a captain yet. Maybe Stutzel is the guy. Maybe Sanderson's the guy. There's a lot of responsibility. There's a lot of change that could be coming into this group, even if they haven't allowed, even if they haven't made a ton of trades, so to speak, to this point. Okay. So, I mean, you mentioned Sanderson, and that is what we in this business call a Frankie Corrado level segue. way, fantastic work, because it takes us right to the blue line, which didn't change a whole lot. But Sanderson's obviously the guy. He's a guy that, yeah, let's get into it. Who is the next

captain of this team? We don't know that at this point. And is it, is it Tim Stutzel? Does he have the personality? Is it Jake Sanderson who is the young star who normally, you know, you would, you would think he'd be the next guy, but do they want to give it to another team USA guy or, you know, how do we do that? Does that matter? Is that part of it? What's your bet on who's going to be wearing the sea, if anybody heading into next year? I think it's a great question.

I think Tim Stiltsler makes sense as a pick because of the fact that he obviously cares about his teammates. He wants to win. He wants to be in Ottawa. Jake Sanderson, I understand the hesitancy with picking another American guy to be the captain, but this is a guy who's also committed for the next few seasons with this team and wants to be here and wants to be in this dressing room. If it were up to me, I would just let those two guys be those two guys.

You give them A's. You let them thrive on their own and don't give them that extra spotlight. Let them be themselves and don't give them that extra spotlight. I would much rather give it to a veteran player. And there's one guy on this team who's played on this team longer than those two guys who in terms of speaking to the media can do it in both languages. And I get that the health is up there here and there with him. And last year he tried to play through that busted up arm. That's a guy who's going to give you everything every night.

And that's Thomas Shabbat. I think he's the right guy to be the captain of this team. You put a veteran guy who knows everything you need to know about playing in that market can speak to being English and being able to speak. French as well as a native French speaker is a loved guy in that room from defense to forwards onward. Like, I would much rather this group go towards the Thomas Shabbat lane where you name a veteran, a guy who knows everything it takes to play in this market, as opposed to just putting your young players like a Stutzel and a Stan Anderson, who are very well worthy of an honor like a sea, but do you need that extra spotlight on them?

I would much rather just give it to Thomas Shabbat. I'd much rather do that. I'm sold. You've sold me. Okay. So when we're doing these shows, we sort of spend as much time on each position group as we need to. I not that long ago recorded the Columbus version with Portsy, and we talked blue line for

most of the show because of the Zach Werencky stuff. here the blue line is is largely unchanged. They were good last year. Maybe not great. You know, there isn't a Zach Wrenski quite yet here, but it's in good shape. It looks good. Is there really all that much to say here?

Or is this case of if it's not broke, don't fix it, keep the band together, and that's what they did. I think they might be thinking of that, but I also wondered if they were looking to add another defender to show up their depth. But if this is the defense core that goes into it, this might be more than sufficient.

I mean, Jake Sanderson, you mentioned him not exactly being a Zach Werencky, but those two are friends. And I think he definitely sees him as a comparable, as someone he would like to play. Like a guy who can play well at both ends of the ice, a guy who can play tons of minutes. Like, I think the Zach

Rorensky lane for Jake Sanderson is probably the perfect guy to emulate in terms of what they're both able to do on the ice. And you could do worse than have the who I think is already in the top 10, no worse than top 15 in terms of defensemen in the league. The biggest question for me, and I reckon I sued with Sanderson, he'll likely start the season on a pairing with Artem Zhu. The second pairing is where I have, I'm going to be very intrigued about because right now, you're probably going into this season with Thomas Shabbat and Jordan Spence. and Jordan Spence at the beginning of last year

did not start the first few games of the season with this team. That was weird, right? It was very weird. Really good once he got in. And well, maybe not once he got in. Once he got in and it felt like he was no longer playing for a spot in the lineup every single night,

I thought he was one of the better players on the team, certainly like compared to expectations. This guy came in and did everything they asked and a bit more. And, but yeah, it took them a while to warm up to him, it felt like. Yeah, I think a big reason why is because, speaking of comparables, at the beginning of the year, I think the Sends were a bit obsessed, maybe not obsessed, but they had the Florida Panthers in mind. And the Florida Panthers are a team. Yeah, one of them did for sure, yeah.

