Senators opening-night roster projection: Where Perron, Jensen and Ullmark fit

Projecting an opening-night roster in the middle of July can be a dangerous game.

Last year, for example, we could not have envisioned a couple of late-summer plot twists for the Ottawa Senators. They signed Vladimir Tarasenko on July 27, while they opened the regular season without both Josh Norris and Shane Pinto in their lineup. Our initial sketch of the lineup also featured Dominik Kubalik having a sizeable role on the club too.

So in short, any time we do one of these exercises it comes with a significant caveat: Everything is subject to change in the weeks ahead.

When the Senators open the regular season on October 10 against the Florida Panthers, some of these players listed below may have won or lost a job in training camp. But considering general manager Steve Staios has been very active over the past two weeks, we can at least start to imagine the type of lineup new head coach Travis Green might employ in the regular season opener.

Staios has taken a mini sledgehammer to the roster, parting ways with the likes of Jakob Chychrun, Mathieu Joseph, Erik Brannstrom and Joonas Korpisalo from a team that was underwhelming in finishing with 78 points.

The Senators have been stuck alongside Atlantic Division rivals Buffalo and Detroit over the past few seasons, as each franchise tries to break out of a prolonged postseason drought. Our Sabres writer Matt Fairburn has put together an updated depth chart for Buffalo after their offseason moves. Meanwhile, Max Bultman has done the same for a revamped Red Wings team that only missed the playoffs by a single point last season.

Have the Senators done enough to push past Buffalo and Detroit? And more importantly, will these changes be enough to finally push this group into the realm of playoff contention?

Let’s dive in for our first look at what the revamped Ottawa lineup could look like when they open the regular season in three months.

Salary cap hit for these 12 forwards: $49.019 million

The Senators’ top-six forward group has seen some significant changes over the past couple of seasons. Two years ago, they added Alex DeBrincat to the mix. Last offseason it was Vladimir Tarasenko. This summer, it seems like David Perron will get a chance to play some top-six minutes off the hop in Ottawa. Perron’s two-year contract carrying a $4 million AAV certainly suggests that’s where he is likely to start.

Provided Josh Norris is ready for the start of training camp — which Staios indicated would be the case earlier this month — Green is going to have multiple options for deploying his top two lines. He could reunite the trio of Norris, Brady Tkachuk and Drake Batherson, a line that showed some chemistry when they started playing together during the COVID-shortened 2020-21 season.

But Green may also be tempted to reconstruct Ottawa’s most dangerous line from the rebuild phase — the combination of Tkachuk with Tim Stützle and Claude Giroux. Those three had instant chemistry when they played as a line in the latter stages of the 2022-23 season. Stützle ended the campaign with 90 points, while Giroux produced at nearly a point-per-game clip.

It feels like Ottawa’s top six will include some combination of Stützle and Norris centring a quartet of wingers including Tkachuk, Giroux, Batherson and Perron. When I put out the suggestion for line combinations from Ottawa fans earlier this week, many of you had projections that placed Norris on the wing. But the 25-year-old has been exclusively a centre during his career and until we get a definitive word from Green or Norris that he’s going to make the switch to the wing, it’s probably wise to keep him locked into his current role.

At this point, it would seem that Shane Pinto is destined to start the season as Ottawa’s No. 3 centre. And he could have a couple of flexible wingers in Ridly Greig and Michael Amadio — both of whom have the ability to play centre if needed. Amadio’s $2.6 million contract for each of the next three seasons seems to lock him into a third line role as a minimum , but his flexibility could allow him to jump all over the lineup in any of the three forward positions. Both Greig and Amadio should be viewed as highly moveable pieces within this lineup, with a chance to play any role that is required.

The fourth line right now has a couple of question marks. Noah Gregor has speed and penalty-killing abilities and will likely be deployed primarily as a winger. Beyond that, everything seems to be open for debate. The departure of Mark Kastelic leaves a pretty wide hole in the fourth line role for the Senators. The club could opt to put Greig in that spot, but it seems like he’s a better fit as a top nine winger as this group is currently constructed. Amadio could also slide in there, but his cap hit indicates a bigger role than fourth line centre.

Zack Ostapchuk earned a brief call-up to Ottawa last season, but having just turned 21, it might be a tad premature to pencil him into the starting lineup. Stephen Halliday is slightly older than Ostapchuk and certainly has a chance to carve out some NHL playing time this season too.

The team is on the hook for two more seasons of Zack MacEwen, but his cap hit only comes in at $775,000.

Potential additions:  Perhaps the Senators will go down the path they did with Derick Brassard a couple of years ago, by inviting a veteran centre to attend camp on a PTO to see if there is a fit. The Zubcast gang floated the idea of Sam Gagner as an option down the middle. Many fans have suggested former Florida centre Nick Cousins as a good fit. There is clearly a need for help at the fourth-line centre position and perhaps that will be the approach Staios takes this fall. There are no guarantees with this route either, as Josh Bailey came to camp on a PTO last season but did not earn a contract.

Meanwhile, there might be a fight for one of the winger positions too if Staios wants to look at the free agent market. There are a handful of veterans like Cal Clutterbuck or even Kyle Okposo who could come in and fill a role on the fourth line. If the Senators wanted a little more offensive pop in the bottom six, a player like Daniel Sprong, who scored 18 goals with Detroit last season, could probably slide into an open wing spot.

Other prospects such as Angus Crookshank — who looked good in a 13-game trial last season — should also push for a spot on the opening night roster.  Offseason additions such as Adam Gaudette and Jan Jenik could also factor into the fourth-line equation as well.

Salary cap hit for these seven defencemen: $27.522 million

Much like the forward group, the Senators blue line appears to be solidified at the top — with question marks remaining at the bottom.

