The bad news for any player skating with the Ottawa Senators’ American Hockey League (AHL) franchise in Belleville is that the big club’s 2025-26 roster is pretty much a lock. Trying to crack the lineup out of next month’s training camp will be like trying to bodycheck a Zamboni — you can try, but you’re probably just going to bounce off.
Related: Are the 2025-26 Ottawa Senators a Better Team?
Even though there are no obvious lineup openings for skaters from Belleville, the Senators’ 2025-26 training camp still matters. How Belleville rookies and prospects perform there will determine their future.
Senators Projected 2025-26 Depth Chart
On Oct. 9 the Senators will face off against the Tampa Bay Lightning. Below is what I think their lineup will be.
Forward Lines:
| Left Wing | Centre | Right Wing |
| Brady Tkachuk | Tim Stutzle | Drake Batherson |
| David Perron | Dylan Cozens | Fabian Zetterlund |
| Ridley Greig | Shane Pinto | Claude Giroux |
| Nick Cousins | Lars Eller | Michael Amadio |
Defence Pairings:
| Left Defence | Right Defence |
| Jake Sanderson | Artem Zub |
| Thomas Chabot | Nick Jensen |
| Tyler Kleven | Jordan Spence |
Goalies:
| Position | Goalie |
| Starter | Linus Ullmark |
| Backup | Leevi Merilainen |
Don’t get hung up on where I’ve slotted players. The point is that, regardless of who plays where, this is a much stronger depth chart than the one the Senators iced on opening night last season. Gone are the likes of Josh Norris, Zack MacEwan, Jacob Bernard-Docker and Travis Hamonic. In are Lars Eller, Fabian Zetterlund, Dylan Cozens and Jordan Spence. I just don’t see who in this depth chart could lose their job in next month’s training camp to a minor leaguer.
Two forwards and a defenceman from Belleville will win spots at training camp as healthy scratches. After that, the next question answered is who head coach Travis Green and president of hockey operations and general manager (GM) Steve Staios call up first when injuries strike.
Forwards to Watch at Senators’ 2025-26 Training Camp
It’s hard to predict what storylines will emerge from the Senators’ training camp next month. Even so, I’d be willing to wager there are five forwards who could write their own. Here they are in no particular order.
Zack MacEwan
The 29-year-old MacEwan spent most of last season in Belleville. As his career winds down, the aging centreman will be trying to claw his way back to the big club. At 6-foot-3 and 227 pounds, he brings a physicality and snarl to a roster that could use more of it. He also offers veteran experience to the squad with 237 NHL games to his credit over six seasons with four different teams.
Olle Lycksell
Olle Lycksell will also be trying to turn heads at training camp, and he’s sure to be on the Senators’ radar. At 5-foot-11 and 185 pounds, the 26-year-old Swede has been written off by some as an undersized centreman. Even so, he has quality hands, an accurate, laser-like wrist shot and a reputation as a creative playmaker. With 45 games in the NHL over three seasons with the Philadelphia Flyers, he brings experience to the lineup. Not only that, but with the Flyers’ AHL affiliate team in Lehigh Valley, he was a point-per-game player.
He’s playing under a one-year deal and free agency looms once again next spring. Training camp may be his last best chance to show he should be skating with an NHL team.
Jan Jenik
Jenik is 23 years old, has played in five AHL campaigns and has 24 NHL games with the then-Arizona Coyotes under his belt. He has the potential to put himself on management’s radar at training camp. He’s been a respectable goal scorer in the AHL and shot the proverbial lights out in the Ontario Hockey League (OHL), notching two points per game in 2019-20 with the Hamilton Bulldogs. The team’s president and GM that season was Staios.
Staios said of Jenik back then, “He’s the best player in the league (OHL) in my opinion” (from ‘SCOTT RADLEY: Injury to their best player a disaster for the Bulldogs,’ The Hamilton Spectator, 1/1/20). That’s a vote of confidence that could prove valuable in Jenik’s battle in training camp to win a spot on the roster.
Arthur Kaliyev
Arthur Kaliyev probably caught Staios’ attention when he played for the Bulldogs from 2017-2020. It may be one of the reasons the GM signed him to a one-year, two-way contract in July for the upcoming season.
With 202 NHL games under his belt over four seasons, the 24-year-old Russian offers the roster proven experience. At 6-foot-2 and 210 pounds, he also offers size – something he uses well to protect the puck. He has a high hockey IQ and a nose for the net. His heavy slap shot makes his one-timers a constant scoring threat.
Stephen Halliday
Stephen Halliday has just one full AHL season to his credit – and it was impressive. Last season, he led Belleville in points, notching 51 of them over 71 games. He has a high hockey IQ and is known as a playmaker. Packing 212 pounds onto his 6-foot-4 frame, the 23-year-old centreman also brings size to the lineup.
