The Ottawa Senators’ 2025-26 season is fast approaching, and expectations of the team among the Bytown faithful are soaring. And why not? After all, didn’t the Senators make the playoffs last season for the first time in seven long years? Didn’t they roar back from losses in the first three games of their first round playoff series against the godless Toronto Maple Leafs before bowing out in a hard-fought Game 6? In the last 20 games of last season’s campaign, the Senators were arguably the hottest team in the NHL, putting up a .750 points percentage (PTS%).
Even so, does all of this justify Bytown’s lofty expectations of its team? Here’s a preview of the Senators’ 2025-26 season, complete with some way-too-early predictions, hot takes and burning questions.
Senators’ Offseason Gives Reasons to Believe
Despite fans clamouring for the Senators to sign top talent the likes of the Vancouver Canucks’ Brock Boeser and the Boston Bruins’ Tanner Jeannot, the Senators’ president of hockey operations and general manager (GM) Steve Staios resisted the pressure. I reckon he understands that acquisitions like these are made when a team has a legitimate shot at the Cup. Staios rightly judged that his team’s time has not yet come.
Instead, Staios opted to continue building veteran experience around his young core featuring Brady Tkachuk and Tim Stutzle. Big-name talent isn’t what he thinks is needed at this point in his team’s development. As he put it at a presser following his moves at the opening of free agency on July 1, “We’re mindful of this group and their growth and their development, and I think I can’t emphasize that enough. The manager is there to support it and to make sure that you can add to where you need to add. The emphasis is on this group. I don’t think that they need so much as the support around them to continue to grow and develop together.”
With building support around his young guns in mind, Staios nailed down a one-year contract extension with alternate captain Claude Giroux at less than a third of what he was making last season. Also returning to the roster under a one-year deal is veteran Nick Cousins, who, along with Michael Amadio and David Perron, adds Stanley Cup championship pedigree to the lineup.
Claude Giroux, Ottawa Senators (Amy Irvin / The Hockey Writers)
If this wasn’t enough veteran experience to nail down this summer, Staios signed Lars Eller to a one-year deal. The 6-foot-2, 198-pound centreman isn’t the flashy high-end talent many fans hoped for, but he has 1,116 games over 16 seasons under his belt and won a Stanley Cup with the Washington Capitals in 2018.
Staios didn’t forget his blue line and brought Jordan Spence to town in exchange for just a few draft picks. For the first time in years, the Senators will have three solid defence pairings backed up by a reliable extra in Nikolas Mantinpalo.
The Senators are now a better team than the one that started last season. That much can’t be argued. Even so, the burning question is, who are the real Senators? Is it the team fans saw in the final 20 games of last season? Is it the character team they saw in the playoffs? Or is it the team fans endured from 2017-2024? Most during that time were squads afflicted with poor season starts and baffling losing streaks, condemning them to an early start on the golf links.
Expectations in 2025-26 for Senators’ Forward Lines
It’s been a long time since the Senators could roll four solid lines. With the likes of Josh Norris, Noah Gregor, Adam Gaudette, Zach Ostapchuk and Angus Crookshank gone and with the addition of Eller, Fabian Zetterlund and Dylan Cozens, it looks like they can now.
Still, questions remain. The biggest is whether the Senators can solve their scoring problem. Last season, they ranked 19th in the league in total goals scored. What’s more, nobody on their roster cracked the league’s list of top 20 goal-scorers. Part of the reason for that is their offensive stars haven’t lived up to the hype that surrounds them.
Take Stutzle, for example. In 2022-23, he marked up the scoresheet for 90 points. Last season, he racked up 79 of them – good enough for only 34th in the NHL overall. All eyes will be on the young German star to see if he can notch 100 points. That’s tough to do – only six players did it last season. Yet if he could hit that target, he would prove he’s the superstar that many claim he is.
Related: Senators 2025-26 Player Preview: Tim Stutzle
As for Tkachuk, he notched just 29 goals and 55 points in 2024-25. That was only good enough for a ranking of 50th in the league. What’s more, it represents his third consecutive season of declining points production per game. It’s a long way from the career best 83 points he recorded in 2022-23. And it’s not good enough.
Still, it can’t all be up to Stutzle and Tkachuk to jack up the Senators’ scoreboard. They’ll need help, and a big question is whether trade deadline addition Fabian Zetterlund can return to his form with the San Jose Sharks when he put up 24 goals and 20 assists in 2023-24. Last season with the Sharks, he was on track to put up even better numbers. Then the Senators happened to him. In his 20 games skating in a Senators sweater, he managed just three goals and two assists. He went pointless in the playoffs.
Fabian Zetterlund, Ottawa Senators (Amy Irvin / The Hockey Writers)
Zetterlund will be a breakout star if he can return to what he was in San Jose. If he can’t, then all eyes will be on Cozens to show he is that star. That would mean equaling his career high of 68 points with the Sabres in 2022-23. He’s never come close to that mark since.
Another forward under the microscope will be Shane Pinto. He becomes a restricted free agent (RFA) at the end of this season. If he wants to stay in Ottawa with a spiffy new contract that pays him more than his current $3.75 million paycheck, he’ll need to notch more than the 37 points he managed last season.