Nick Jensen is going to come in and assume a top four spot, filling the club’s need for a right-shot, veteran defenceman. Jensen will turn 34 during training camp and will likely be paired with either one of Jake Sanderson or Thomas Chabot. Artem Zub will occupy the other spot on the right side of Ottawa’s top four. The Senators have been trying to snap puzzle pieces like Jakob Chychrun and Erik Brannstrom into place over the past couple of seasons, but the club was too loaded on the left side. Now with both of them out of the picture, it frees things up a little bit.

The down side of losing those players — and Brannstrom in particular — is that the third pairing might be significantly less experienced to start this season. Tyler Kleven has probably earned himself an inside track to start on the third pairing on opening night, but he only has 17 games of NHL experience. The right-hand partner on the third pair is down to either Jacob Bernard-Docker or Travis Hamonic at this point.

Potential additions: Like the fourth line, perhaps this is where Staios can tinker in the months ahead.

In terms of internal options, Max Guenette and Nikolas Mantinpalo could both warrant a look in training camp on the right side, while Filip Roos — who has 21 career games with Chicago — might be an option on the left side to push Kleven.

The free agent pool of defencemen is incredibly thin in the middle of July. Adam Boqvist was the eighth overall pick in 2018, but was cut loose by Columbus this summer. He’s almost the right handed version of Erik Brannstrom; a talented, smaller defenceman who never quite popped offensively. Boqvist is only 23 years old and might be someone worth gambling on for a one-season deal. But if the Senators felt Brannstrom was too small to play third-pairing minutes, they would likely have a similar opinion in Boqvist.

John Klingberg, Justin Schultz, Tony DeAngelo, Kevin Shattenkirk and Tyson Barrie are also free agents who are right-shot defencemen, but each carries some degree of risk.

Salary cap hit for these two goaltenders: $7.75 million

If you thought the Senators had a rotating cast of characters like DeBrincat and Tarasenko moving in and out of top-six roles, they have nothing on Ottawa’s carousel of netminders. Since the departure of Craig Anderson following the 2019-20 season, the Senators have tried veterans like Joonas Korpisalo, Cam Talbot and Matt Murray. They’ve flirted with younger goalies like Mads Sogaard, Filip Gustavsson, Joey Daccord and Marcus Hogberg. And nobody has been able to truly seize the No. 1 role for an extended period of time.

Fingers crossed, that should all change this season, when Linus Ullmark takes the net on opening night against the Florida Panthers on October 10. Ullmark is only one season removed from capturing the Vezina Trophy in 2022-23 and has been a key part of one of the best goalie tandems in the salary cap era alongside Jeremy Swayman. According to Money Puck, Ullmark has 57 goals saved above expected over the past two seasons — which is second only to Connor Hellebuyck in that window.  The Senators allowed 33.7 goals above expected last season, which was the worst mark in the entire league.

If he stays healthy, Ullmark should eclipse the 50-game barrier for the first time in his NHL career. The Senators will gradually start their full court press to keep Ullmark in Ottawa beyond this season, but for 2024-25, it seems like Ottawa should finally have its No. 1 goalie issue solved.

The Senators will need Anton Forsberg to return to the type of goaltending he provided on a very regular basis for this team in his first two seasons in Ottawa.

First two seasons in Ottawa: 54 games, 25-21-5, .916 save percentage and 2.88 GAA

Last two seasons in Ottawa: 58 games, 26-23-2, .896 save percentage and 3.24 GAA

In reality, the 2023-24 season was the first time Forsberg really struggled in the net for Ottawa with a sub-.900 save percentage. He was coming off that freak double-knee injury from February of 2023 and never quite looked set and confident last season. If he can return to his old form and give Ottawa in the ballpark of 25 games — with a save percentage north of .905 — it should bode very well for Ottawa’s postseason chances.

Potential additions: Hopefully the Senators don’t have a repeat of the 2022-23 season, when they required seven different goaltenders to suit up for them. Remember Dylan Ferguson and Magnus Hellberg?

Currently, Mads Sogaard is the third goaltender on the depth chart, but he does require a new contract this summer as a restricted free agent. Kevin Mandolese — who has three games of NHL experience — is in the same boat as Sogaard and needs a new deal this summer. Leevi Merilainen, the 21-year-old goaltending prospect, is slated for a full season in Belleville.

If Staios wanted to add some veteran goalie depth to the system, the pickings are rather slim at this point. Martin Jones and Antti Raanta are the two most recognizable veteran netminders without a contract right now. But given Ottawa’s tight salary cap situation, it seems like a three-goalie system — which teams like Toronto and Detroit might employ — is not something that could be feasible for the Senators.

Salary cap situation

The good news for the Senators is they are no longer carrying as much dead weight against the salary cap. Last season, they paid just over $5 million to the likes of Bobby Ryan, Colin White, Michael Del Zotto and Matt Murray. This season, they actually receive a salary cap credit of $625,000 for White’s contract — but that is erased by the $1 million they owe to Joonas Korpisalo.

But even when you add up the cost of the lineup as constructed above — with 12 forwards, seven defencemen and two goalies — the Senators are at $84.66 million. That only leaves them with roughly $3.4 million if they still want to go bargain shopping in the free agent market. If they want to carry 13 forwards, adding a player like Crookshank, Gaudette or Jenik would eat away $775,000 of that remaining cap space.

Staios should have a tad more breathing room than his predecessor Pierre Dorion had at the start of training camp, but the Senators are probably pretty close to their spending limit with the roster as currently constructed.

(Photo of Linus Ullmark: Winslow Townson / USA Today)