The offseason has arrived for all but the four teams that still have a shot at winning the Stanley Cup. It’s time to examine what those eliminated squads will need to accomplish over the coming months. Next up is a look at Ottawa.
Expectations were high for the Senators this season. After acquiring Alex DeBrincat at the draft and signing Claude Giroux in free agency, a developing forward group got a lot more dangerous. They added a capable veteran goalie in Cam Talbot as well. The hope was those moves would help propel them into the playoffs. Instead, the team struggled considerably early on while dealing with some untimely injuries to key players. Even after making another big acquisition at the trade deadline in Jakob Chychrun, they ultimately came up short once again, extending their drought to six straight seasons. While they’re heading in the right direction, Ottawa still has some work to do this summer.
Resolve Ownership Situation
First and foremost, this team needs to get its new owner in place. Binding bids including a deposit were due to be submitted on Monday, bringing the process one step closer to a resolution. From there, the winning bidder, likely following another round of negotiations, has to be approved by the Board of Governors and lock in their financing before the purchase can be finalized.
Why does this matter from an on-ice perspective? It remains to be seen if the new ownership group will want to continue with Pierre Dorion as GM or bring someone else in. That uncertainty then carries over to D.J. Smith and the rest of the coaching staff; would a new owner and possibly new GM want to clean house? The sooner the new owner is in place, the better from an organizational certainty standpoint.
Deal With DeBrincat
When the Senators picked up DeBrincat a year ago, they thought they would be getting a quality top-line scorer. While he didn’t have a poor season, he didn’t exactly live up to expectations either. After picking up 41 goals in his final season with Chicago, that output dipped to 27 in 2022-23 although he set a career-high in assists with 39 to help him finish fourth on the team in scoring. That’s not terrible output by any stretch but it would be fair to suggest that they were expecting more from him.
DeBrincat is set to become a restricted free agent this summer for the final time as he’s one year away from being eligible for unrestricted free agency. He’ll also have salary arbitration eligibility. On top of that, he’s subject to the old qualifying offer rule which is the base salary of the final year of his contract. While his cap hit the last three years was $6.4MM, his salary this season was $9MM. That means the Senators must tender him a $9MM qualifying offer, something that Dorion has already they will do if it comes to that point.
So, will it get to that point? That’s the big question. Does DeBrincat want to do a long-term deal with Ottawa? Those are discussions that Dorion will need to have with his representation now to be ready to pivot, if necessary. If the 25-year-old appears to be leaning toward a one-year deal to hit the open market, it’s quite possible that the Senators will turn around and look to move him. That’s a move that’s a lot easier to make before the draft in late June while allowing the acquiring team to have time to negotiate a long-term agreement before the qualifying offer comes into play.
If DeBrincat opts to re-sign, there’s a good chance that a one-year deal would simply be him accepting the qualifying offer. While Ottawa could opt to take him to arbitration, a move that could allow their offer to come in at 85% of the qualifier ($7.65MM), such a move would be antagonistic toward longer-term discussions so they might not want to go that route. Similarly, if DeBrincat is qualified, there isn’t much of a chance for him to land considerably more than $9MM in an arbitration hearing, lessening the chances of him opting to go that way either.
Meanwhile, a long-term agreement is also likely to come in close to the $9MM mark. Ottawa’s highest-paid player next season is Tim Stutzle who has an AAV of $8.35MM. The Sens would certainly like to get DeBrincat in below that mark but it will probably take more than that to get him to agree. Regardless of which route both sides wind up going, getting this resolved sooner than later needs to be a priority.
Sign A Goalie
When Dorion moved then-unproven prospect Filip Gustavsson to Minnesota for Talbot last offseason, they were hoping that he and Anton Forsberg would form a steady tandem between the pipes. Instead, Talbot battled injuries throughout the year while Forsberg took a significant step back from his 2021-22 performance. While Forsberg is still under contract for two more seasons at a $2.75MM AAV, Talbot is a pending unrestricted free agent and has already been told that he won’t be back. That means there’s a spot to fill in the crease.