This summer, Staios took steps to bolster his lineup in Belleville with the addition of forwards Olle Lycksell and Arthur Kaliyev, along with a one-year contract extension for Jan Jenik. It’s doubtful any of them will make the big club out of training camp. Even so, they’ll be trying to turn Staios’ head, hoping they’ll be the first call he makes when the inevitable injuries take their toll on his roster. At the same time, Stephan Halliday, the leading scorer in Belleville last season, along with Zack MacEwan and Hayden Hodgson, will be fighting hard to show that it should be them to get the first call-up.
All of this is to say that as a result of the moves Staios made this summer, the Senators have offensive depth in Belleville that they’ve been missing for a long time. While injuries are always difficult to manage, the task will be much easier with what Staios has to draw upon among the baby Senators.
What to Expect From the Senators’ Defence in 2025-26
Gone are Jacob Bernard-Docker and Travis Hamonic, and in is the Australian-born Spence, playing with who many expect will be Tyler Kleven on the third pairing. Jacob Billington, my Hockey Writers colleague (THW), argued on a recent podcast (THW Ottawa Senators 2025-26 Season Preview, see 12:20) that there is a strong case for putting Spence with Jake Sanderson. With their strong puck possession skills, the two would be one of the league’s top pairings, according to Billington. That could well be a much-talked-about storyline as the season progresses.
Still, I think the bigger question will be whether Spence can be more of an offensive threat with what should be more ice time in the nation’s capital than what he got in Los Angeles. Last season in Tinsel Town, he averaged just 16:47 per game yet still marked up the scoresheet for over 20 points. In fact, he did that in 2023-24 with even less skating time. To put those 20 points in perspective, Nick Jensen put up 21 of them last season, albeit in an injury-shortened season of just 71 games.
Jensen’s health figures to be another storyline as the new season approaches, namely, whether rookie blueliner Carter Yakemchuk makes the team out of training camp. Some say that he demonstrated he should be in the lineup after last year’s camp, though Staios opted to send him back to the Calgary Hitmen of the Western Hockey League (WHL) for more seasoning. He had a disappointing 2024-25 season with the Hitmen, registering a disappointing 49 points – a far cry from the 71 he put up the season before. Yet assuming he could answer this shortcoming in camp, a spot on the roster is possible for him.
Staios acknowledged as much as a guest on the Aug. 26 episode of Coming in Hot (see 22:50) when he was asked whether Yakemchuk was headed to Belleville. Replied Staios, “I wouldn’t go so far that quickly on that. 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.”
There are other blue line storylines to watch this season in Ottawa. Among them is whether this season’s D-corps can improve the team’s penalty kill, ranked 19th in the league in 2024-25.
The Burning Question in Senators’ Goal in 2025-26
Let’s cut to the chase. Leevi Merilainen will be Linus Ullmark’s number two this season. So, is he the real deal? Is he truly an NHL twine minder?
A lot of fans in Ottawa say he is. They point to his .925 save percentage (SV%) and his 1.99 goals-against average (GAA) last season. But be serious – that was over just 12 games, and 12 games do not an NHL track record make! What’s more, this season he’ll probably be called on to play over 30 games. Ullmark has never played more than 49 in any season. What will Merilainen put up over 30 games or more? A SV% of .925 and a GAA of 1.99 is the stuff of Vezina Trophy winners.
Leevi Merilainen, Ottawa Senators (Photo by Richard A. Whittaker/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Even so, Billington pointed out in the THW podcast (see 12:20) that Merilainen’s performance in those 12 games covering Ullmark’s absence due to injury from late Dec. to early Feb. last season was key to Ottawa making the postseason. In those 12 games, he had ice in his veins, registering eight wins, including three shutouts. For Billington, the young Finn has shown beyond a doubt that he’s ready for the NHL.
How Will the Senators Stack up in the Eastern Conference?
The Atlantic Division remains arguably the most competitive in the NHL. Two recent Stanley Cup winners dominate it, and young teams like the Detroit Red Wings and Montreal Canadiens are emerging as future contenders. A playoff spot for the Senators isn’t assured. They certainly can’t afford another of their notorious poor starts or a November letdown.
Not only that, but the Panthers and Tampa Bay Lightning aren’t any weaker than they were last season. With the departure of Mitch Marner, the death of the Maple Leafs has been greatly exaggerated. The Buds would still be judged a strong team anywhere in the league.
So, I’m predicting a second consecutive playoff appearance for the Senators via a wild card spot. How far they go is too early to predict, but I’ll go out on a limb and say they’ll make it to the Eastern Conference Final. After all, they were just a deflection away from taking the Maple Leafs to seven games in their first-round matchup last season.
The Bottom Line on the Senators’ 2025-26 Season
The Senators are deeper, more balanced, and now playoff-proven — but can they take the next step toward bringing the Stanley Cup to Ottawa? Fans start getting the answer to that question on Oct. 9 when the Senators play their season opener in Tampa.
