Danny McCloskey
Bad news in the world of the Ottawa Senators: star defenseman Jake Sanderson will be out week to week with an upper body injury. The injury occurred part way through Saturday’s 7-4 win over the Seattle Kraken. With 20 games to go, this is an obvious blow to the Senators playoff hopes. Where do they go from here? Let’s dive into the details.
READ MORE: Analyzing the Senators Trade Deadline
Sanderson’s Importance to the Senators
Where do we even begin? Sanderson is Mr. Everything for the Senators. Here are the basic numbers to start:
- 62 games, 11 goals, 48 points, 24:49 TOI/game
Of course, he leads Sens defensemen in all of the above categories. Let’s dive a little deeper.
- Sanderson’s played 204:37 on the power play. The next most by a Sens d-man is Chabot at 100:39.
- Sanderson’s played 182:29 on the penalty kill. The next most is Zub, at 176:10. After that, it’s Kleven at 75:11.
- Sanderson’s played 25:29 in overtime. Next most on defense is Chabot, at 9:18.
Last season, Sanderson became the fifth defenseman in Senators history to score 50+ points. He had a great chance to become just the third Sens d-man to score 60+ points before this injury got in the way.
What about league-wide? Here are his rankings among all NHL d-men:
- T-12th in goals, 10th in assists, 10th in points, 7th in TOI/game
Sanderson is not only asked to be the team’s number one puck moving, offensive defenseman, he’s also asked to be on the shutdown pair with Zub. Saying he’s been asked isn’t quite the right wording, either. He’s been highly successful in both of these demanding roles.
The Plan Without Sanderson
To try to stay positive, the Senators have Thomas Chabot to jump up into the number one role, something he’s familiar with having been the team’s top d-man for several years before Sanderson arrived. He’ll take over on the top power play, and likely see an increase in ice-time of two or three extra minutes per night.
After that, it’ll be Kleven jumping into the second pairing spot on the left side. That is something that Kleven struggled with when Chabot was out earlier in the season. My suggestion would be to keep him with Spence, as there is comfortabilty there.
Nikolas Matinpalo is likely to draw back into the lineup on the bottom pair. Either him, Spence, or Jensen will have to play their off side. Last season, Matinpalo became a regular in the last quarter of the year when Travis Green opted to mainly keep him in the lineup over Travis Hamonic. He fared quite well. This will be his chance to prove his worth.
As a whole, I’d describe the Senators defensive group with Sanderson as high quality. Without him, they drop down to average, maybe even below average. It’ll be up to Chabot and Kleven to elevate their games without Sanderson.
Final Thoughts
It’s not yet known when exactly Sanderson will be back in the lineup. For now, though, the Senators will have to try to use this loss as motivation. There have been times in this team’s history where key losses have seemingly fueled this team to outperform expectations. In the shortened 2012-13 season, Jason Spezza and Erik Karlsson both went down early with injuries, but the team rallied around their peskiness to find a way into the playoffs. In 2015, the Senators had the incredible Hamburglar run. With Craig Anderson and Robin Lehner hurt, Andrew Hammond went 20-1-2 as the Sens fought their way into the playoffs. In 2016-17, with Craig Anderson away from the team for personal reasons, the Senators stayed on course thanks in large part to buying into Guy Boucher’s defensive system. Mike Condon had to start a franchise record 27 consecutive games in net.
What about this current team? Well, look no further than the 20 games earlier this season without captain Brady Tkachuk. The Senators went 11-5-4, tied for the seventh best point percentage in the NHL during that stretch. If they could replicate that record in the next 20 games, they would finish with 97 points. That’s the exact total they finished with last season. The question this season is whether 97 points would be enough.