What will make Halliday interesting to watch at training camp is that next season he becomes a restricted free agent (RFA). He’ll be trying to show Staios that he deserves a qualifying offer next spring.
Defencemen to Watch at Senators’ 2025-26 Training Camp
The Senators’ blue line seems set in stone. With the addition of Spence to the D-corps this summer, Nikolas Mantinpalo will most likely find himself the seventh defenceman this campaign. All that’s really left to contest at training camp for Belleville blueliners is who gets a call-up when that becomes necessary.
Belleville’s Donovan Sebrango and Maxence Guenette have been pushing hard for a roster spot in the last few years. The 24-year-old Guenette almost made the team out of training camp in 2023-24. He hung around Ottawa for eight games at the start of that season before being sent back to Belleville. Sebrango drew some attention to himself in the two games he played last season with the big club. Yet both are unsigned RFAs and may not see training camp ice.
Even so, the three most interesting training camp storylines involving Ottawa’s blue line involve a first-round draft pick, a late summer signing and the return of a prodigal son. I’m referring of course to Carter Yakemchuk, Cameron Crotty and Lassi Thomson.
Carter Yakemchuk
The Senators took Yakemchuk as their first-round pick in 2024. Many thought he had made the club out of training camp last year, but Staios thought better of rushing the young Western Hockey League star along too quickly and sent him back to the Calgary Hitmen for more seasoning. As he explained it, “Carter had a tremendous training camp, but we made this decision in the best interests of his long-term development.”
As a guest on the Aug. 26 episode of Coming in Hot, (see 22:50), Staios made it clear that Yakemchuk wasn’t necessarily headed to Belleville after training camp. “I wouldn’t go so far that quickly on that,” said Staios. “We wanted to have a competitive training camp. I think when you want players to come and push and if they do come in and push, it’s my job to make sure that we have the room. If they’re going to help the Ottawa Senators win, we’re in the business of winning and winning at the National Hockey League level.”
Even so, Yakemchuk will have to put to rest concerns about his performance last season with the Hitmen. Over 56 games, he marked up the score sheet for just 17 goals and 49 points – a far cry from the 71 points he put up in his draft year.
Cameron Crotty
On Aug. 25, the Senators signed 26-year-old Ottawa native Cameron Crotty to a two-year, two-way deal that will pay him $750,000 this season and $850,000 in 2026-27. The right-shot defender has only ever played two NHL games, but he has five solid AHL seasons on his resume. Staios must believe he could help the big club, or he wouldn’t have signed him to a two-year deal.
During the 2017-18 season, Crotty was one of Tkachuk’s teammates on the Boston University Terriers. It seems he may already have some chemistry in the dressing room.
Lassi Thomson
Training camp marks a return to the Senators for Thomson. Before the start of the 2024-25 season, the then-RFA chose to leave the NHL to play with the Malmo Redhawks of the Swedish Hockey League (SHL) under a two-year contract.
The Senators drafted Thomson in the first round of the 2019 NHL Entry Draft, but he soon disappointed. He managed to crack the Senators’ lineup in only 18 games over the four seasons he was part of the organization.
And then came his resurrection last season. In the SHL, he posted career-best offensive totals. In June this year, Thomson was released from the final year of his contract and re-signed with the Senators on a one-year, $750,000 contract.
This contract may well be the last shot Thomson has at living up to his early NHL promise. You can be sure he’ll try to make a statement in training camp about where his future lies.
Senators’ Goalies at 2025-26 Training Camp
It’s clear that number one and two in goal are Ullmark and Merilainen – in that order. Even so, that doesn’t mean there won’t be interesting storylines about the future of Ottawa’s goaltending coming out of training camp.
Among the questions will be whether Mads Sogaard is part of the future. If he must, could he step in as Ullmark’s understudy this season? And what of the next generation of Senators crease keepers? All eyes will be on Jackson Parsons who signed a three-year entry-level contract in July. Will his stellar OHL record with the Kitchener Rangers prove to be the real deal as he transitions to the AHL and possibly to the NHL?
Senators’ 2025-26 Training Camp Matters
The Senators’ lineup for the 2025-26 is probably a lock. Yet that doesn’t mean the 2025-26 training camp doesn’t matter. There will be battles royale to show who is ready for the inevitable call-ups from Belleville this season. What’s more, having a good camp is a confidence booster for Belleville players and can help them take the next step in the AHL.
Camps build internal competition and raise the bar for the entire team. They are about depth, development and the future of the organization. For fans, they are also the source of many interesting stories to watch and foreshadow the upcoming season.
