After their seventh straight season without playoff hockey, the Ottawa Senators are taking steps in the right direction. The team taking a step starts with some players taking a step forward as well. With players like Jake Sanderson, Ridly Greig, and Shane Pinto hoping to make a bigger impact and improve their game, the Senators could also use a bounce-back season from three players.
1. Tim Stutzle
It is hard to say that Tim Stutzle had a poor season after scoring 70 points as a 22-year-old center, especially with the news after the season ended that he played with an injury all season. With that being said, Stutzle has a lot more to offer than that and had a 90-point season the year before. There is a lot of reason to believe that even 90 points aren’t his ceiling, and if he can be healthy, score some more goals, and have a better all-around game, the Senators are in a much better position.
Stutzle is a dynamic, agile skater with great offensive skills including his playmaking, hands, and shot. All of these things were impacted by injury last year as he had a wrist injury and a lingering shoulder injury. Stutzle is the go-to option and there won’t be anybody challenging him for the top center spot this season. The sky is the limit for what Stutzle is able to do, especially playing alongside Brady Tkachuk, who has been getting better offensively every year, and either the quality veteran Claude Giroux or Drake Batherson, who is offensively talented too.
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The top line should be an offensive weapon again in 2024-25, but Stutzle has to lead the way.
2. Josh Norris
After two straight injury-ridden seasons, health is the key to Josh Norris being impactful with the Senators once again. In his last healthy season, Norris scored 35 goals and 55 points, but even still that was only in 66 games. Norris started the 2023-24 season injured and was still recovering from shoulder surgery in January of 2023. Once he was back in the lineup, he was starting at a slower pace after missing a full offseason of training, training camp, and preseason. His 30 points in 50 games wasn’t at the level a player making just shy of $8 million is expected to be at, and in March of 2024, his season ended with yet another surgery on his left shoulder.
At the time, Jacques Martin stated that he expects Norris to be ready for training camp and will be ready to start the season. Only time will tell how his shoulder rehabilitation is going to impact him. If he is healthy and can play at a level close to his 35-goal campaign, the Senators will be in a much better position.
Having Norris in the lineup also adds to the depth, and without him, the forward group is quite weak and they don’t have anybody to fit in in the top-six in his absence outside of David Perron. Even in that case, if Perron is in the top-six, the bottom-six gets significantly weaker and they don’t have many options to improve with internally.
Norris’ bounce-back season would be a positive for his stature as a player, but more importantly, it would significantly help the team.
3. Anton Forsberg
After an extremely impressive 46-game showing in 2021-22 where Anton Forsberg posted a .917 save percentage (SV%), he has regressed to a .902 and a .890 SV% over the past two seasons. Expecting another season like his first full one in Ottawa isn’t very realistic, but if he could land closer to a .910 SV% in a full-time backup position behind Linus Ullmark, the Senators’ goaltending could be the strongest part of the lineup.
Forsberg has dealt with injuries over the past few seasons, and while his play when healthy hasn’t been great, neither has the team in front of him. The Senators have improved, and so there are less excuses now, especially with a lighter workload. Forsberg is entering the final year of his contract, and he will be looking to play some of his best hockey to earn another deal.
All three of these players having bounce-back seasons is entirely possible. They all will play an important role in helping this team reach the playoffs for the first time since 2017, and the core is old enough now that it is on them to take the next step.