For sure. They are locked up in terms of big, ranging defensemen with size. and a guy like Jordan Spence at under six feet doesn't necessarily fit into that model. Case in point, their first two games of the year against Tampa and Florida, Jordan Spence doesn't play those games. But as he gets into the lineup and he showcases his offense

and gets better with playing with the defensive structure that Travis Greed and the group want him to play, trying to get him to use his body a little bit more. Maybe he's not necessarily going to be great at that ever. But the fact that he's able to generate offense from the back end, that is his calling card. Also, I'm going to bring up the Carolina Hurricanes again. That is a team that proved that you don't need a defense score that has everyone six feet and above.

They won with two guys below five, below six feet, like Sean Walker and Shane Gostis Bear. Mind you, Sean Walker plays a very physical style, and Shane Gostis Bear is a very good offensive generator from the back end. And I think they're hoping for the latter with Jordan Spence. That being said, it wouldn't surprise me if this team put themselves in a situation, where they could compete for a playoff spot, and they could get themselves a really good, big defenseman. Or, hey, maybe Nicholas Montan-Palo, who I think is a much better skater than people give him credit to,

is currently the number seven defensive on this team. If he plays himself into the lineup more, maybe he's the answer. They have depth at the back end, but similar to the forward core, maybe you need another star to put this team over the top. But I'm going to be looking at that second pairing and where they slot Jordan Spence in all of this,

because he provides a lot of offense despite his size, He's a really good piece for this team. And, yeah, if they do decide they need another piece, they do still have some of that ammo from the Panthers and the Brady-Critrude trade in their back pocket. So that's worth keeping in mind. I didn't even mention Carter Yakubchuk, unless you were going to go there too. Because that's a whole other question in itself.

Let's get into that because this, I'll go ahead and say blue chip prospect, high draft pick, big expectations, but it's always, it's, it's always, It's often a tough transition for young defensemen to come in. How much should Senators fans expect from him? How much should the rest of the league expect this kid to be able to deliver immediately in essentially his first full season as a big leader? Yeah, if it comes out, if the lineup is said as it is right now, all he needs is a solid training camp and he gets a roster spot as far as I'm concerned. Like I think there's a really good opportunity for Carter Yakubchuk to start the season with the Ottawa senators, unless they make some drastic change on the back end,

and then it puts them back in the American League, which might not be the worst thing in the world. You want your best prospects to marinate and get better, so that way if they make it undeniable for them to be in your NHL lineup, you feel a lot better for that. Carter Yakovych, in the limited amount of time, he played with the senators last year, particularly offensively, He impressed. He provided offense. He showcased skill. He's an option on the power play.

And not even necessarily as a power play quarterback. You can put him in the Ovechkin spot. He has a wicked shot. He has, particularly offensively, the capabilities of playing at the NHL level. It's all about what he can do defensively. Is the gap control there? Is he able to lock down defensively on opposing players? Is he able to win possessions along the boards and not make mistakes when he has the puck? The defense needs to be better. And that's always been the thing with Carter Yakubchuk. But as it stands right now, he has a really good opportunity to make this regular season lineup. And we'll see how it goes from in the regular season if it gets to that point.

But I would hope that he takes all the good stuff that he was able to put together in the limited amount of time he had in the regular season. last year, just work on that while just being as simple as he could. And I trust that the Sends would also put him in the best possible position as well in this lineup, but not necessarily just putting him out to dry. I don't think they'd want that for their prospect. It's going to take some time too. And we see it with young players all the time where playing a full 82 game season with all the travel, sometimes you're playing back to backs.

