One of the biggest questions heading into the 2023-24 season is whether the Ottawa Senators will make the playoffs. It’s a debate that fans are all too familiar with, but there’s some real optimism around the team this season. NHL Network’s Mike Kelly definitively stated that the team is going to do it, ending the franchise’s six-year playoff drought, and TSN’s Craig Button agrees.
This isn’t just blind optimism, either. Last season, the Senators finished just six points out of a playoff spot despite putting up one of the worst Novembers in the league, which forced them to claw their way back into contention, and they nearly did it. Tim Stutzle emerged as an All-Star calibre center, Brady Tkachuk proved he was the team’s best all-around player, and Jake Sanderson was easily one of the most promising rookie defencemen in the NHL.
But when Josh Norris, the team’s second-line center and former 30-goal scorer, went down with a shoulder injury in October that caused him to miss 74 games, the Senators were left scrambling. Along with significant injuries to Artem Zub and Anton Forsberg, among others, the team was rarely fully healthy, and the lack of depth made replacing those players virtually impossible. It’s clear the Senators have the skill, but with the Detroit Red Wings and Buffalo Sabres breathing down the back of their neck, Ottawa will have to be at their best in order to claim a playoff spot in 2023-24, which means staying as healthy as possible.
Injuries Cost Ottawa a Playoff Spot
After Norris went down with his shoulder injury, the Senators proceeded to go on a seven-game losing streak and record just four wins in the entire month of November, all but crushing their playoff hopes two months into the season. It made his injury seem all that more impactful, but he was far from the only key player to miss significant time. Forsberg missed 31 games after tearing both his MCLs in February, while his partner Cam Talbot also missed a total of 31 games with various lower-body injuries. Their absences forced Ottawa to rely on seven goalies throughout the season, which made a weak crease all that more porous.
The team’s defence was hit especially hard with injuries. Zub missed 29 games throughout the season, including 12 from a fractured jaw, and Jakob Chychrun, who was brought in to take over some of Thomas Chabot’s ice time, missed 10 games at the end of the season, which resulted in Chabot sitting out for 14 total games. Rookie Jacob Bernard-Docker, who was one of the team’s best defensive defenders, missed 17 games with an ankle injury, and veteran Travis Hamonic missed seven.
In total, the Senators lost 335 games due to injury across the season, which works out to just under $16 million of lost money, according to the Cap Hit of Injured Players (CHIP) score. Only the Colorado Avalanche and Vegas Golden Knights had a higher CHIP score and still made the playoffs. Further analysis shows that the Senators lost 5.75 wins above replacement (WAR), meaning that, if everyone was healthy, they should have finished with at least 10 more points. That easily would have put them into the playoffs. They also had an expected goals-for percentage (xGF%) of 51.25, putting them in the top half of the league, but without their key scorers, they only managed to earn an average of 1.05 points per game, putting them at a disadvantage they were unable to overcome.
Senators Lack Depth
So what separates a team like the Senators from the Avalanche and Golden Knights? In a word – depth. Injuries are unavoidable in hockey, but when Ottawa lost some of their key players, they quickly found that their depth was unable to handle the increased workload, which led to more injuries. The easiest way to measure this is through goals. Ottawa’s top six in 2022-23 put up 178 goals, while its bottom six scored just 49 goals. Derrick Brassard scored over a quarter of those goals, putting up 13, and was the only depth player to register more than 10 goals. In total, although six players crossed the 20-goal threshold, only eight players hit the 10-goal mark, seven of which were forwards.
The Avalanche, on the other hand, had 11 players, nine of them forwards, hit 10 goals, while the Golden Knights had 12 10-goal scorers with only one defenceman in that group. Even the Sabres surpassed the Senators with 11 players and 10 forwards hitting at least 10 goals. In each of these three teams, each line was capable of putting the puck in the net, so when a key player went down with an injury, the roster could bounce back relatively well.
Related: Senators Face Tough Battle for 2024 Playoff Spot
This issue won’t get any better in 2023-24 either, as Brassard, Dylan Gambrell, Austin Watson, Julian Gauthier, and Patrick Brown have all been moved or signed elsewhere. That’s a total of 31 goals that have been removed from last season’s roster. The arrival of Dominik Kubalik and Vladimir Tarasenko will help ease some of that pressure, and Mark Kastelic should continue to develop into a valuable depth center. But that’s also assuming Shane Pinto will be re-signed before the start of the season, but there’s been little movement from either side, making a complicated situation even stickier.
Projecting the 2023-24 Season
Using ESPN’s 2024 Fantasy Projections, we can get an idea of where the Senators are expected to finish if they have a fully healthy season. Both Stutzle and Tkachuk are expected to take another step forward and add another five goals to their totals from last season. Giroux and Tarasenko are unlikely to repeat career highs at this point in their career but should still combine for around 50-55 goals. Norris should also flirt with 30 goals again and Chychrun could hit 16 goals if he hits a career-high in games played. It’s unrealistic to expect Kubalik to repeat his 20 goals from 2022-23, but if he’s alongside Pinto, he should at least get close to that, although the latter will take a dip due to a decreased role.
The biggest questions will come from the Senators’ rookie Ridly Greig, who will almost certainly find himself on the third line heading into the 2023-24 season. Using his American Hockey League (AHL) stats from last season, fans could expect him to hit a similar total to Pinto’s first season of around 30-35 points, although, for this exercise, I’ve gone with a slightly conservative 10 goals.
Assuming that the rest stay relatively the same, that leaves the Senators forwards with a total of 236 goals, an increase of 16 goals over last season. Added to last season’s goal total, it gives Ottawa an expected 278 goals, which is not unreasonable considering the goalie tandem has complete confidence in each other and the team has a much more stable defence. In 2022-23, the only team that missed the playoffs with more than 278 goals was the Sabres.
When it comes down to it, the Senators will have to overcome the Sabres, which will be no easy task. Buffalo finished 2022-23 with 296 goals, the third-highest total in the NHL, but was undone by weaker goaltending. But just like Ottawa, the Sabres will be relying on a young core that’s getting better each season. There’s no question that the Senators have a good team, but with competition so tight in the Eastern Conference, it is of the utmost importance that the team’s key players stay off the injured reserve if they want to make the playoffs.
