Training camps are still over a month away, but after a busy free agency, the Ottawa Senators roster is all but set. Steve Staios’ focus on adding veteran leadership to his team didn’t leave much room for prospects, with just one spot each on defence and forward yet to be claimed.
Tyler Kleven is the current favourite to secure a defensive spot on the opening night roster. Over the past two seasons, he’s only dressed for 17 NHL games. Still, he’s looked good in those brief appearances and possesses the best combination of experience and potential of any other defensive prospect in the Senators’ farm system. Putting him alongside former University of North Dakota teammate Jacob Bernard-Docker, with whom he won an NCAA Championship, should be a recipe for success.
Kleven stands out among the Senators’ weaker prospect pool, but there are a few other names to watch. Unlike last season, where the team was so cap-strapped they couldn’t make a move unless there was an injury, Ottawa will be free to call up players for extended looks with the team. Who else could find themselves with a roster spot by the end of the season?
Zack Ostapchuk
The Senators’ fourth line is much less defined than it has been following the departure of Mark Kastelic and Parker Kelly. Given that the team now lacks some tenacity and toughness in their bottom six, that could give a leg up to Zack Ostapchuk, one of the toughest prospects in their system right now. As a rookie in the American Hockey League (AHL) last season, he put up 47 penalty minutes, 15 of which came from fighting majors. He’s not a top pugilist, but when Ostapchuk squares up, he is rarely taken down, even by the likes of 6-foot-8 Matt Rempe. That could lighten the load on Brady Tkachuk and Zack MacEwen, Ottawa’s two remaining fighters.
But what gives Ostapchuk a leg up on making the Senators’ opening night roster is his ability to contribute in multiple ways on the ice. In his seven-game NHL debut last season, he was tasked with going toe-to-toe against Sidney Crosby in his first game and even intercepted a pass headed for his childhood idol, saying after, “I just thought if that got to him, it wouldn’t be good. Thank God I batted that down.” After returning to the AHL, he had an average of 1.6 goals against per 60, one of the lowest scores on the entire team, while averaging nearly 10.5 minutes per game.
Most prospects aren’t as productive as in junior when they turn pro, but Ostapchuk finished his first pro season with 17 goals, the fourth-highest total on Belleville. That’s not far from his Western Hockey League career high of 26 goals, and he could easily hit that in 2024-25. But he was humble in his evaluation of his first season, telling the St. Albert Gazette following his NHL debut, “It took me probably about 10 games to get into it, but I think I adjusted rather well, and obviously, it’s a lot faster and guys are stronger and stuff like that. We’ve been working a lot on my quickness and a lot of little details like face-offs… because I’ve got to be good in the dot. And just plays under pressure because you don’t have as much time as you do in junior, so you have to think a little quicker and make plays quicker.”
Stephen Halliday
Stephen Halliday is quickly becoming one of the Senators’ most intriguing prospects after his quick transition to the pro ranks. After two seasons with Ohio State University, where he was nearly a point-per-game player, he joined Belleville, playing 10 games and scoring five assists to finish the regular season. In the playoffs, however, he was the Senators’ best player, scoring two goals and nine points in seven games.
However, Halliday is much more than just a one-dimensional offensive presence. Even in his brief appearance in the AHL, it was evident that he was thinking about the game differently than many of his teammates. According to Belleville’s head coach, David Bell, “His skill set is elite, and he just gets better and better every game. I know everybody watches the goals and the passes, but he’s winning some face-offs in the D-zone, figuring out the D-zone coverage, and winning stick battles that he wasn’t 10 or 12 games ago. He’s just getting better every day and learning the league, and when he learns the pace of the league, he’s going to be a very dangerous player.”
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Even though he only played 17 games before the Cleveland Monsters ended Belleville’s season in the second round, Halliday was happy to be along for the ride. In an interview with Murray Pam of Full Press Hockey, he was in good spirits and joked, “It was definitely cool to score and just in the playoffs…Guys were giving me crap when I wasn’t scoring in the regular season – that I was just passing it all the time. No, it was just fun to get the goals, and obviously, playing meaningful games in the playoffs was really fun.”
While it may be challenging to know where he’ll eventually slot into the Senators’ lineup, there’s no question that Halliday is on the right track to making the NHL. It’s unlikely he makes the team out of training camp, especially if Josh Norris is healthy, but there’s a good chance he’ll be given some games in Ottawa during the season. Given his ability to quickly adapt to tougher competition, if he’s called up, he could make it incredibly difficult to send back down to the minors.
Jamieson Rees
Last season couldn’t have gone worse for Jamieson Rees. After scoring 14 goals and 42 points in 65 games with the AHL’s Chicago Wolves in 2022-23, they decided not to renew their affiliate deal for the 2023-24 season, allowing them to become a fully independent AHL franchise, the first since 1994-95 and leaving the Hurricanes without a farm team. That left dozens of players without a home for the upcoming season, leading the Hurricanes to loan their top prospects to other franchises. Rees was sent to the St. Louis Blues’ farm team, the Springfield Thunderbirds, where it was assumed he’d play a pivotal role with his new team as he had three AHL seasons under his belt.
Unfortunately, because he wasn’t a Blues prospect, Rees was pushed down the lineup in favour of the players St. Louis wanted to develop, leaving him with minuscule ice time. After 30 games, he had just three assists, a far cry from his previous totals, prompting a re-assignment to the Charlotte Checkers in February, the Florida Panthers’ affiliate. That only went slightly better; after seven games, he had a single assist, putting him on pace to score four points in 30 games. That’s when the Senators came calling, sending the Hurricanes a sixth-round pick for the former second-round pick. There were also some growing pains with Belleville, but in just 14 games, he doubled his offensive totals, scoring four assists before the season ended.
That convinced them that Rees still had some gas left in the tank, and the team signed him to a one-year, two-way deal. Although he missed some crucial development time last season, he has shown that he plays a style very familiar to the Senators, combining speed and offensive prowess with tenacity and grit. That could describe several of the Senators’ prospects. Still, Rees is probably the most similar to Ridly Greig, who emerged as a Calder Trophy darkhorse early last season and won fans over with his empty net slapshot against the Toronto Maple Leafs. Like Halliday, it’s unlikely he makes the team out of training camp, but a mid-season call-up wouldn’t be unexpected, and Rees has the experience and skill to stick around for a while.
There are a handful of other prospects that fans can also expect to see this season, such as Xavier Bourgault, Maxence Guenette, and Angus Crookshank, and each has the potential to play important minutes in the NHL. As for the rest of the Senators’ farm system, many are still a couple of seasons away from competing for an NHL roster spot. That’s the reality when you trade away most of your top picks; fewer options exist to fill a lineup. Thankfully, Staios has made several positive moves that should result in a more well-rounded farm team.