Like some guys, it takes them a second and then they go through a lull partway through the year. That might happen for Carter Yakubchuk. He might think a little too hard on the puck. He might make mistakes. He's a young player. It's bound to happen. But I think for fans, if he just gets into the lineup and he gets opportunities,

that is a win in itself for, you said it, the blue chip prospect, the best prospect in this team's system and a big part of their future. Yep. And the future is now for him and this blue line, which I think is in good shape. I love the Zach Werensky, Jake Sanderson comparison. I think that that holds. Hopefully, Werenski is mentoring him a little bit,

but maybe keep Jake Sanderson off the larger Team Jose group chat, just to be safe. The last spot we have to talk about is goaltending, and I feel like with this senator's team, we don't know who the opening night goalie is going to be. We know his name, let us all mark, but we don't know, is this going to be? the Allmark last year for much of the season who struggled badly and was part of a goaltending

situation that frankly almost torpedoed this team's playoff hopes. Or are we going to get the guy that we saw kind of the last month or so of the season who started looking an awful lot like the Vezna guy from a few years before? Obviously, we know there were the off-ice questions. there was his time away from the team. There was some white noise about him, so to speak, that came from places. What should we expect from Allmark? Is this going to be back to being a source of strength for the senators? Or are there still concerns about the goaltending?

That might end up being the million-dollar question. for all of this with respect to the rest of this team. Last year proved that this team could play as well as they could play. They could dominate games. They could generate chances. They could be all over teams and swarm them. But if Lena Solmark is not playing well, they will lose games. They will lose ground.

The twisted irony in all of this is that the Ottawa Senators were swept in the first round. by the Carolina Hurricanes, a team that again, we've established throughout this episode, is a good comparable for them to follow. And off top of my head, I believe only two different players for the Ottawa Senators scored goals in that series. That's how tight it was. The best player for the Ottawa Senators in that series was arguably the biggest question mark was Lena Solmark. If Lena Zolmark starts this upcoming season, playing well, I'm not saying yes to steal games, but he's solid.

he's winning games he's keeping things simple that would be a pleasant surprise for everyone because if you look at the beginning of the last two seasons he's been here it's been so so to mediocre to straight bad for his start of the year and then around christmas time he picks up and gets better even before he took leave last season there was a period in december where he started to look like himself and then the tronel game happens and then he goes away but then he's after that he comes back and it takes him a while but then he gets himself into that Vesina form it could be a situation where maybe things repeat themselves but for for the benefit of everyone people are hoping that that Vesina form continues and now he he he has his goalie whisper his goalie guru and matcheshua part of the organization a guy who he's known since his years in Sweden, since his teenage years in Sweden, that seemed to be a source of strength for him down the stretch with this group. That could be another source of strength for him to enter this year.

And I'm also, I think we have to discuss this too, because he acknowledged it as much with us near the end of last season. This is someone who is still clearly working on himself mentally. and it's an everyday process, and we have to see how that shakes out. I don't feel uncomfortable bringing that up because it's something that he himself has acknowledged is something that he works through as much as he can. Remember, there was a game he missed when the team was in Florida, and people were wondering like, oh, well, why couldn't he play down the stretch?

But he said he was not mentally ready to play. I don't know, like he said it himself. He wasn't mentally ready to play. And if that is something that shows itself again in this, upcoming season. That's going to be a storyline inevitably. And I'm curious to see how he and the team will handle that, which leads to something else we need to be discussing. I think we're going to see a situation where the Sends find a way to play three goalies at different points this year. Samerson is on this team and I've had my questions about the Samerson trade turn signing. I think a lot of

people do. Yeah. This is a goaltender who had the fifth worst goals saved above expected rate. and I believe it was the worst a year earlier. But this is a guy, as Steve Stales has pointed to us repeatedly, that Macha Suwa, the, I don't remember his exact title with the senator's structure, but he is part of the goaltending structure alongside Justin Peters, the goaltending coach. And this is a guy who has experience with Samerson, and at some point went to Steve Stales and said,

hey, I believe in Samerson, get him on this team if you can. And he's going to be the backup on this team. But this group also believes in Levy Merlinan, and they don't want to give up on him. And that tells me that they're going to find ways to use him at different points. And this goes back to what I mentioned earlier with Lena Sommar. If he's still working to get himself right mentally, doesn't that mean you're going to put, why not give him situations where, okay, we don't need you to be, I mean, already doesn't need to be the 60-70 game guy that's never been his thing. But if you want to give him an off night, you have two other goaltenders with Nagell experience who you could play.