Internally, Mads Sogaard is still viewed as Ottawa’s goaltender of the future. However, the 21-year-old has just 64 career appearances at the AHL level and still has two years of waiver exemption remaining. While some young goalies can step in full-time in the NHL at that age, teams generally like to slow-play their netminders, allowing them to get frequent starts in the minors. It would make sense for the Senators to take that approach with Sogaard so penciling him in as Forsberg’s tandem mate shouldn’t be the top plan.
Instead, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Dorion look to find another Talbot-like netminder, one that he can sign for a year or two at a price point similar to Forsberg’s. That would up the floor in terms of production while allowing Sogaard the development time that he could still benefit from. It’s not a great UFA market for goaltenders but there are several second-stringers that should be available to choose from as things stand. It wouldn’t be shocking to see them kick the tires on the trade market as well but as long as they feel that Sogaard is their guy in the next couple of years, it’s hard to imagine they’d pay a high price to trade for someone to cover between now and then.
Rebuild The Bottom Six
With Ottawa missing the playoffs despite their upgrades up front, one might think that they had a lack of production from their top players. But they did have six forwards notch 20 goals while their top five forwards all had at least 62 points. Not many other teams can say that. However, they were in the bottom half of the league for goals scored.
The reason for that? They simply didn’t get much scoring from their bottom six with the exception of Shane Pinto (who was often pressed into top-six duty) or Derick Brassard, who’s a pending UFA. Mathieu Joseph didn’t score a single goal at even strength all season long, not the type of production they wanted from someone making nearly $3MM. Parker Kelly was an effective penalty killer but scored one goal in 55 games. Austin Watson and Dylan Gambrell had just 11 points apiece. This is one area that can reasonably be improved.
The good news for Dorion is that there are some open roster spots to work with. Joseph, Kastelic, and Kelly are signed while Pinto will be a restricted free agent. From there, however, there are openings to fill with Watson, Gambrell, and deadline acquisition Patrick Brown all set to hit the open market while Julien Gauthier, another late-season add, is a restricted free agent but whose arbitration eligibility makes him a non-tender candidate.
Prospect Ridly Greig could fill one of those spots which would certainly give them a boost offensively although he could benefit from more time with AHL Belleville as well. Recent signing Jiri Smejkal could be in the mix as well but might be it for internal options at this point. That will leave at least a couple of spots for players currently outside the organization to try to make their mark. There are often value contracts available for bottom-six forwards closer to training camp so this might be something that the Sens opt to slow-play.
Defensive Decisions
Dorion is going to be busy with his defense as well. Jake Sanderson will be eligible for a contract extension in July and given that Ottawa has typically moved to sign their core pieces a year early where possible (Brady Tkachuk being the exception), it’s reasonable to think that they’ll do so here. However, it could be difficult since he has just one NHL year under his belt. It also remains to be seen if they’ll be able to afford another big-ticket deal on the books. At a minimum, expect the team to initiate discussions on that front even if those talks don’t lead to the 20-year-old putting pen to paper on a deal.
Meanwhile, decisions need to be made regarding three other young rearguards. Erik Brannstrom is once again a restricted free agent and this time, he’ll have arbitration eligibility. When Vegas drafted him, the 23-year-old was regarded as a future offensive threat. That could still happen but Brannstrom has just four goals in 190 career NHL appearances so far. Is he still part of their future?
The answer to that question might be dependent on the answer to this next one. Are Jacob Bernard-Docker and Lassi Thomson ready for full-time roster spots next season? Both players were at least somewhat highly-touted prospects themselves but have yet to establish themselves at the NHL level. However, they’re both eligible for waivers next season. Are the Sens ready to pencil each of them onto the roster? It’s unlikely they’ll make it back to Belleville so if they’re not comfortable with them being up full-time, one or both of those prospects could become trade candidates.
There’s a further domino effect as well that pertains to Travis Hamonic. The pending unrestricted free agent has expressed a desire to return but what happens with the three youngsters will dictate whether that’s doable, assuming the two sides can also agree on what type of a dip in pay he’ll likely be heading for after making $3MM the last two seasons. With free agency roughly six weeks away, they’ll need to make calls on these players fairly soon.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.