The Ottawa Senators have five games under their belt in this very young 2024-25 season. They’ve won three of those five games raising hopes among skeptics in Ottawa that they’ll be a playoff contender next spring.
So, what can fans take away from what they’ve seen so far? Here are five takeaways after five games that I think are important.
Senators Getting Better Starts
The Senators haven’t seen postseason action in seven years and part of the reason, at least in the last two seasons, is that they got off to lousy starts in too many games. They often went down early in the first period, many times by several goals, and were forced to play a desperate game of catch-up in the remaining 40 minutes.
In two of their first five games this season, the Senators were up by two goals and held their opponents scoreless in the first frame. That’s no small feat considering that in those games they were facing the 2024 Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers and the Tampa Bay Lightning boasting back-to-back Cup victories in 2020 and 2021.
After putting away the Panthers on their Oct. 10 opening night, the Senators returned to their habit of getting off to bad starts against the Montreal Canadiens at the Bell Centre on Oct. 12 going down by two goals in the first period. Yet they righted the ship against the Los Angeles Kings two nights later, finishing the first 20 minutes of that game within a goal of their guests from Tinsel Town. On Oct. 17 against the New Jersey Devils, they came out of the first period even.
Make no mistake, three wins in five games isn’t a stellar start. To know what that is, take a look at the Winnipeg Jets who’ve notched five straight wins to put themselves atop the Western Conference alongside the Dallas Stars.
Still, the Senators after five are the equal of their hated divisional rival, the Toronto Maple Leafs. With their .600 points percentage (PTS%) they’re third in the Atlantic Division on that metric behind the Panthers and the Lightning. Not only that, and perhaps even more important, they have outperformed the Habs, Buffalo Sabres and Detroit Red Wings – the three teams most likely to challenge them for a playoff berth in 2025.
Is the Senators’ Josh Norris Back?
Could it be that Senators fans are witnessing the resurrection of Josh Norris? After five games he sits alongside Tim Stutzle and Drake Batherson leading the team in goal scoring with three to his credit. One of them was the overtime winner against Los Angeles. One of his three markers was scored on the powerplay raising hopes that he’ll return to his form in the 2021-22 season when almost half his 35 goals were scored on the man advantage.
Returning the Senators’ powerplay to respectability, ranked as it was at 24th in the league last season, will be key to the team punching their ticket to the playoffs this season. They need to see Norris as a key part of that special team.
Norris seems to have won head coach Travis Green’s confidence judging by the ice time he’s getting. Over the first five games, he’s averaged 18:57 of ice time – second only to Stutzle’s 20:05.
Senators’ Goaltending Still in Doubt
The Senators’ goaltending this season is still a question mark. That’s not because of anything we’ve seen from starter Linus Ullmark. Rather, it’s because of the play of backup Anton Forsberg and Belleville’s Mads Sogaard who saw action against the Kings when Forsberg was pulled in the second period.
Related: Family First: Why Linus Ullmark Chose the Senators for the Long Haul
In the three games Forsberg has been between the pipes so far, he has notched a mediocre save percentage (SV%) of .863 and a whopping goals-against average (GAA) of 4.16. In the 34 minutes of action Sogaard has seen so far this season, he’s notched a SV% of .765 and a GAA of 6.96. None of this is anywhere near what the Senators need to see from their backup goalies.
Some Senators fans will try to take comfort in pointing out that Vezina Trophy-winning Ullmark is the team’s starting goaltender. There’s no doubt he’s a massive upgrade over last season’s starter – the hapless Joonas Korpisalo. Yet he can’t play all the 77 games remaining in the Senators’ season. Not only that, but when he’s injured as he is now, Green will be forced to turn to Forsberg.
Green seems to know his backup goaltending is weak. When asked what led him to pull Forsberg in the second period of the Kings game he replied tersely, “They (the Kings) had three goals on nine shots. I felt like it’s fitting to put a new goalie in – nothing more, nothing less.” When asked what he thought of Sogaard’s performance as Forsberg’s replacement he gave a one-word answer, “average.”
To his credit, Forsberg kept the Senators in the game during the third period of the Tampa game making the saves that he had to. Even so, he gave up goals that he simply had to have. Perhaps the softest he let in was Jake Guentzel’s goal late in the second period that tied the game at three apiece. That was a momentum killer coming as it did just after Drake Batherson scored to put the Senators ahead 3-2.
Senators’ Defence Is a Question Mark
After their first five games, nobody is claiming that the Senators’ problems on the blue line have been solved. The team is still afflicted with defensive zone glitches ranging from bumbled clearing attempts to missed assignments.
That was on full display in the first period of the game against the Canadiens when rookie Tyler Kleven, for reasons known only to him, pursued the play behind the Ottawa net leaving Habs’ rookie Emil Heineman all alone in front of Ullmark. He made no mistake and ripped a shot past the big Swedish twine minder on his glove side.
Rookies will make mistakes and Kleven is no exception. But it’s harder to forgive veterans like newly acquired Ottawa blueliner Nick Jensen and his partner, alternate captain Thomas Chabot for their sins. Late in the third period of that game, both got caught up ice allowing the Habs’ Cole Caulfield to thread a pass to his captain Nick Suzuki who found himself all alone on a breakaway. That blunder resulted in the Canadiens going up 4-1.
Chabot has done nothing yet to put to rest concerns about his defensive play. Perhaps the best example of this was in the game against Tampa on Oct. 19 when the Bolts’ Anthony Cirelli charged past Chabot toward Ullmark unmolested and was allowed to pivot and put a pass on a trailing Nick Paul’s stick. Paul then drilled the puck past Ullmark to tie the game at 2-2. That kind of play explains why Chabot has a plus/minus of minus-6. That’s the worst by far of any Ottawa blueliner.
Jensen as a stay-at-home defenseman was supposed to have unleashed Chabot’s offensive talent. That hasn’t happened yet and Chabot has just two points to his credit after five games. That has raised eyebrows among the Ottawa faithful, especially when they look at Jake Sanderson’s seven.
Senators Struggle to Stick to a Game Plan
Last season the Senators had a reputation for getting behind early in games and then departing from their game plan to dig themselves out of a hole. Over the first five games this season, no better example of that can be found than their play in the Montreal game.
As Green put it when talking about that game, “I thought the start of our game was excellent. The first six to 10 minutes we were committed to the game plan. Then I thought our play with the puck got away from us. When there were passes to be made, we didn’t connect.”
Nick Cousins made the same observation in his interview after the game against the Devils saying, “I think for stretches of the game we played the right way and kind of get in on the forecheck and play that way. It seems like when we get down a couple goals, we kind of change our game, which isn’t a recipe for success in this league. I think we’ve just got to keep doing the right things over and over again, even when it’s 2-0.”
There were signs in wins against the Panthers and Bolts that the Senators are maturing. When both those teams pressed Ottawa to draw even and steal a win late in the game, they looked calm and disciplined, resisting the temptation to resort to individual heroics. Perhaps that’s because of additions such as Cousins, David Perron and Michael Amadio – all Stanley Cup champions who understand the importance of sticking with a game plan and a system.
Early Optimism for Senators’ 2024-25 Season
It’s unwise to read too much into the first five games of the season for any NHL team. Even so, there are hints in the Senators’ play over their first five games that this season will be different from the previous seven. The Canadian Tire Centre may well see playoff-crazed fans cheering on the Senators next spring.