There's so many different storylines to delve into with this team. But goaltending, I think above anything, this team is going to live and die by how well Lisa Almark is able to perform, how well he's feeling, and how well Sam Erson and Levy Merlin and can pick up the slack behind him. That's absolutely fair. Okay. So we've covered the three positions. I mean, coaching, I don't think there's a ton to talk about other than I think

Travis Green's one of, has done a great job the last couple of years, maybe hasn't gotten as much credit as he should. We know Daniel Offerton has departed for other pastures. We won't stay where. It's still really weird. We'll skip past that part, but, you know, coaching staff, head coach certainly has shown he can guide this team forward. So let's get to the multi-million dollar question. How do the senators stack up in what should be a very, very tough Atlantic? Are they in the playoff mix?

Is this a wild card or bust? Is there a path to the top three, home ice, anything like that? Or is this a team that like last year is going to be life or death just to get into the playoffs and if they get there at all? I think this team could be a wild-cart team, even with all these other teams in the Atlantic Division being tough. The goaltending I mentioned to you is going to be a big storyline. They'll go as far as Lena Solmark can carry them. Here's one other thing I'll throw into the mix.

Nobody could chuck on this team. We know the intangibles that he brings as a player. But what if everyone in that dressing room plays a little lighter? what if the fact that they don't have to worry about having a teammate where there was all that white noise with the podcast and him, which personally, I think the whole thing with the podcast, maybe it elevated to a point. Maybe fans got a little too crazy with that. Who listens to somebody on a podcast? Like, come on.

Yeah. I don't know, man. He cares about podcasts and stuff anyway. Also, I'll just take the time to shout out the Chris Johnson show. But I'll say this too. Like, if I'm on the Ottawa Senators and I could just, worry about the guys who are in the room and no wondering, hey, is my captain going to be here? Is he going to get traded?

All this other stuff. Like, especially what you went through last year with all the different storylines around you, that should be a point where everyone this team should be saying, hey, we were able to play through all those storms and make it to the playoffs last year. Why not us? Why not find a way to get a second gear? because the expectations, of course, are always going to be high, but it shouldn't feel as dark as it was at different points last year.

I think it could, there's a reasonable expectation it could propel them to play better. Maybe it's still a wildcard team, but if they just plug along and do the right things, which is, again, limiting chances against, this was a team, not to bring up the Carolina Hurricanes again, they were tied with the canes at the top of the league for fewest chances, allowed per game, if they continue to play that style, if they get their contributions wherever they can get them offensively,

if the goaltending is there, if their best players take a step, that's a playoff team as far as I'm concerned. And depending on who they run up against in the first round, maybe they go on a run with that. They just need to show everyone that the potential is worth betting on with this group. I'm not convinced that as much as Brady Kachuk is not on this team anymore, that they're going to take that drastic of, a step back. I'm not convinced that this is what's in store for this group unless someone gets

injured or the goaltending falls apart or I don't know. Fate will dictate that, but I still think this is a playoff team. I like it. Mostly optimistic, but very realistic as well. Thank you very much, Julian. We'll keep an eye on your work all summer, obviously, and heading into September trading camp this season. And thank you also to producer Jeff and to you, the listener slash viewer, for watching and listening to this episode of the Athletic Hockey Show, the Prospect Series.

We'll occupy this spot for the next two weeks. I will be back on August 24th with Murat. We're going to talk about how to fix the Winnipeg Jets, a team that did not make the playoffs last year and needs to get back there. We will see you next time on the Athletic Hockey Show. Thank you again for listening and watching. We'll talk to you next time.